The Crow's Nest

While reporting on the history and funding of the University Student Center I have often asked decision-makers and stakeholders if “good for the university” means the same thing as “good for students.”

Before the student body became the majority contributor to universities’ education and general revenue, this distinction was mostly unnecessary. University students 18 years ago contributed about a quarter of the cost to provide them with an education, a deal by anyone’s standards.

The university implicitly provided something with economic value to the majority of students: a ticket to the middle class. Where the 25 percent from students went wasn’t a big deal, in comparison.

But the discussion on higher education has changed since then, with political and academic leaders framing college degrees as personal investments rather than a public good. There are now winners and losers in higher education as a four year degree has become a necessity in the arms race for higher and higher academic achievement.

Have you heard “a bachelor’s degree is the new high school diploma?”

Instead of making a case for broad education and critical thinking, universities are now collaborators in the false notion that nothing like four years of intense, expensive study can prepare a student for a steady, meaningful career. They ignore that over half of new graduates either don’t find work within the first year, or don’t find work that requires a college degree. Meanwhile, the debts have to be paid, a burden even successful graduates are carrying through their earning years.

The answer goes: what did you expect to do with a degree in art history?

Or anthropology? Or psychology? Or journalism? Or the hard sciences? Or with an MBA?

A banker six months out of an MBA program told me his life wasn’t what he expected it to be. He wanted to build companies that built things, not sit in the glass storefront of a retail bank verifying that I still have the same phone number. He was considering returning to school for a technology degree. He thought business had been a safe bet, but so many people have MBAs, and many of them have a world more experience, he said.

Getting more school, continuing to put life on hold and taking more debt just to reach the starting line don’t seem like the right answers.

And don’t count on an eventual end to the recession to bring back education dollars unless a culture change comes with it. In 2007, at the peak of tax revenues during the real estate boom, state universities still faced major cuts to education spending.

So, it’s time for students to get savvy on the new relationship with their university. If a college degree is primarily a private investment, students have a right to know what their money is buying. Here’s a start:

Why are the prices of textbooks increasing at five times the cost of inflation despite the proliferation of digital publishing?

Why are students paying $150 extra for online classes that solely consist of a book publisher’s web application accessible through an expensive, un-resalable registration code?

And why are students paying half of their activities and service fees toward a building that serves the long term goals of the university rather than providing the activities and services they are meant to create?

cguinn@mail.usf.edu