One of the problems with decisions is we sometimes make them before we’re ready. Sometimes we’ve forced ourselves into a box. Sometimes we entered that box with a skip and a smile. Sometimes it’s been a full-court press to please the iconic self. But as the saying goes (or did I make this up?): Decide in haste, repent in leisure. Quite possibly, a few years down the line, we’ll look over our shoulders, second guess ourselves, and wished we’d opted for Door Number One, wondering what for the love of God were we thinking.
I bring this up not because of that Hefty bag full of extremely unfortunate clothing I donated to the Good Will this weekend — but because I just came across a Newsweek essay (and cover story) advocating a three year college degree.
I vote no, as in Absolutely Not.
I can think of any number of reasons why the argument, proposed by Sen. Lamar Alexander, former education secretary under the first Pres. Bush, is an idea that stinks. But chief among them is the fact that making a choice that you won’t regret in the morning is often a function of growing up. Which is, in good part, the work of higher education.
But sure, I get it. Three years versus four means saving a boatload of money when it comes to tuition and living expenses. For the vast majority of students, it means a smaller debt load tucked into the diploma. For most kids, that’s crucial. And yet. An accelerated degree means choosing a path at, oh, age 18. (Think back to your adolescent self — would you really want that person to dictate your grown-up life? Gives me the willies just to think.) Then sticking hard to the program for three years without a taste of anything else, and jumping into the real world at just about the same time you’re legal to order your first martini.
Hmmm. Can you even qualify for a lease on an apartment at that age without your parents to co-sign? I digress.
But let’s back up. Sure, the plan could work for some students, those super-focused and dedicated souls who knew they wanted to be doctors or lawyers or engineers when they were five and never blinked. College in three? Done! Straight to grad school? Yes! And more power to them. But most of us? Not so focused. Where’s the time for exploration? Reflection? Discovering passions? Isn’t that part of what college is all about?
What I see here is a recipe for regret. Or a return ticket to university life some ten years down the line. Undecided? Here we come.
But back to Alexander. Comparing American higher education to the auto industry (the comparison lost me. And took up far too much space. But…), he writes:
Yet, as with the auto industry in the 1960s, there are signs of peril within American higher education. It is true that the problem with car companies was monopoly, whereas U.S. colleges compete in a vibrant marketplace. Students, often helped by federal scholarships and loans, may choose among 6,000 public, private, nonprofit, for-profit, or religious institutions of higher learning. In addition, almost all of the $32 billion the federal government provides for university research is awarded competitively.
But as I discovered myself during my four-year tenure as president of the University of Tennessee in the late 1980s, in some ways, many colleges and universities are stuck in the past. For instance, the idea of the fall-to-spring “school year” hasn’t changed much since before the American Revolution, when we were a nation of farmers and students put their books away to work the soil during the summer. That long summer stretch no longer makes sense. Former George Washington University president Stephen J. Trachtenberg estimates that a typical college uses its facilities for academic purposes a little more than half the calendar year. “While college facilities sit idle, they continue to generate maintenance, energy, and debt-service expenses that contribute to the high cost of running a college,” he has written.
In other words, rush the kids through, and you make more cost-effective use of your campus? Ugh. He goes on:
Meanwhile, tuition has soared, leaving graduating students with unprecedented loan debt. Strong campus presidents to manage these problems are becoming harder to find, and to keep. In fact, students now stay on campus almost as long as their presidents. The average tenure of a college president at a public research university is seven years. The average amount of time students now take to complete an undergraduate degree has stretched to six years and seven months as students interrupted by work, inconvenienced by unavailable classes, or lured by one more football season find it hard to graduate.
Congress, acting with the best of intentions, has tried to help students with college costs through Pell Grants and other forms of tuition support. But some of their fixes have made the problem worse. The stack of congressional regulations governing federal student grants and loans now stands twice as tall as I do. One college president lamented to me that filling out these forms consumes 7 percent of every tuition dollar.
Oh, please. Interesting that Alexander should put it this way. I tend to wonder that, if indeed higher education is in crisis because of finances as he posits through out the piece, maybe the fix isn’t rushing students through, but rather, rethinking university priorities when it comes to allocating funds. For example: Show me a university intent on increasing applications, and I will show you an aviary full of cranes (it was a pun) and construction fences, as well as a battallion of gardeners. Or maybe, when it comes to funding, the feds and the states might think more in terms of education than, say, prisons or foreign governments. But I digress. Again.
Playing good cop-bad cop, Alexander does discuss the downside of the three-year degree, albeit in abbreviated form:
There are drawbacks to moving through school at such a brisk pace. For one, it deprives students of the luxury of time to roam intellectually. Compressing everything into three years also leaves less time for growing up, engaging in extracurricular activities, and studying abroad. On crowded campuses it could mean fewer opportunities to get into a prized professor’s class. Iowa’s Waldorf College has graduated several hundred students in its three-year-degree programs, but is now phasing out the option. Most Waldorf students wanted the full four-year experience—academically, socially, and athletically. And faculty members will be wary of any change that threatens the core curriculum in the name of moving students into the workforce.
As if intellectualy roaming or the core curriculum — programs that introduce students to thinkers and writers outside their specific area of study and, in many cases, is responsible for graduating students who are educated as well as trained — were irrelevant. Without it, where’s the context? The historical perspective? The ethics? As my father-in-law, a former professor of medicine at the University of Washington, and writer Ethan Canin (look him up) both said, med school should require training in more than science. But that’s beside the point.
The big issue, the one that transcends this whole debate, is the fact that when you’re in college, you learn. You open your mind. You think. You weigh. You expand. You make better choices. And that’s not just what you learn in the classroom. It takes time.
And growing up.
Hello Barbara
Here in the UK almost all of our students go to university for three years at the age of 18 unless they opt for a year out to go “travelling” etc. The only exceptions are students studying medicine, dentistry and vetinary courses – they are 7 year courses. This has been the case for many years and it has worked well. It’s only not working well right now because of the recession – there are no jobs in the UK for graduates or indeed anyone else. Under normal circumstances, however, our young graduates are well equipped to work in responsible jobs after three years at university. And yes, the cost of educating our sons and daughters is hideous in the UK – these youngsters come out with a degree and a huge debt which has to be repaid, as well as having had parents pay for living expenses etc. I’m really not sure how a four year degree course could be advantageous at all.
Regards
Just Midlife
There is not just book learning to be had in college. There is social learning as well. Plowing through college in 3 years implies to me that the student is not taking the time to learn or grow in any other aspect besides the school work, and I think that is a shame. Speaking as someone who has debt, and a lot of it, I am glad that I was able to enjoy myself while also going to school. One year less of debt would be nice, but actually thinking and enjoying going to school was much nicer.
In the immortal words of Ferris Bueller, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
The 3-year plan is appealing, but better yet I believe American students should explore the world and take a “Gap-year” after highschool in order to mature a bit before entering college to begin with. Having that year to either work or volunteer somewhere is so useful, because then you can find out what direction to take your life before sinking 6-figures into higher education.
It took me 12 (TWELVE!) long long long years to complete my Bachelor’s Degree, and it was with great ambivalence that I finally decided to finish the degree. I really had no clue what type of “career” to choose and spent my entire twenties just kind of drifting, but had I first made a consious effort that I would take say, 2-3yrs to work or travel or volunteer and THEN pursue a degree/career, I would have been better off. If you’re focused as many older students are, there’s no problem finishing the degree in 3 years. As it is now, most students take 6yrs to finish and about 30% never complete the degree at all.
The three year concept completely baffles me. Especially when Alexander makes reference to no summer breaks. Let’s see, three years plus three summer breaks. Hmmm! It sounds to me like four years. Without the opportunity to get a paying job in the summer and leading to more debt for the students. Some plan!! It may help the colleges pay costs in the summer, but it makes for more debt for the students. Not a good recipe.
I cannot respond to the post above about the British system very knowledgably, but I do remember several comparisons to the more thorough and wide ranging education provided there rather than here in high school, perhaps negating much of the supposed benefits of a three year education in the States.
I am an attorney, and have been one for almost forty years. My career has been rewarding and fulfilling for me. Without a wide ranging college experience, I would not even be a lawyer because I was a math major, and the math and science requirements alone would have left me no time to explore the humanities, without which…….?
Colleges are NOT simply trade schools. And education is much, much more than training. Core courses provide a context for whatever carreer we choose. And, context counts. I, for one, am tired of doctors who are science geniuses and devoid of understanding and personal skills. I detest techies who think that the world begins and ends with engineering, and who require mathematical solutions to human problems. And I think we have no more need for business majors to whom the bottom line of their companies is mkore important than their impact on the real lives of real people.
The three year solution will lead to a less educated college graduate, when what we desparately need is a more educated one.
[…] 30, 2009 by Barbara Kelley So, on Monday I posted a rant in response to Lamar Alexander’s Newsweek argument in favor of a three-year college degree. […]