College for "Some"

Richard Vedder and my wife, Sara Goldrick-Rab, squared off yesterday on Patt Morrison's radio program on Southern California Public Radio yesterday. They addressed the question, "Who needs college?"

Vedder, the founder of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity in Washington DC, recently announced a joint proposal suggesting that some kids shouldn't go to college at all (as recently described in this New York Times article). At Sherman Dorn notes, making such distinctions is tricky and generally involves suggestions that "the type of people who don't benefit from college" are "other people's kids." In fact, on the radio program, Vedder acknowledged that he would not counsel his own kids from attending college. Of course. As my wife noted in the radio program, many unprepared rich kids attend college, but many better prepared lower-income students cannot, due to affordability and other constraints. And she's got good research to back that up. Between such evidence and these exclusionary advocates up on their soapbox, one's equity radar begins to ping.

Check it out for yourself.

And here are some other recent contributions on this topic:

Thoughts On Education Policy (Corey Bunje Bower)
Public School Insights - The Purposes of College (Claus von Zastrow)
Public School Insights - Should We Give Up on College? (Claus von Zastrow)

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Debating College for All

It's easy to get lost in the excitement over what appears to be a New Deal for higher education. This was an exciting year, what with the nation's president stepping forward with substantial goals to increase college attainment, heavily invest in community colleges, and reform the financial aid system. The message is loud and quite clear: more Americans should be thinking about college and moving towards enrollment.

But is the message the right one? The Chronicle Review recently tackled the issue by asking a variety of experts to weigh in on this question: are too many students going to college? The answers from folks ranging from Richard Vedder to Sandy Baum were varied and thoughtful, but some of the most difficult questions and concerns weren't raised. Perhaps it's because even saying some things feels like opening Pandora's box. By articulating questions we don't have easy answers to, we create the possibility that policymakers will too-quickly address them, without engaging in the really hard prerequisite discussions. Even so, there's more that needs to be said-- so here forgive me as I close my eyes and throw more fuel on the fire:

Q: "Are too many students going to college?"

1. The question implies a focus on a critical threshold, an approach that seems appropriate only if one believes the ultimate goal is to produce a college-educated workforce of a certain absolute size or proportion of the population. This belies an assumption that the purpose of college attendance is primarily economic. Think about how the question (and the answer) changes if we instead ask: Are there meaningful disparities in college-going, and if so why?

2. Consider your reaction to #1, and then ask yourself: Why are we (the public) more attracted to (and/or comfortable with) justifications for college-going based on economic competitiveness and return on investment than with justifications based on social mobility and inequality?

3. On the other hand: Why are we pushing everyone to become part of the middle-class by attending college? What does that say about how we value the working class?

4. If we're really concerned with inequality in higher education, are we trying to ensure equality of opportunity (access) or equality of outcomes (degree completion)? If it's the latter, what are we willing to tolerate in order to achieve that goal?

5. Are we moving towards a societal embrace of college-as-privilege to college-as-right? If so, how does that change the debate about who should pay for higher education?

6. Given massive increases in college-going and changes in the composition of college-goers, could our current completion rates be interpreted as an achievement, rather than a failure? What completion rate should we expect, and tolerate, in an even more broadly open system?

These are tough questions, and based on some recent conversations I can tell you that at least a segment of the population is pondering them. But we're pondering quietly, perhaps because where the places these concerns take us are dark ones-- cobwebbed-corners of ambiguity and self-doubt. To make the best policy judgments, however, we need to find our way there and linger, at least a little longer.

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