CARROLL: For all higher ed's cost, what are we getting?

By Vincent Carroll, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

"The U.S.A. spends more on higher education, as a percentage of gross domestic product, than any other industrialized country, according to the Education Department." - USA Today

Bet you didn't know that. On the other hand, you very likely did know - because it's mentioned repeatedly - that this country spends more on health care, as a percentage of gross domestic product, than every other advanced country.

Why is spending so much on health care considered a national scandal by many commentators but the outsized spending on higher education is not?

Could part of the answer be that the health-care system is studied, analyzed and dissected by a scholarly community that simply isn't willing to apply the same critical perspective toward the institutions that sign its checks?

To the contrary: The self-interested consensus among academics is that this country needs to spend far more on higher education.

When health-care costs rise at double the inflation rate, intellectuals understandably knit their brows. When higher-ed costs outstrip inflation (as they do year after year), the only people who complain tend to be powerless parents and students.

"It takes more resources today to educate a postsecondary student than a generation ago," writes Richard Vedder, a professor of economics at Ohio University and a rare insider who is critical of rising costs. "That is not true for most goods and services . . . . Relative to other sectors of the economy, universities are becoming less efficient, less productive, and, consequently, more costly."

The problem is not only that "with the possible exception of prostitution, teaching is the only profession that has had absolutely no productivity advance in the 2,400 years since Socrates taught the youth of Athens." To make matters worse, Vedder notes, the nonteaching staff at universities is ballooning; growing third-party payments are eroding consumer cost-consciousness (just as they have in health care); and universities lack any equivalent of the bottom line by which to measure executive performance.

Vedder's paper on this topic, Over Invested and Over Priced, was published to little notice this month by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity. The far bigger news in academia was captured by this New York Times headline of Nov. 12: "More College Presidents in Million-Dollar Club."

Yes, pay for college presidents is now soaring to once unimagined heights. They are being rewarded for . . . well, for what? For successfully deflecting any serious questions about how their institutions operate?

Public workers strain budgets

"Looking ahead to future fiscal burdens, many people understand Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid threaten to consume an ever larger share of the economy over the years," observes Michael Barone, a senior writer for U.S. News & World Report and co-author of The Almanac of American Politics. "But so do state and local governments if public employee unions get their way."

Barone, whose knowledge of American state and local politics may be without peer, wasn't specifically referring to Colorado. He might as well have been, however, given Gov. Bill Ritter's recent executive order empowering public unions.

"Public employee unions exert enormous upward pressure on state and local government spending and enormous downward pressure on the accountability of public employees," Barone explains.

"Over time this will tend to increase the share of the economy devoted to state and local government spending, with significant macroeconomic effects."

Worrisome? Of course - but here in Colorado we no longer concern ourselves with such trifles as the trajectory of public budgets. They're all heading skyward and that's just the way they're supposed to go. Meanwhile, it's so much easier to accept the bland assurances of the governor's spokesman that "employee partnerships are not about money."

• November 27, 2007

  12:07 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Hank writes:

  Vince should come clean about Richard Vedder :
  http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?...

• November 27, 2007

  6:04 p.m.

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  pteske writes:

  Um, Vince, maybe the reason people don't often point this out is not to shield or to protect higher ed, but due the fact that health care costs fully 15% of American GDP, while higher ed costs only 3% of GDP. Think that might play a role? Five times more important.

  Also, maybe the fact that the US is a demonstrated leader (and importer of students from other nations) in higher ed, but it is quite low on most measures of health care quality. Wonder if that might factor in?

  Nah, must be those bad university people protecting their own.

• November 28, 2007

  5:05 a.m.

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  I_am_not_fooled writes:

  Or......could it be that higher education costs are in-fact escalating beyond the reach of many students? Pointing a finger at health care costs only diverts attention from the fact that the cost of attending college at some institutions has become unattainable. It is unrealistic to expect students to pay ridiculous tuition rates for a course taught by a professor that has never worked outside of academia. Somehow I find it laughable that we don't question the experience of many of today's professors (Ward Churchill) and demand a modicum of experience beyond the classroom before they’re allowed to teach. If universities are going to charge exorbitant tuition and fees, then we (the consumers) should get our money’s worth of education….this is not the case at many of Colorado’s institutions of higher learning.

• November 28, 2007

  12:56 p.m.

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  jjbhs writes:

  Ward Churchill is not the issue here. Even if he was unqualified,CU would be forced to choose him over a more qualified candidate because the more qualified professor wouldn't even consider teaching in a state in which higher education is such a low priority. I don't even want to mention the personal vendetta that CU's administration has against the ethnic studies program in the first place. The truth of the matter is that the academic community in this country is well aware of Colorado's lack of dedication to promoting a quality higher education. How are we going to draw those professors with experience away from their industry if we cant offer substantial and competitive salaries? I'm not defending the guy or anything, but people who point to Ward Churchill as the problem clearly were the recipients a degree from one of Colorado's grossly underfunded universities.

• November 29, 2007

  1:51 p.m.

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  p_myers661 writes:

  Perhaps the fact that the professors in Colorado can be, and are, held to a visible standard by the public which can see the credentials, or lack of same is the problem. Too many professors feel they are above any standards and act accordingly. Churchill was exposed as a fraud who lied his way to a high position and shot off his mouth in expectation of not being accountable. Professors who are able to teach and know their subject areas have nothing to fear. Ethnic studies is a department without any purpose other than its own perpetuation. It is a department that needs to be dissolved not supported.

• November 30, 2007

  11:04 a.m.

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  jjbhs writes:

  spoken like a bigot.

• December 7, 2007

  11:02 a.m.

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  Andy writes:

  Of the 779 Nobel Prizes awarded to individuals, 39% (305) have been awarded to Americans. The nearest competitor is the U.K. with 114 (14%). Unless your making the argument that the works associated with prize winners has no other benefit than the prize itself, the argument put forth in this article has no merit. I'm sorry I wasted the time reading it.