So the University of Washington ranks 23rd in the world. Wow! Perhaps it will get some respect from the state Legislature and a little loosening of the purse strings. I plan to write more about this for the Seattle Times editorial page. But essentially the problem is this: state investment in higher education hasn't kept up with the tremendous growth in students attending college and increasing competition to keep valued faculty from other poaching schools.
As I wrote here for the Seattle Times, a high-level, smart conversation about higher ed is needed. Public policy demanded a more diverse and larger student body than the privileged few. We demanded that universities offer top-notch educations in the latest scientific and engineering arenas while remaining strong in the classics. We called for greater attention paid to student needs, from lifestyle-oriented dorms to dining halls that resemble restaurants. For the most part, universities and colleges gave the public what it wanted. But tuition and state assistance hasn't kept up with the spending.
There are many solutions. Schools could reconfigure themselves and not be all things to all students. Should there be two universities within two hours of each other that both excel in the performing arts? Some say it is time to stop vying for star faculty, many who earn six figures, and go for non-celebrities who can teach just as well. Or, others argue, time to step up the research and grant applications and better fund positions with outside money.
There is a movement, however, to eschew college, a rejection that is partly in response to the high cost of a 4-year degree - $25,000 in some cases but also a real question of whether everyone needs and education. Hedge-fund manager James Altucher argues that tuition money is better spent building a nest egg for our kids to use to travel the world, open a business or whatever they want. Altucher correctly notes that many post-high school are simply not mature enough to head straight to college.The same article lists successful people, including Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg as college drop-outs.
Yes, and they dropped out of Harvard, meaning they had a leg up to begin with. Sorry, but all of this poo-pooing college smells of the haves telling the haves-not what's no longer in fashion. As soon as anyone from the deepest barrio or reservation was able to realistically set college in their sights, now they're being told it isn't necessary. But what they aren't being told is that resumes are still screened with an eye toward not just college, but where you attended college. Unless you can get Altucher, Allen or Zuckerberg to make some calls for you - or finance your trip to France - the best way to get your foot in the employment door remains college. With unemployment tipping at 10 percent, even industries that don't rely on a college education can afford to use it as a marker to separate quality candidates from the rest.
To me, the utility of higher education goes beyond jobs. It is truly about learning. Some of us were privileged enough to grow up in households where the classics were read and discussed, where a passport was as common as class pictures and magazines from National Geographic to the Smithsonian and The New Yorker laid strewn about. By the time we got to college, it was really about burnishing the credentials we already owned.
Not so for many others. College remains the place to decode the best literature, languages and the world before our time. It is where our political and personal views are formed without the influence of our parents.It is where we learn what society looks like beyond the borders of our closed communities. And increasingly, it is helping to level the economic playing field as this story on Washington state's tuition guarantee to poor children and those in foster care details.
