The Relative Value of a College Education

Richard Cohen reacts to his perception that people today are too concerned with the economics of college, and shares his perception of the college education he received back in the 1960's,

I apply my own set of metrics to my college education. I met some wonderful people, particularly fellow students who were so much more sophisticated and worldly than I was. I had some great teachers, one of whom became a mentor and taught me how to suffer criticism. (I’m still suffering.) Whole worlds opened up to me — philosophy, which I never would have read had I not been forced to; the clotted verses of Chaucer; and, of course, the aforementioned anthropology, both cultural and physical. The latter had me going from desk to desk. Upon each was placed a human skull. I had to determine the sex, the race and the age.

I went five for five. This is not the kind of thing you’re likely to do on the job. I came of age when jobs were plentiful and college not exorbitantly expensive. I graduated with debt, but it was manageable, and I set off to do something I loved — journalism. I had tried my hand at it in college. I know things have changed and I do not dismiss today’s economic conditions. But I tell you this — college made me a happier person. I don’t know what that’s worth in dollars, but I know what it is worth to me: everything.

Whatever his intention, I do think that Cohen fails to give sufficient weight to today's economic conditions. Tuition costs have soared since the 1960's, and pursuing a graduate degree in journalism at an elite university is the sort of pursuit of a dream that is likely to leave you underemployed and struggling to pay off your student loans. Cohen writes that his decision to go to college wasn't about money, but it didn't need to be. But a few decades earlier the type of college experience Cohen describes was a luxury few could afford, and a few decades later it is again increasingly becoming a luxury. Cohen states that he might have become an insurance salesman had he not gone to college, and might have become more wealthy by virtue of that choice. He also could have returned to the insurance industry after college had his journalism career not panned out, as his debt load did not define his choices.

I recognize and value the four year college experience, the opportunity (if you choose to take it) to learn subjects to which you might not otherwise be exposed, to have your ideas challenged and tested, to learn a subject in depth. But the shift toward "But will my degree help me get a job that pays a decent wage," or "Might I not be a lot better off if I instead learn a trade, find work that does not require a degree, or find some other path toward a career," are not manifestations of a shallow rejection of those values in favor of economics. They're a reflection of the reality that it's not much fun to spend a large amount of money (not to mention opportunity costs) to get a degree that might not only be insufficient to help you get a job, but could also leave you with a huge amount of non-dischargeable debt yet without the means to pay it off.

If you want to help today's college students and you value the four year college experience, rather than suggesting that students are somehow wrong or shallow to consider the economics of a degree program, it would be helpful to instead focus on how we can improve the economics of college -- how we can shift the cost-benefit analysis back to where it was when Cohen was able to attend college on the cheap with a wide range of job opportunities upon graduation. If we find that we cannot move the economics of college back in that direction, while we can continue to value the four-year college degree, we should also recognize that we're talking about a luxury that fewer and fewer people will be able to enjoy.

Bringing College Costs Down Through Online Courses

The other day I saw an article that says quite a lot about the future of college education, at least in terms of basic courses and courses that can be taught in a structured manner:

This summer, Chad Mason signed up for online general psychology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. This spring, Jonathan Serrano took intro to psychology online at Essex County College in Newark, New Jersey.

Though the two undergraduates were separated by more than 600 miles, enrolled in different institutions, and paying different tuitions, they were taking what amounts to the same course. That’s because the course wasn’t produced by either school. Instead, it was a sophisticated package devised by publishing giant Pearson PLC and delivered through a powerful online platform called MyPsychLab....

Creating online courses from scratch is expensive and time-consuming. When universities try to do it themselves, the results can be erratic. Some online classes wind up being not much more than grainy videos of lectures and a collection of PowerPoint slides.

Publishers have rushed in to fill the gap. They’ve been at the game longer, possess vast libraries of content from their textbook divisions, and have invested heavily in creating state-of-the-art course technology.

Faced with these alternatives, schools frequently choose the plug-and-play solution. “We would love to create all of the online content ourselves, but that’s not always economically feasible,” says Lindsey Hamlin, the director of continuing and distance education at South Dakota State University, which uses an array of Pearson products for classes in math, economics, and psychology. “These types of courses are really easy to implement. Yes, they are created by other professors. But the content is really good.”

Companies such as Pearson, McGraw-Hill, and Wiley—the heavies of the college textbook market—have produced bundles that are basically a turnkey solution for basic chemistry or econ 101 and dozens of other classes, most at the introductory level. These courses feature content vetted by experts, slickly produced videos, and a load of interactive tests and quizzes. Some are so advanced that they can simulate a physics experiment, engage a student in a developmental psychology exercise, or even run software that grades an 800-word essay. They provide pretty much the entire course experience, without much interaction with a professor and without the hassle of showing up to class on time—or, for some instructors, the hassle of teaching.

The growing uniformity, though it has its advantages, puts schools in an awkward position. The transaction can reduce colleges’ academic mission to that of middleman, reselling course materials produced elsewhere. If schools are offering the same basic courses with minimal variations, it makes it all the more difficult to sell themselves to prospective students or justify their tuition levels.

This standardization of online courses is probably, on the whole, a good thing. It's difficult for individual professors, or even individual colleges, to muster the same sort of resources and specialization that a textbook company can bring to course development, or to even approach the depth and quality of multimedia components that a textbook company can produce. Textbook companies have to invest in the courses in order to keep their market share, not only against each other but also against open source, collaborative competition.

Meanwhile, high schools and colleges should get on board with allowing students to take these courses for something akin to universal college credit, at the lowest possible cost. Colleges sponsoring the courses should contemplate how to bring the best added value to a packaged online course -- supplemental online and offline collaboration with an instructor to discuss the material in more depth, tutoring, monitoring student progress, and the like. But I think the ultimate goal should be to allow students to complete this type of course at the lowest possible price point, with college education turning toward more complex subjects and classes, interdisciplinary classes, seminars, and other experiences that cannot be so easily reduced to a pre-packaged, online experience.

Yes, that would be an adjustment, one that would affect how colleges finance themselves, and might also affect the amount of time it takes to complete a degree program -- a student could conceivably rack up several semesters of college credit while still in high school, something that is possible for some students with AP and through collaborative programs, but is far from universal. If state colleges and community colleges take the lead -- compelled, if necessary, by state legislatures -- then private colleges will follow.

Given that a typical student living on campus takes one or more online courses, the trend toward online education is unmistakable. At this point, it's also irreversible. Given that states are unwilling to provide the same level of funding they historically provided to public colleges, and the overall rise of tuition courses, embracing online education as a way to bring college costs down -- as much as colleges might protest, and even feel some pain over the transition period -- seems like a no-brainer. Yes, it will be necessary to monitor student progress and intervene when students fall behind. Yes, ideally there will be some components to an online course beyond the prepackaged product. But if colleges aren't adding value, they have little business charging tuition for these courses at all.