Education Industries of America
I ran across an article [Link] in the BBC feed this morning lambasting university “non-courses” for wasting the tax payers’ monies. The courses and colleges in question were, of course, British, but the matter seems to have some substance if not merit.
The courses listed in the articles were:
- Outdoor adventure with philosophy, at Marjon, the College of St Mark and St John in Plymouth
- Science: fiction and culture, at the University of Glamorgan
- Equestrian psychology, at the Welsh College of Horticulture in Mold, Flintshire
- Fashion buying, at Manchester Metropolitan University
- Golf management, at UHI Millennium Institute, based in Inverness.
I have to admit that I’m not sure what Outdoor adventure with philosophy is but it sounds like nature hikes with philosophy professors in charge. My undergraduate philosophy classes were indoors – summer and thankfully air conditioned – and I don’t think would have worked out of doors. Science: fiction and culture sounds like some fuzzy literature-sociology thing to me which given what science fiction is about may be fitting. Equestrian psychology strikes me as a boondoggle although Fashion Buying seems eminently practicable given the proliferation of Joe and Jane Consumer. Golf management is a well respected major program at many of America’s great colleges so I’m not sure how this can be a non-course.
Nonetheless, the though sprouted that this may indeed have something to do with American education. After all, education is now a business and may be fairly accurately compared to industry. Secondary and primary education is akin to the process of mining materials from the planet, strip mining in particular, and converting them into ingots that are all alike and virtually useless without being turned into an actual product.
Colleges on the other hand have long been funded largely by tuition and the apportionment of that tuition is largely on the basis of students taught. When I was an undergraduate I knew some people who took music appreciation. I asked them why they were taking the course and all replied that it was an easy way to get an “arts” elective. All they had to do was show up in class, listen to some music, and pull down a minimum of a “C”, more likely a “B”. After the course was over I asked them if they had any heightened appreciation of music and the more reflective ones admitted that they now had a vastly increased grasp of what music they did not like.
The course obviously being some sort of joke, I wondered why it was taught. At first I thought it was some form of liberal social engineering but after a few years I realized it was a cash cow. Music departments are high overhead. Real music teaching is primarily one teacher to one student, and instruments and their maintenance are costly. The music appreciation course, along with things like chorus and glee club, brought in the cash flow to pay for the real teaching and courses in the department.
This is still the model. Departments are funded on the basis of how many student-hours they teach. Departments with lots of majors can support themselves, but those with a few majors have to attract student-hours some other way. It strikes me this is why so many physics departments are going away. No one wants to take physics service courses any more.
But the model seems right. One offers courses that students will take to get money to offer courses period. And at some point the whole thing turns into a factory that produces Barbie dolls or the academic equivalent, based on what you can make money at. A factory, in other words. Where the finished products are made.
