Postsecondary Commission

Increased earnings of grads and ROI rates seem to be paramount in this aspiring accreditor's method of assessing a school's performance. Very little else seems to matter. The entries on learning outcomes and assessments etc. are comparatively brief and boilerplate-like. It's all about the money. Grads' increased earnings. My take: better-suited, perhaps, to accreditation of vocational and career schools.

Universities and the academic disciplines taught there -- I'm not so sure. I think this aspiring Accreditor wants a "reform" in Accreditation - and want to BE that reform. It looks like a gigantic shift from one end of the spectrum to another. The pendulum swings -- then it swings back. Nil sub sole novum.

If I were a praying man, I'd pray that these "increased-earnings and ROI" people NEVER EVER got to judge religious schools for accreditation!

 

I'm fine with that. I think they'd be a great Accreditor in that market.

 

Interesting composition of the Board of Commissioners who govern the PSC:

Beth Akers, American Enterprise Institute
Maria Anguiano, Arizona State University
Jim Blew, Defense of Freedom Institute
Maria Flynn, Jobs for the Future
Tim Knowles, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
Paul LeBlanc, Southern New Hampshire University
Ted Mitchell, American Council on Education
James “Jim” Runcie, Partnership for Education Advancement
Casey Sacks, BridgeValley Community and Technical College
Marni Baker Stein, Coursera

(Before becoming Chief Content Officer of Coursera, Marni Baker Stein was Provost of WGU.)

 

Looking at where they have their careers, this is a team. They'll get things done - and the market will be better for it. Prospective students of career-oriented schools will have good choices.

 

Good to see accomplished women making up a significant portion of the Board. Not bad - one short of half.
To mangle a line from Meat Loaf's lyrics: "Four Out Of Ten Ain't Bad."

 

A university's primary purpose is to advance scholarship and practice. It does this primarily by researching and teaching. My opinion has been that universities (and their degrees) have an out-sized role in the workplace for three big reasons.

First, the United States has a weak qualifications framework. While there are many tertiary education and training sources outside of academia, we really don't have a system that structures them and recognizes them like we do with universities (and their degrees).

The second force at hand is the destruction of defined benefit (pension) plans in the workplace. When Section 401k was brought into law, employers quickly abandoned the burden of carrying pension debts in favor of giving employees some retirement money in these favored accounts. This had the unexpected side effect of making employees much more mobile. They could switch employers and take their retirement money with them. That, in turn, had an unexpected side effect: employees needed credentials transferrable from one employer and recognized by the next. Again, without a strong qualifications framework, that put more burden on employees to have recognized credentials, and that meant degrees.

The third is supply. In the mid-1980s there were exactly 5 accredited (or candidate) schools offering short-residency doctorates. (There were a few niche schools offering them in narrow fields as well.) Going to night school to get a degree was still considered "nontraditional." But the internet changed all of that. Now you can earn a degree not only from schools across the country, but around the world, too. No longer do people have to decide between career and a degree (or several), or live in a place with few (or no) night school options.

Lack of a strong framework outside of academe, the need for more recognizable credentials, and the technology boom have all driven what David Hapgood (in 1971!) called Diplomaism. More than 50 years later, it's booming beyond what anyone could have imagined. Now excuse me, but I've got some admissions paperwork to fill out....

 

Interesting. The end of defined benefit pension plans made employees more mobile? Yes, but globalization and the decline of unionism (connected phenomena, I think) forced employees out. "Freedom" and "mobility" might mean "desperate searching for work".

Our mad pursuit of free and unrestrained global flows of capital, raw materials, and finished goods did not bring with it free movement of the working classes whose sole asset is their labor. This has done enormous damage to our declining middle class while making a very few incredibly wealthy. Worse, it damages democratic governance because every country is now subject to the whims and demands of giant multi-national corporations.

 

I didn't say it was a good or bad thing, just that it happened and what I believe to be its impact. Whether it was welcomed or forced, it's true. Building a career these days inevitably requires one to move from company to company, putting even greater emphasis on holding recognized credentials. In the US, that often means college degrees.

 

@Rich Douglas @nosborne48
For whatever it's worth - I think you're both right. Definitely necessity (movement to build a career) As Rich wrote. Definitely damage. (As described by nosborne48).

 

Can't fail to mention the OTHER effect of rampant globalization...the worldwide poverty rate fell off a cliff. The economists aren't lying or even exaggerating.

 

I'm not sure I'd blame globalization as much as unrestrained capitalism.

 

It's very difficult to restrain capitalism in a global trade environment.

 

Not necessarily. While anyone can nit-pick at the edges of any concept, the idea of capitalism is pretty well-defined without much disagreement.

 

It certainly is. And today, capitalism is alive and well, even in totalitarian and repressive regimes - e.g. China.

 

In reality, I think capitalism is both. Not that it should be, but a system and its abuses often seem inextricably intertwined. Like welfare, landlord-tenant stuff (both sides), Title IV funding (abused by predatory schools) --- you have a system, people or corporations will play games.

"If they say
Why (why?), why (why?)
Tell 'em that it's human nature
Why (why?), why (why?)
Does he do me that way?" - Michael Jackson.