Customer Reviews

Declining by Degrees: Higher Education at Risk

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

This appears to be another book by educators to educators; a lot of preaching to the choir. It is long on analysis and commentary, but short on real solutions. Few would argue against the value of a liberal arts education, but who can afford upwards of $100,000 and four years' lost wages for a degree that does not provide a clear path toward a career? How will you attract the best and brightest to a campus bungalow, a stipend and a key to the faculty lounge? Most will agree that the ranking and selection process is broken, but what can college and university presidents do to fix it? We feel the stranglehold that college sports have on campuses, but it simply mirrors the revered place sports hold in the larger society.

For anyone familiar with higher education, there is much to agree with in this book, but little new information. All in all it is well written and a good read, especially the latter chapters.

Having seen parts of the PBS presentation by the same name, I read Declining by Degrees with a clear idea of its content. This indictment of academia definitely resonated with me because I have been teaching college since the late 70's. The criticisms of current academic practice in this text were credible, clear and well written. I hope Declining by Degrees will be a wake up call for post-secondary education. Time will tell.

This book raises a number of issues, but one is paramount: we know all about `admissions', particularly with regard to highly selective institutions; we also know about graduation rates (chilling, in some cases). What we don't know about is what happens in between. Are students learning more now than a generation ago? Less? Decidedly less?

These questions are hard to answer with any rigor because we do not have common exit exams and common curricula. The answers are usually couched in very general terms, e.g., "All is fine. Our students have a high graduation rate; they tell our alumni pollsters that they had a good experience and they have jobs that pay well."

The authors approach this key (and other) issue(s) from differing perspectives. The contributors include journalists, administrators, faculty, association and foundation executives and even the redoubtable Tom Wolfe, who provides a foreword.

As with all such books, the collection is uneven. Some of the pieces are exceptional (Frank Deford's, Julie Johnson Kidd's, Vartan Gregorian's, e.g.); some are predictable and add comparatively little to the discussion (Murray Sperber's, Heather D. Wathington's, e.g.) and one is excellent but already appeared elsewhere (David L. Kirp's). Some are wise and insightful; some are a bit provincial. In other words, this is like nearly every other edited collection.

On balance, however, the book is worthy of attention. There are many thoughtful essays and a number of interesting statistics and facts (along with some amusing factoids). There is also a kind of internal dialogue, with contributors markedly disagreeing with one another. Leon Botstein, e.g., is very brave (and cogent) with regard to the ultimate marginality of student service personnel (whose numbers have proliferated) and Julie Johnson Kidd argues, convincingly, that we're not doing students a favor by placing them in an ethos of endless service personnel, a situation that will not be replicated in the outside world that they are soon to enter. At the same time, there are calls (from Heather D. Wathington, e.g.) for more and more `support' services, with the onus for student success being put on the colleges and universities rather than on the students themselves. Hence, the book provides a sense of the general issues at stake along with some cogent reflections on it.

This book is full of so much significant information that it's overwhelming (in a good way) at times. Highly informative, and deeply insightful, it's packed with statistical data; longitudinal surveys; historical analysis; the advantages of private colleges versus state colleges and universities; the role of community colleges and career colleges; the increasing use of part-time faculty and adjunct professors; marketing tactics of competing universities; myths and facts about collegiate sports programs; commentary by educators and administrators; and potential solutions to many of the problems which plague our institutions of higher learning.

If you are considering a career as a college professor, this book offers a very accurate depiction of what your life and challenges will be, as well as your requirements for success. If you are a student, you will inevitably find educational anecdotes which resonate with you. Both educators and students will appreciate the enlightening information on the influential factors which are causing the financial costs of a college education to skyrocket.

While most who read this book (and the reviews on it) will be intrigued by the accompanying video, the book is far more comprehensive.

This book does a nice job of highlighting many of the problems present in higher education - e.g., too little focus on basic skills (I'm consistently amazed at how many college graduates have sub-par writing skills), treating teaching as secondary to research, and graduate students as cheap labor. I'd recommend this over many of the so-called college guides for high students and parents so they can learn the real questions to ask admissions staffs.

My one quibble would be that not enough attention was given to issues of economics and class - no real discussion on escalating tuitions costs, draconian financial aid systems, or how the real issue for many schools is less about race but rather about socioeconomic status. These are huge issues that are slowly rippling into the classroom - and something the public should be debating rather than infringing too much on syllabi and course requirements (at least at this point in time). That said, it's a good book that many outside the academic world should read.

This book was received in a respectable time period. The book alone has qualitative information and knowledge for professionals in higher education, and answers many questions that have been asked by higher education professional in regards to curriculum, educational organizations, university in the USA, for example, and many other topics.

Good read!

I loves it when the tweed coat crowd intones against market values driving education. Yes, nearly all students go to college for career reasons. Imagine if they didn't: the funding would dry up quicker than you can say "pompous professors are well paid hypocrites": the constituency that supports state funding would wither -if not run - away and tuition dollars would disappear too. Then, all those students who really believe that they care deeply about intellectual values would face the true cost of paying the salary and benefits of the professors living a lie based on the same pretense. Absent their subsidies, very few students would continue along the path of intellectual self-abuse (to use the Victorian term), which would mean cuts in the department, which would mean those tenured - not those whose love for the life of the mind is greatest - would cling to their positions with all the materialistically motivated might their greedy, arthritic claws can muster.

College professors like to tell us they don't care about money and they point to the fact that they're not millionaires to prove it. In doing so, they are positioning themselves in the virtuous middle class, among the Babbits they condemn with a vehemence and vitriol that can only be born of infantile resentment at being dependent. Their motives are infinitely more base than the materialistic undergrads upon whom they depend for their life of leisured - intellectually mediocre, at best - pretense.

Education is a lot of work, lifelong to boot, and how many are up to it? It's true of our culture - but would it be any different at another time? - that the acquisitive instinct competes directly with many of the goals and ideals of the academy. Luckily in my case, parents did not expect much from me in terms of academic performance or which school to attend; virtually all expectation was self-generated. My bias is to emphasize rigorous standards at the secondary level, especially in public schools, if we want to have a successful, informed, and free people. It's a decent read.

Excellent look at one of America's major problems for our future success on the world stage.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION: Several people in my family, including me, have college degrees. I received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 2005 from an average state university. In addition, I was awarded an associate's degree in 2002 from a school that everyone says is the easiest junior college. Also, my father received his bachelor's degree in political science from UCLA around the year 1966. UCLA did not have the level of prestige that it has today, but it was still a well respected university. Likewise, my mother completed her first year of college at UCLA and then transferred to Boston University to complete the rest of her bachelor's degree. She received her degree in sociology around the year 1968.

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This book claims that higher education in America has declined in standards and quality over the past 25 years. However, based on what my parents have told me, I seriously doubt it. After they described their experiences, I have learned that the quality of higher education today is just as good if not better than it was 40 years ago.

First, higher education critics complain that the college students today receive less work compared to forty years ago, but my father telling me about his college years has made me believe otherwise. Today one can usually get by without doing any of the assigned readings, because usually the exams are mainly based on the class lectures. However, this was also true when my father went to UCLA. Furthermore, I had about the same amount of reading that he had even at the junior college. We both had about 30 pages of reading per week in each course.

Not only have I not received any less work than my parents, they told me that throughout my college career, I actually received more work than they did. At the junior college alone, I was given more writing assignments than they were. While I attended this junior college, I had a term paper in almost every class (excluding math courses) even though my father had a total of only about 3 papers throughout his entire time as an undergraduate. This is despite everyone saying that this school is easier than all the other junior colleges. In addition, at the four year university, I was required to do a major research project at the end of my senior year (called the senior thesis). I was supposed to write a 20 - 30 page paper on my research for this project. My father never had to do any project like that.

In addition to describing their college education, my father has concluded based on his experience teaching law school for the past 30 years that today's college graduates are just as educated as they were yesterday. During that period, he taught only first year students, all of whom had bachelor's degrees, and he has not noticed any change in the quality of his students over the years. This is despite the fact that college is supposed to prepare one for law school by teaching one how to think. For example, an undergraduate education is supposed to develop ones own critical thinking skills, analytical skills, etc. These skills are needed to succeed in law school. Given this and that he taught only first year students, if undergraduate education has really declined, my father would have noticed it. He has not.

Overall, this book does not seem to match up to reality. I have learned by talking to my mother and father that the quality of higher education in America today is at least as good as it was yesterday. Therefore, I know that the entire premise of this book is false. Don't waste your money buying it.