"government-owned degree mills", says The Economist

He, he and I love the ad for Robert Kennedy College at the top.

Cheers,

George

 

I noticed the same story-line, but would articulate its thrust differently...

In effect, continenetal universities are like US high schools: failures of socialism.

Change is glacial, but The Economist story firmly calls attention to fast growing international competitive pressures as enormous developing nations like India and China attempt to develop their own systems of higher education. In particular, the US system of private educationally diverse institutions and Australia's successful transition to fee-based university education is credited for market-driven excellence ("quality and quantity") by The Economist.

Today even the left-leaning Labour government leads in introducing student fees - this in a culture that abhors anything less than free education as a sacred right.

The trouble is that "free" invites abuse by consumers and mismatches funding needs of the universities themselves. But the situtation is even much worse on the continent.
-----------

***"In effect, universities in...countries [like Germany, Italy, Spain, and France] have become government-owned degree mills. Their aim is to get the greatest number of young people in and out for the least money and trouble.*** Really determined students may fight their way through to gain a professor's attention, win a research scholarship and start doing some real work, probably in postgraduate study. The others will arrive in the labour market, qualification in hand, feeling that their mostly middle-class parents have something to show for their taxes.

"It is not all gloom and doom. Most countries have islands of excellence...[and] Finland and Holland have largely managed to keep quality up and bureaucracy down. But for the most part, ***universities in the larger countries of continental Europe are a dreadful warning of the consequences of nationalisation.***

"No wonder, then, that British and European academics cast envious and wondering eyes at the American university system. It manages both quantity and quality: more than 60% of American high school graduates at least start some form of tertiary education. And it keeps standards high, too. The European Commission recently published a painstaking ranking of ***the world's best universities, compiled by researchers in Shanghai. Of the top 50, all but 15 were American.*** From Europe, only Oxford and Cambridge made it into the top 10; from other EU countries, no university ranks higher than 40."

[***emphasis added***]
---------

The dire situation in continental Europe reminds me of the situation of American high schools because of compulsory attendance. Any effective "learning environment" is degraded by the presence of those who don't want to be there: institutionalized baby-sitting - the world's most expensive!

This, too, is the perverse product of socialized good intentions. Compulsory attendance was passed to ensure a "right" to learn how to read and right and results in ensuring neither: literacy rates in the US were higher before such "reforms."

--Orson

 

Ouch....

so much for the "schools in the USA are subpar" train of thought. I saw many of these complaints in the European press before I left in 1994. I can't believe they have let things go this long without making changes. The German press was hot on the higher education system for changes even then and I see thay are starting to open up their very closed and rigid system with schools like the IUB. Germany also has some issues with the secondary education system. When I left, a child was forced to make a decision in the 5th grade as to which track of school he/she would attend and the wrong choice could prevent them from attending university. Who can make that choice at 12? I had a neighbor whose daughter wanted to be a doctor. He told her she could not switch to the gymnasium because "women don't need to go to college, they have families"! The poor girl cried her eyes out. Even then the "gymnasium" system was under fire for declining standards and was producing more graduates than the state run universities could handle. Thus, the IUB.

 

Another thing..

a review of the rankings which are based on such things as the quality of the professores and their publishing, changes things a bit when compared to US News. Duke drops way down and Chicago goes up. I read an article on how Duke managed its rise in the rankings and it was a pretty good condemnation of the US News rankings. One point of an attached column was on how much higher Duke was ranked than Chicago when everything outside of selectivity indicated Chicago was a much better school. See:

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2001/09/flanagan.htm

 

Re: I noticed the same story-line, but would articulate its thrust differently...

The Economist article would have more credibility if didn't sound like a piece of campaign literature for the British Tory Party. It must have been the hyped lead article. It over generalizes the problems with European higher education and puts a halo on the American System.

I'd be interested in looking at the study on the "Top 50". My first question is why it was done by researchers in Shanghai, China and how they arrived at the criteria for selecting the "Top 50". Ranking systems have their own biases including the US News and Gourman lists.

Our system of public, private/non-profit and private/for-profit institutions is not perfect. It is a diverse system which is a positive and a negative. I believe that our strongest asset is our levels of higher education (two and four year institutions) and that motivated students can move up the ladder.

 

Not true..

Actually, I took it as saying it was the Tories who started the problem with their poly tech initiative. And, I read many of these same complaints being made by British professors in a CHE article a few months back. Declining salaries and funding is really hurting British institutions of higher education. Buildings are run down, equipment and lab equipment is dated and young professors are starting to leave for greener pastures. They have families to support. The comments on the continent I have heard elsewhere as well. They are subject to generalization because the education system in the continental countries is much more uniform than ours here in the USA. Germany has about 240 schools compared to our thousands. No, American universities are not perfect. We have our lesser quality institutions as well. However, I think the article pointed out that our schools ability to adapt and change is what makes them all better in the long run and the best even better. Google some articles from the continents own media and they will all say more of the same.

As far as methodology of the study, there was a link to it in the Economist article and there was detailed information on the rankings and methodology. It is a very interesting read. The fact that it was from a Chinese university makes it more credible not less. We aren't exactly the darlings of the Chinese lately.

 

Chris and DL-LUVr...

I say you're both right: the US system allows talent to rise, but also is more flexible. As such it compliments our more (thanks to the Reagan years), flexible labor market.

Inflexibility and the failure to encourage adaptability are the hallmarks of continental excess. Only Britain, the Netherlands, and lesser outposts in Europe stand a chance of escaping this calcification.

The Economist piece, while admitting US problems (and one could easily add to Political Correctness ID'd), argued the the US system exceeded Europe's i"n both quality and quantity." As in Texas, bigger apparently is also better. For instance, last spring I met a Swiss woman pursuing her BA in graphical design at the private - and only established in the early 90s - Denver Institute of Art. I guess not even the Swiss welfare state was meeting her needs.

But the deepest level of difference stems from where the faith in education comes from. In Europe, it stems from Rouseau; here, it is fundamentally Calvinist and Protestant and Christian: Know the Truth, and the the Truth will set you free, and the Truth is primarily textual. The dept of these anteceedent roots in the drive for higher education are shown, for example in how education is almost always the leading category of charity; last year (or was it 2002?) was an abberation.

These roost are also fundamentalist in the sense that they are egalitarian (everyone may benefit) and pluralist (one may benefit in different ways, eg, Catholic university). By contrast, the egalitarianism of Rouseau if grafted upon an aristocratic tradition. Thus, one doesn't so much choose at age 12 to become a worker or the professions as much as one's parent's choose for you!

This has resulted in a middle-class that supports old-style aristocratic noblse oblige that's only comfortable with radical egalitarian rhetoric - but without practical reformist effects. It is an irony Marx and the Mannhaim School understand all to well.

--Orson
PS DL-LUVr is right to suspect the way in which The Economist carries Blair's water. But the bottom line of the piece frames the issue in terms of EU competitiveness. If you reject the government's proposals, what is the alternative? Is any other option going to be more effective? Probably not!

Like Chris, I also examined the Shanghai study. I found it more objective and fairer than any Princeton Review or US & News Report "study," and more easily to grasped, although less detailed, than similar US efforts (the National Educational Reasearch Doctorate blah blah done every 10 or so years).

 

The Economist fails to mention the Oxford (or was it Cambridge) scandal where rich parents were buying admision offers. There is corruption in the UK as well. For the rest I agree with the article. American universities are definitely better.

 

Re: Ouch....

This early "tracking" system was my understanding of German, and European, education from years ago. I'd thought that things had changed but that is apparently not so.

 

What a great thread! Real content, civil disagreement, substantive issues--thanks guys!

BTW, anybody got a link to that Shanghai rankings list?

 

The link...

to the economist article is in this thread's first post. The article has a link to the study.

 

Shanghai Study

Hi Unc:

Here is the link to the Study: http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/ranking.htm

I'm not overly impressed with it. It's obvious from other rankings that the Ivy League, Stanford, CIT, and top state universities would be on any list. This study appears to just analyze the faculty. A true test would be to analyze its graduates - what have been their achievements.

Maybe the answer is to create a new list based on all of the current ranking lists.

 

I'm sure everone can find surprises and things to criticize in that list! I was surprised to see Warwick as low as 301-350.

Just to beat Jack to the punch, I did a quick look for South Africa universities, and found the following:

• Cape Town (251-300)
  Pretoria (401-450)
  Natal (451-500)
  Witwatersrand (451-500)

I have one degree from a school ranked 251-300, two from a school ranked 2, one from an unranked school (i.e. an unranked college of U. London), and a graduate diploma from another unranked school.

 

I almost forgot: plus one fake degree bought on ebay from a school that will never be ranked because it doesn't exist!