The preceding entry in this blog argues that paying for college is better understood as “smart consumption” than as  “investment.”  Here’s one example of the pernicious effects of thinking of higher education as “investment”.

Talk about “investments”  soon turns to strategies for maximizing “ROI” -- return  on investment. Governor Rick Scott of Florida knows how to do that, he tells us.  A press release from his office dated February 11, 2013 is titled “Governor Scott Highlights Higher Education Investment,” and goes on to  explain what that entails:

“Every institution will have a standard way to measure the criteria and the funding will be allocated based on the institutions that do the best in achieving the three criteria.  The performance measures include: the percentage of graduates employed or continuing education; the average wage of employed graduates; and the average cost to produce a graduate.“

What’s the right word for this? It’s  “impoverishing,” isn’t it?

Capitalists of the world, unite; you have nothing to lose except your false rhetoric.

Is spending for higher education an “investment”?  Everybody says so now days. Politicians love to use the word for any spending they think is desirable.  Economists love it because it makes analysis easily quantifiable. College administrators love to justify tuition increases that way.  For parents and students it makes swallowing high debt loads more palatable.

Paying for a college education is not an investment; it’s a form of smaryt consumption. Here’s why.

Spending in ways that produce long term benefits is one thing. I go out and buy nuts and olive oil so I can enjoy the benefits of the Mediterranean diet.  That’s a smart  form of consumption, but it’s not “investing”  because the return is not in the same form as the expenditure.  I will never again  see  the money I give the cashier at the grocery store.  That’s OK. By making that expenditure I hope to live a healthier, more productive life.  True,  I may eventually save money on medical bills – or Medicare may. But the original expenditure is not recoverable in the monetary form it was made.

Investing, it seems to me, is just the opposite.  You don’t invest unless you think you can get your money back, not just interest or dividends but the capital itself. The key to sound investing, as Warren Buffett keeps reminding us,  is preservation of capital.  No smart  investors buys assets  where there is no  reasonable chance of recovering the original expenditure.  He or she may be focused on a good  return, but also expects eventually to be able to sell the stock or cash in the bond, or otherwise  recoup in monetary terms  the original investment.  recover the capital and put it to work again.  

Paying for college is not an investment. It’s a form of smart consumption, like  paying for  a smart diet.

So what?  Is this just a pedantic distinction? By no means. “Smart consumption” reminds us that the benefits we seek may not be in the same form as the expenditures we make. Smart consumers  spend money in the hope of some other good – taste bud pleasure, health, personal satisfaction, whatever.  But when we talk about a college education as “investment”, here’s an example of what we get:

… our governor [Pat McCrory of NC] has been working to ensure that every student who invests in higher education will attain employment as well as the skills necessary for his or her future career.

Mousa Alshanther, a first year student at Duke, writing in the Raleigh News and Observer February 26, 2013

Not a word about satisfaction, or kinds of richness that are not monetary. Of course not! “Investment”  has misled the poor  student, as it has so many others.  It implies recovery in the same form as the original expenditure—money, money, money.


Denis Feeney comments:
It's interesting how different the debates are in UK and US, even though the philistine rhetoric is so similar on the surface.  In the US people still talk about whether this or that education is a good investment for the individual, whereas in Britain the Sir Humphreys are all talking about which education is best for society as a whole.  I find the UK version much more sinister.

Jennifer Hunt, Tamar Lewin tells us in the New York Times of January 25th, got a bachelor's degree from Thomas Edison State  College without ever taking a course there.  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/education/25degree.html?ref=tamarlewin&_r=0

I wants to cheer for he.  It wasn't easy; she probably worked harder than many undergraduates in cushier circumstances; she probably appreciates her degree more than they do.

But is this the future? The devil lurks in the details -- What counted for credit? What learning?  How do we know?  And there's a less nitty-gritty question too -- What does a bachelor's degree add up to?  The dominant view has been  that it is the sum of leaps through a certain number of credit hours..  Don't multiply, add. If   32 courses or so add up to  100+ credit hours, you've got your degree.   

What emerged when Columbia University’s Community College Research Center studied  500,000 community and technical college students in on-line courses: “   While all types of students in the study suffered decrements in performance in online courses, some struggled more than others to adapt: males, younger students, Black students, and students with lower grade point averages “ Adaptability to Online Learning: Differences Across Types of Students and Academic Subject Areas By: Di Xu & Shanna Smith Jaggars http://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/publications/adaptability-to-online-learning.html

In case you missed the  editorial in the New York Times  with the title "The Trouble with On Line Courses," here's the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/opinion/the-trouble-with-online-college.html?_r=0  
See what you think.
 I like the caution it advocates but to me the editorial seems a big bushel basket into which the Times dumped all sorts of on-line instruction.  They're not all the same, as one  sentence reveals, "... students in hybrid classes -- those that blended online instruction with a face-to-face component -- performed as well academically as those in traditional classes." Have readers of this blog had  experience with such hybridization, and what can we all learn from that experience?

 Norman Sandridge comments:Thanks for sharing, Bob. Your point about hybrid courses is well taken. I'm sure you're already familiar with the work that Sunoikisis does at the CHS. Greg's edX Heroes course is going to become part of this curriculum, too, more hybrid than MOOC. What's more, my colleagues and I are putting together for next fall a hybrid Greek III course for teaching ancient leadership and the *Cyropaedia* through our online commentary (www.cyropaedia.org 
). Anyone who wants to participate is welcome to; the more the merrier. I believe that this form of hybridization will not only help strengthen the study of Classics at smaller programs but give these students an even better learning environment than what you normally get without using any online resources.

The Republican governor of North Carolina,  Pat McCrory, delivered his first State of the State speech last night.  What he didn’t say was probably more important than what he did say.  Without his  pied piper Bill Bennett to lead him down the well-worn road to the culture wars (see the posting below “Trashing Liberal Education in North Carolina ) McCrory stuck to his business-friendly  agenda, and steered clear of his plans to convert the University of North Carolina into  training camps for entry level jobs. 

When he sketched out that plan in his interview with Bennett on Fox, a firestorm broke out – newspaper editorials, letters, op ed pieces and a petition that quickly  got more than 12,000 signatures.  Tail between his legs McCrory backed off.  Will he come back to his plan and try to resuscitate it?  Maybe, but his burns should tell him that he had rashly grabbed hold of the third rail of North Carolina politics –the affection people of this state feel for their university.   

That does not necessarily mean that the citizenry of North Carolina  is equally supportive of “a liberal arts education,” but  the governor  let the his ideas sound like “roundhouse criticism of liberal arts education,” as Rob Christensen of the Raleigh  News and Observer put it..  Much of the criticism directed against him has been expressed in similar terms.  Maybe  that will be a warning to other politicians to think twice before they try to substitute job training for education.

Nobody can answer that question better than Tony Grafton. The Daily Princetonian reports what he has to say: http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2013/02/18/32760/

 The repeated attacks on liberal education in the media and from politicians require  ammunition in response.  Here's some:

INTERVIEWER:  Your undergraduate degree is in philosophy and you talk a lot about how your study of the humanities was a big part of your preparation for your personal leadership development. How do you think the study of philosophy, literature,  and history contribute to leadership development, particularly with respect to chaos and innovation?

SEAL… The humanities give us stories that can help us look at our lives through other people’s lives.  And I think that makes us better able to lead, better able to be “in chaos,” better able to keep our bearings.  Knowledge serves cleverness more than wisdom, and our culture often values cleverness more than wisdom.  But the true leader values the latter . . . wisdom.  And my experience suggests this can come from an immersion in the Humanities.

 From Henry Doss’  interview with Bob Schoulz “A Navy Seal Talks About Chaos, Leadership and Innovation”  Forbes 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/henrydoss/2013/01/22/a-navy-seal-talks-about-chaos-leadership-and-innovation/

PLEASE HELP PROVIDE MORE AMMUNITION BY FORWARDING LINKS TO ME AT  [email protected]

The best overview of the Republican assault on liberal  education is by 
Hunter Rawlings and Lillian Aoki  in “  A  College Education is about More Than a First Job”  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hunter-r-rawlings-iii/college-education-value_b_2593826.html/ .  They also show what the critics of liberal education are missing.  Here's an excerpt:  
" In tough economic times, with pressure mounting to prove that college is "worth it," we need to remember that the fundamental value of a college degree lies in planting the seeds of lifelong learning. One of the authors of this article declared a major in ancient Greek and Latin 50 years ago, despite his uncles' protests that a classicist would never be able to find a "real job." Though it is still too soon to determine the total return on investment, because it keeps on growing, the peculiar choice of major seems to be holding up pretty well.

"The other author has just earned a degree in chemistry and history, with little thought of becoming either a chemist or an historian, but with every intention of using that education for the rest of her life. The ability, and the inclination, to think critically, to comprehend complexity, to grapple with the uncertainty of human knowledge: those are the enduring lessons of a college education, and that education does not end with the receipt of a diploma.  ..."