Charles Sykes makes his case that today’s College Experience is too expensive and, for many students, a waste of time. He shows how many students end up with huge College debts after four short years of sometimes dubious education. I’ve spoken about this subject several times. My College is an “Open Admissions” school which means there is no filter: anyone with a pulse and a tuition check (or loan money) is accepted. Many of these students end up taking the Algebra, Biology, and English classes they should have taken in High School. Fail U exposes the myth that a College Education leads to high paying jobs and a successful career. Too often, students graduate to find their degree doesn’t lead to a job at all. But before too long, those same students need to start paying back their student loans. Fail U explores the flaws in our College system and warns future students and parents of potential downfalls in their Higher Education plans. GRADE: B+
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Acknowledgments
PART I: I TOLD YOU SO
Introduction: Scenes from a Graduation
1. Bursting the College Bubble
2. Deja Vu: ProfScam Twenty-Eight Years Later
PART II: THE COLLEGE BUBBLE
3. The (Escalating) Flight from Teaching
4. The Reality of Academic Research
5. What Do Students Learn (and Does Anybody Care?)
6. The College for All Delusion
PART III: BLOAT
7. Our Bloated Colleges
8. Academia’s Edifice Bloat
PART IV: JUNK SCHOLARSHIP, HOAXES, AND SCANDALS
9. Does the Emperor Have Any Clothes?
10. A Scandal Reconsidered
PART V: VICTIM U (TRIGGER WARNING)
11. Grievance U
12. Rape U
PART VI: IS THIS TIME DIFFERENT?
13. Time for a Bailout?
14. Netflix U
15. Smaller, Fewer, Less
Notes
Index
How did we get to this point in the first place? I graduated from college (a state school) in 1980. I paid my way, had a job, and received what was then termed a Basic Educational Grant (I guess the acronym BEG seemed a little too on-the-nose; I think that morphed into today’s Pell Grant). I didn’t have much saved when I graduated, but at least I didn’t have massive debts. Even with scholarships, jobs, and some help from Mom and Dad, all three of my girls have or will have at least $20,000 in college debt when they graduate. But unless they won’t to be consigned to a future of minimum-wage/low-pay jobs, I really don’t know what the answer is.
I have a cunning plan: Win the lottery!
Deb, one of the culprits is the power of Marketing. Colleges are businesses and they’ve convinced just about everyone their lives will be vastly improved with an expensive education. College costs, which as you point out used to be affordable, relentlessly increase. Bloated administration (we have one Administrator per five professors at my College) costs students while giving them little in return. It’s a sad situation.
My son had law school debts to pay back. So too his wife. Megan cagily went to grad school where it is much easier to get support. Phil had a lot of debt because no one told him he shouldn’t go to a private college (AU). Luckily because he became a teacher, he only needed to pay back half but that took us ten years. My parents didn’t know any better and allowed me to enroll in a private college where I used up the money saved in one year. I think too many students go into it uninformed with parents also uninformed. Counseling is very poor in most high schools now.
Patti, the Recruiting operations by Colleges and Universities now concentrate on how much FUN going to College will be. The problems of rising tuition costs, graduation rates, and job placement are glossed over.
We both went to CUNY (Hunter College) when it cost us $54 A TERM! Jackie’s mother was a teacher and her union reimbursed her for the cost of Jackie’s textbooks! I did have a Regents Scholarship and could have gone to a NY State university for a lot cheaper than it is these days. Private colleges are ridiculously expensive these days, but then so many of them have to pay for huge football stadiums.
But we could see the writing on the wall in that those were the days where “open enrollment” started, and I had many kids in my classes who clearly were NOT college material. At least it didn’t get them into debt.
Jeff, some students would be better off learning to be a plumber or electrician or a carpenter than struggling in College. Those careers sometimes pay more than someone with a B.A. degree!
Well for us mathematicians it was simple. Many students started having been good in maths at school but in the first lecture on basics in logic or analysis they realised that higher maths is something totally different – most gave up after the first semester.
I remember maybe 200 students or more at first – after a few weeks we were down to fifty and in later lectures we were maybe a dozen so you could get a kind of relation with your prof quickly.
And from what I hear these things haven’t changed too much.
Wolf, we lose about 50% of our students in ACCOUNTING, also. That’s about the U.S. national average.
What I don’t understand is the fly by night schools calling themselves universities. Phoenix is getting a lot of heat. I’ve heard some have shut down, and attendees who use the gi bill are hurting. I don’t see as many ads on tv (as I skim thru) as before.
Trump University should have taught people a lesson.
We get a lot of ads on TV for Phoenix and other online “universities” (so called).
Maggie, online Universities are very popular…and expensive. Many of the “for-profit” schools prey on veterans with VA Educational Benefits. They make a lot of promises, but don’t deliver.
I went to a community college for 2 years (very cheap), then University for 2 (in the Sixties, not too expensive and I was able to keep p with summer jobs and some help from parents), and grad school (scholarship paid most). So I never had any debt, just expenses for books and tuition and materials as I went along. As for it’s worth, the value of college depends on what you put into it. The fun-loving party people get little, the ones that study hard get much, especially if they have a reasonable career goal.
Rick, you’re right about the value of a College education being determined by the amount of work you put into it. I’ve had students drop my class after a week telling me “it’s too much work.”
George, that’s a real shame!
I remember very well the hard work that my friends and I put into our studies – but it was rewarded!
And my granddaughter right now had a similar experience in the end it was worth it. She studied to be a teacher (basic school) and in Germany you are practically guaranteed a job if you finish your studies and get enough points in your exams. So you know it will be worth your while …
Wolf, I loved College. In fact, I never left! I just moved to the other side of the lectern. Hard work is its own reward.
What I find really sad is the seemingly very different level of schooling in the US universities! I have looked at the lists of “Best universities worldwide” and of course the famous private US and British institutions are at the top but also our state financed German universities. Our Schwab universities (Heidelberg, Freiburg and last not least Tübingen that I went to) are among the top 100 or at least 200 in the different lists.
And you don’t pay much for your studies – just your own expenses for living, housing and eating essentially …
This hasn’t cjanged much in the 50 years since I went to university!
To hear that US students have to go deep into debt makes me angry in a way – capitalism at its worst or what?
I know that if you’re really excellent you’ll get financed but society also needs a lot of “normal” academics – not just a few top ones!
Wolf, the “best” U.S. universities like Harvard and Stanford still turn our excellent students. But there is a pervasive myth that everyone needs a college degree to succeed. And greedy colleges take students unprepared and ill-equipped to do college-level work.
I went to a 2 year Community College first than went on to Oakland University. I was taking 18 credits a semester at Oakland for around $500. Since I was employed at Pontiac Motors they repaid me all my tuition as long as I maintained a C average. I now have a granddaughter going there and it costs about 15 times as much per semester as it did than. I have a niece who has over $100,000 in student loans and can’t find work in her profession. She works now at a Starbucks.
Steve, your situation is all too common to me and my students. Several work three jobs just to pay for textbooks, lab fees, and tuition. I had one student last semester who slept in her car! Yet the prospects for many of these students is not bright given the changes in the Economy. It was a sad dad when GM did away with their Pontiac division!
I could have saved you the price of that book! I knew all of this years ago!
Interesting post and comments, George.
I have never heard of long-term college/university debt in India. Parents do take loans to educate their children and even send them abroad, mostly to the US and England, for higher studies, but I don’t know of anyone who has been in debt for long. I think the reason is that Indians are obsessed with saving money from the time they get married and have kids. Besides, we’re still a cash economy. I spent around Rs.100,000, or $1,530, for my daughter’s entire CA course (equivalent to your CPA, I think). Business Administration would probably cost three or four times that amount, which is still affordable.
George, I should add here that my daughter did her CA in addition to her graduation in Commerce from a private college affiliated to University of Mumbai, which cost a pittance, around $500 for the entire five-year term.
When I went to community college in California circa 1973 the tuition was $3.50! Books and lab fees extra!