Why American universities will lead the world

The Economist

Dr. Adrian Wooldridge

 

Good article - thanks for posting it. DG

 

From the article:

• Asian universities are still decades behind American ones. The Chinese, who are not given to undue modesty these days, admit that it could take half a century to catch up with American universities (which could be an optimistic prediction if China’s government continues to clamp down on free thought); until then they will have to send many of their best minds abroad.

This is about as true a statement as could be, I think. When the Internet, for example, is no longer censored in China, then and only then will it even begin to have a chance at starting down that half-century-long road to catching-up with American higher education.

Continuing:

• The American higher-educational system—if system isn’t too neat a word—is based on three principles. First, the federal government plays a limited but vital part. Limited because there are lots of different sorts of funding—from private philanthropists to corporations and student fees—and because there is no central master-plan. But vital because the government helps to fund basic research and student loans.

I would argue, as part of the first point (and I was hoping as I read the second and third points that this would be mentioned), that the government's role in ensuring minimum standards through approval and ongoing quality assurance of accrediting agencies is every bit as vital as is its funding; and, since it ensures minimum standards, and not optimum or maximum ones (thereby limiting, after all, where is sky), it's every bit as limited, too... thank goodness.

Continuing:

• So Americans can feel pretty smug about this.

And we do, thankyouverymuch!

Continuing:

• But here is the bad news: 2006 will be yet another year in which America fails to apply any of these principles to the rest of its educational system. Its lousy state schools, which finish well down the international rankings, are still uncompetitive and unaccountable. But that is another story.

A story that materially affects how well the rest of it will work. If US students at the secondary level don't start doing better, the higher education success of which the author writes will be less obvious... as will our reason for smugness.

Good article, decimon! Another winner. Thanks!

 

Jingo bells, jingo bells, jingo all the way, oh what fun it is to ride a one horse open .... oh....

C'mon. European and Commonwealth country pure research scholarship eats American research scholarship for breakfast, with fruit on top. With a side glass of juice. And sugar.

About the only thing I do agree with is this statement:

And I would change this to:

"The fatal flaw in the American model is that it appears to be headed in a direction that would grant too much power to the state."

 

You could be right but I added his bio because he's not a Yank but a Brit and with experience in both countries and both countries' universities.

 

OK. Perhaps it is only in my narrow subfield that Europe and CW universities prevail anyway. The "whole picture" may be that American research wins out -- but in in theoretical maths, et cetera, one doesn't come across many papers at all. Lots of technologist efforts, but little new pure theory.

 

How, precisely?

 

Well, the State may be able to regulate certain things (such as expenditure of public funds), but I see a move from "voluntary" to "obligatory" accreditation, and this, IMO, will eventually take full hold in North America, effectively cutting off true innovation in the interest of consumer protection.

One way to avoid it, (again IMO), is to seek to establish better and more universal acceptance of professional accreditation across more professions, and to loosen hold and importance regional and national accreditation such that it truly is only a fiscal audit.

If a school wishes no public funding -- it should not even be suggested that it undergo a public fiscal audit. It already undergoes audits as a corporation. If it wants professional recognition -- perhaps that would best be handed out by professional bodies, rather than by regional gate keepers.

People want assurances -- this is normal. They want standards. This is normal. They want these things to mean "something" (for any value of something). There are numerous mechanisms already in place in a free market society to assure these things, without further Statification of higher education, IMO.

If the regulationism becomes too tight -- kiss America's place in educational innovation goodbye. Other free market economies will respond to that perceived need for innovation, and American will be left with a highly regulated, highly homogenized bag of post-secondary goo, while meanwhile, less regulated countries will be producing the leaders in the field of modern tertiary education.

This, of course, is just chicken entrails and personal opinion. But look at highly regulated markets now. More of the same old in everything they do. In some cases, this is good. One wants a nuclear power plant to do only what a nuclear power plant to do. But what about one's great innovators? Shall they be forced to ex-pat should they not fit the round holes of indigenous educational opportunities? And what if they do ex-pat and like it so much outside that homogeneity that their primary contributions are for other nations? Innovation drain in America. Can't be good for the nation.

 

If that is the case, then for the most part the rest of the western world must be lacking in true innovation.

 

Not in the industrial sector. But in the educational sector, perhaps your observation is correct. Where I see innovation, it is primarily in technologist sectors of education, with its industry liaisons. Not too much pure theory coming from the western world these days. Still some from Queen's University, but I note that many of the pure theorists either were originally educated outside of North America, or immediately leave after being advised by such.

Of course a wide-sweeping determination would require full analysis. What was the last pure theory advancement made in North America of any ubiquitous or lasting effect? Non-competitive game theory, by Nash, in 1950? Linguistic theory by Chomsky at MIT in 1957? Much of what happened in technology came from AT&T in its glory days. And many of those who did the innovation could sign their names with Cantab. or Oxon. in parentheses somewhere, although Yale comes to mind as well.

Perhaps Yale, MIT, et al. are so well established that regulationism can't get its head in there -- they're left to be, and may still produce innovation on a large scale. Radical changes in the model aren't likely to happen in the lesser tiers, IMO, and less so should regulationism get yet tighter.

 

I just looked at the institutional affiliations of winners of the Fields Medal.

USA:

Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton 5
Princeton U. 5
Harvard U. 4
UC Berkeley 2
MIT 2
Stanford U. 1
UC San Diego 1
U. Wisconsin 1

Total 21 (48%)

Rest of the world:

Cambridge U. 4
I. Hautes Etudes Scientifiques 4
U. Paris 2
Oxford U. 2
Moscow U. 2
U. Nancy 1
U. London 1
U. Strassbourg 1
U. Stockholm 1
U. Pisa 1
Phy. I. Kharkov 1
U. Kyoto 1
U. Paris Dauphine 1
U. Paris Sud 1

Total 23

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/FieldsMedal.html

Looks to me like the little city of Princeton NJ (~12,000 residents) isn't exactly hurting for high powered mathematics. Its 10 Fields Medals is 23% of the world total and 48% of the American total. Princeton streets must be full of eggeads wandering aimlessly through the snowy slush mumbling gibberish to themselves...

(New York, Chicago and LA didn't produce any.)

I was struck by the absence of German schools on the list. The French predictably did well (the country has a reputation in mathematics). Their 10 Fields Medals are a good showing, per capita. (But it only just equals little Princeton.) England's 7 is also better than the United States, head to head. (Cambridge alone pulled in four of them. That's the British math hot-spot.)

Between them, those three countries (USA, France and the UK) account for 38 of the 44 Fields Medals.

I certainly expect to see the Asians making a stronger showing in years to come.

 

There's a good metric! Let's keep an eye on the Abel as years pass, too. It's new -- but it might be an indicator as years pass. (Since it has no age limit and is annual -- I believe.)

 

American universities are better, way better. European universities are endogamy dinosaurs, while in American meritocracy prevails. The EU is copying the American system, the bachelor/master. Look at the budgets, and you will understand the difference. America is many years ahead of Europe. Britain is closer to the US. My $0.02, having attended universities, and graduating, at both sides of the pond.

 

These dire predictions, recycled by Dr Wooldridge, have been around for years and are dragged out for another airing every now and then.

The reality is that formal tests and international comparision mean little as such testing does not capture the dynamics and culture of the different education systems that prevail worldwide.

Students, for example, in some countries, may be quicker to solve a math problem or list all the capital cities in Africa, but couldn't think themselves out of a paper bag.

The 'instabilities' that prevail in the West, in all levels of society, are the dynamics that drive a country and make it great. Questioning, criticising and discontent with the status quo and the continual drive to experiment, innovate and change are the main ingredients that make for an evolving society.

An example of why the East will take years to match the West was captured in a recent statement by the former PM of Malaysia. Commenting on the further role of China as a power to match the US, he said that democracy is not really all that good because it creates 'instability'. By 'instability' he possibly meant the possibility that the ruling party may be thrown out of power by a better opposition at the next election or that the local universities professors may challenge the repressive society in which they lived and worked.

A government that aims at creating a 'stable' society is one that by example stifles creativity and innovation through all levels of that society - social, political, industrial and philosophical.

The proof of the success of the US education system is in the pudding. A substandard education system does not produce the greatest nation!

 

I'd first like to point out that many doesn't mean most and it also doesn't even mean a significant percentage. Also, I'm not really sure that I would use the production of pure theorists as a measure of anything in particular. I'm glad that there are people who are involved in pure research but I'm not at all sure that we'd be a lot better off if we suddenly doubled their numbers.

Beyond that I think that Quinn has made some great points regarding private universities and the deliberate avoidance of regional accreditation, the promotion of innovation, the use of professional accreditation and reliance on the free market toguide the course of a university. It really makes some sense.
Because of that it's hard for me to understand why no one is doing it.
Jack

 

Several different possible reasons for several different effects:

1. Economic Entrenchment

The "regional" accreditors make a lot of money doing what they do best, whatever it is exactly that one defines as what it is they do. Think they're likely to hand over their institutional imprimatur to a bunch of professional organizations? Sure, they can share the wealth after they've given their stamp and gotten their fee -- but they won't sit idly by and allow themselves to be replaced by anyone.

2. Potential for Abuse

Free markets can be abused. Loose regulations can mean an opportunity for loose ethics. (Gee, never seen that in history before....)

3. Greater Ubiquity of Tertiary Education

Back in the day, generally speaking -- only the educatable acquired (or even needed) a tertiary education. Now, anyone breathing can get at least a master's degree in something. (OK, OK, perhaps I exagerate -- breathing AND with some money to spend...) Credentialism is rampant. If everyone needs an education to flip burgers, the demand grows. Too much strict professional accreditation (as opposed to institutional accreditation) might put real requirements on programs that would otherwise slip through, and schools might have to respond to market need in such a way as to totally obliterate any real pure research. With all those PhD's in Burgerologistics -- no room for the pure theory of beef.

4. Academic Entrenchment

A free market driven educational system might mean that professors with tenure, but no real world skills, would be an endangered species. It's probably always best (for the entrenched) to call anything that would threaten one's own entrenched interests "dubious at best" and hope everyone agrees. (At least until retirement -- then's a good time to press for change.)

OK ... so how does this relate to my initial statement? The present trend towards American Educational Regulationism will strangle true educational innovation. Maybe education doesn't need innovation. Maybe, just as it was at the turn of 1900 or so -- everything's already been invented -- so we can shut down the patent office. Nothing new could possibly happen in education.... The Internet is the last major technological or social advancement we are ever going to see as a modality in tertiary education, so what does it matter if we cut educational innovation off right about now? Pull the noose NOW while the gettin's good!

Nobody's ever going to need more than 640 KB of RAM on their computers. Internet-schminternet -- we've got modems and Compu...WHO? Why would anyone take classes by Internet when they can sit in a classroom and give up their day job? That's what night school is for! Who needs prior learning assessment when you've got classes you could be attending at your local college for 8 years in the evenings? Nobody wants to finish a BA in a year. That's too millish sounding. What? Five career changes in a lifetime? You won't need to change careers once you have your degree in astrophysics! I hear lunar landings are in baby!Nobody ever wants a second or third doctorate! Do a doctorate in South Africa, when we've got perfectly underqualified advisors here in Peoria? So what if they're not in your field... you can adapt. It's just a doctorate after all. Doens't matter what it's in... nobody can find the darned dissertation locked away in our stacks anyway. Professional accreditation? Why? We know the place has enough books in its library. Isn't that what makes a good software engineer? Besides -- you want that -- you can get it from Microsoft.

Yup. Things have been pretty stable the past few decades. Time to clamp down and regulate-to-stagnation right about now.

 

Here in the United States, the academic quality assurance function (accreditation) isn't performed by the government. It's performed by private associations.

I'm not sure that the fifty state governments (the level of government that regulates higher education) are moving en-masse to requiring that all legally operating schools be accredited by those associations.

But more importantly, I'm not convinced that accreditation stifles 'true innovation'.

The way that the American system is set up, multiple accreditors are possible. If there's a legitimate difference of opinion about educational philosophy and standards, it's possible to create alternative accreditors that emphasize different approaches.

If accreditation were really stifling innovation, wouldn't we expect to see a few more exciting and innovative things coming out of the unaccredited sector?

This would promote innovation how?

The specialized accreditors enforce stricter rules regarding curriculum and methodology in their particular disciplines than the institutional accreditors do. The institutional accreditors typically try to make sure that entire higher education institutions are credible at the management and internal controls level, then give those schools considerable freedom to design their own programs as they see fit.

The CA-approved world has had quite a bit of trouble with schools suddenly going out of business, leaving their students stranded after they had already paid their tuition. It was necessary to enact statutes regarding institutional stability, tuition reimbursement and so on.

What are you suggesting?

It's a balance.

On one hand you have the Knightsbridge vision of "private universities" where anything goes. Everyone is free to operate degree mills if they like, to start a "university" on a whim, and the market is left to sort it out. Except that there's little or no information to guide informed decisions and every question directed at questionable schools is denounced as a personal affront.

On the other hand, we have the strict government run higher education systems where private universities simply don't exist.

I think that the United States is doing very well at avoiding the two extremes.

Sure it's possible that the US might veer in the direction of oppressive federal control at some time in the future. But even if that were to happen, if competing countries want to exploit the opportunity, then they would have had to have already found their own balance between freedom and regulation. So far a lot of countries out there seem to be struggling with that.

But ultimately, I have to say that I'm not sure what relevance that any of this has to the original points in this thread. Those points concerned academic and research strength. There's no evidence that I can see that private universities are inherently better than public universities, let alone that unaccredited private universities are best of all. The University of California system seems to do OK, as do the Universities of Illinois, Wisconsin, Virginia, North Carolina, Michigan, Colorado, Washington...

I think that these kind of universities are actually pretty good in scientific and scholarly terms. I'm sure that we can pull defeat from the jaws of victory by changing the subject from that strength to the suggesion that American universities run the risk of falling behind in innovation unless the system is completely overhauled.

But I'm inclined to say that if the proven success of the old regime is to be dismissed in the name of something new, then it might be valuable if the benefits of the proposed changes were demonstrated somewhere in practice and weren't entirely speculative.

 

It certainly wouldn't hurt, I agree. I think it will be at least 2 or 3 cycles of watching the EU to see how the reforms over there wash. By then, none of this will matter except to my children's children.

Let's reconvene in 15 years over a beer and review my predictions.

 

Well, I'm scratching my head because your reasons against seem stronger than your reasons for. Except for your point #4 which reads like some bad hip-hop lyrics.
Jack

 

You're absolutely right. Just because I think there are reasons for regulation -- doesn't mean I agree wholeheartedly with those reasons.

Elite "private" interests being handed keys by the government -- bad move. Open the doors to let other accrediting bodies in -- on a non-regional basis -- and break it up into little, competing pieces like ol' AT&T. Shatter the ice from which grows the glacier. Small and specialized: healthy. Large and regionally monopolistic: unhealthy. Or -- why not just make the standard more universal? A school not accreditable under Association of the East should not be able to move and be accreditable under Association of the West's different philosophy. One or the other -- if this is supposed to be a standard -- let it be a standard -- not some kind of dim sum -- or let the market decide without any but the most general guidelines that all must follow.

I'm not blind to the need to protect the public against incompetent practitioners, if that's what end is truly being served by accreditation of institutions. I just don't happen to believe that is the interest that is really being served. I think professional bodies serve this need more appropriately (even if they are more restrictive on a particular program -- they are not handing out institutional endorsement).

Just as there is a novel in everyone (but not everyone should write a novel), there may be a master's degree or doctorate in everyone (but not everyone should need to seek a master's degree). I think it's unfair to the public at large to overemphasize the need for such "credentials". I think there are people who waste far too much of their productive lives financing these beasts, getting into unnecessary debt, and pulling themselves out of productive living for too long to get the "ideal" credential. In order to allow for this -- standards are watered down so as to be nearly meaningless entry vouchers with no real value. Never met a fresh graduate who had any respect until after the baptism by fire of industry. Met a lot of unlettered folks who walked circles around them but were made by some to feel inadequate because of the lack of such letters, however. Lots of insufficiency feelings in such accomplished folks -- if one takes a moment to really hear them when they get to talking at the water cooler. The unlettered often feel like worthless crap. Totally unnecessary byproduct of the Credentialist Age.

As for protecting "academic freedom" with tenure -- bah. If a professor wants a pulpit from which to spout his or her unorthodox views, with immunity from consequences -- let him or her write a book, get it published, spout those views whence and thence, and accept the consequences if his or her employer doesn't like it. No need for a professor to hide behind some kind of iron blanket. Anyone writes an off-color book in the "real" world -- employer can can 'm, pure and simple. Why should academics enjoy immunity for their unorthodoxy? Let them be unorthodox the way everyone else has to be.

If people started feeling accomplished because of what they actually accomplish, instead of where they went to get stamped, the economy would benefit. Those who went to university would be doing so for the right reasons. Self-image would increase. Job satisfaction and security would increase. Overall productivity in industry would increase. Nobody would fear losing his or her job to some WBTE just because the latest HR push demands paper credentials. University professors might learn to think before they spout off some rubbish under the banner of Academic Freedom. Accomplished people would feel they've contributed to their societies without feeling the need to sell their firstborn.

And the educational system that would result, being driven by more ideal ambitions than some kind of homogeneous "standardness" would rise above being "standard" and become "above standard". And rising above standards is what makes a nation great, not having some wish-washy minimum bottom line.

IMO. Of course, I'm three bricks short of a load.