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UD is...
"Salty." (Scott McLemee)
"Unvarnished." (Phi Beta Cons)
"Splendidly splenetic." (Culture Industry)
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(Rate Your Students)
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except that Maureen Dowd is kind of a wrecking ball of a writer,
and Soltan isn't. For the life of me, I can't figure out her
politics, but she's pretty fabulous, so who gives a damn?"
(Tenured Radical)

Monday, June 26, 2006

John Douglass…

… the Berkeley professor who authored a study on American and European universities that I found too alarmist, has written a very useful comment in UD’s comment thread for that post, which she will now reproduce:

A note to say that [higher education] in Europe and the UK has many big problems, and that US HE retains many advantages. Europeans also, as a general rule, are very skeptical about their own reform efforts -- often with good reason. The Bologna Agreement, for example, is uneven in its successes; reform is too slow in the view of many. But there is actual reform going on, and with the first signs of actual results.

There are important indicators of long-term shifts and actual gains in BOTH access and graduation rates in a growing group of OECD economic competitors. It is not the current state of comparison so much as the trajectory.

Since the Inside HE article did not include some of the relevant statistics, and perhaps many do not actually read my study which, I think, is fairly balanced and notes many caveats, here is a section that may interest readers:

'On average, the postsecondary participation rate for those aged eighteen to twenty-four in the United States is a mere 34%, according to a recent study by the Education Commission of the States. Rhode Island has the highest rate at 48%, while Alaska has the lowest at 19%. 5 In California, Florida, and Texas—states with large and growing populations—approximately 36%, 31%, and 27%, respectively, attend some form of postsecondary education. And in the majority of states, these rates have steadily declined over the last decade.

In contrast, within a comparative group of fellow OECD countries, on average almost 50% of this younger age group participate in postsecondary education, and most are enrolled in programs that lead to a bachelor’s degree.

Perhaps most importantly when compared with other industrialized nations, in 2002 the United States ranked only 13th in the percent of the population that enters postsecondary education and then completes a bachelor’s degree or higher. In other words, the US has decently competitive rates of participation in tertiary education, but meager and declining rates of actual degree attainment.

In some states, such as California, access to higher education for the traditional age cohort has declined significantly over the past two decades. In 1970 in California, some 55% of high school graduates moved directly to tertiary education, among the highest figures in the nation; in the year 2000 the rate was a mere 48% and it appears to be declining. This drop has occurred in an economic environment that needs a labor pool with more postsecondary training and education. In the US, there are healthy increases in the participation rate of older students—important for lifelong learning in the postmodern economy and for facilitating socioeconomic mobility. But even in this regard, a number of OECD countries are consciously attempting, through national policies, to expand participation and to meet or exceed the rates found in the US.'




Douglass agrees, then, despite the rather dire rhetoric of his study, that the US “retains many advantages.” But he says that the “trajectory” of change within European education, rather than the direct comparison of Europe and the US, is what really matters right now.

I agree that the trajectory and not merely comparison is important. But I’d note two things:

1. While it’s true that some countries are making progress, the trajectory in quite a few other countries is wretched, with grim opposition to change causing serious social unrest. Already, for instance, the Greek government, like the French before it, seems to have backed down, what with daily ugly street violence. And Douglass characterizes as understandable European “skepticism” in regard to reforms what others (like Butler and Lambert, authors of the recent much-discussed report on EU higher education) characterize as self-interested inertia or visceral fear or ideologically rigid egalitarianism.

2. The rest of the report that Douglass reproduces is a reiteration that participation rates in the States aren’t very impressive, and that they’re sometimes more impressive in the EU. About this I’ll repeat my earlier comment: High participation rates in systems of higher education that do not educate, and in economies that have very few jobs for graduates (see the absurd French employment system, which discourages employers from hiring employees, for instance) are probably a bad thing. You produce pseudo college people with high expectations for themselves that will not be fulfilled, thus insuring a restive population.

Douglass asks that we worry about the fact that “the US has decently competitive rates of participation in tertiary education, but meager and declining rates of actual degree attainment.” I do think we should worry about this, but on the other hand the employment rate for most of this country suggests to me that many dropouts are getting jobs. More broadly, I don’t see college as something everyone needs in order to be gainfully and satisfactorily employed. On the contrary, the US needs to be far more serious than it has been about vocational schooling.
Posted at: 6/26/2006 09:03:00 AM