Texas 7 Solutions and The Real Problems With Higher Education

Recently, in Texas there has been a call to reform higher education. Austin businessman Jeff Sandefer has come up with seven solutions for fixing higher education in Texas. Some of the solutions include measuring teacher efficiency and effectiveness, separating research budgets from teaching budgets, and putting state funding in the hands of students. Many of the solutions are very broad and don’t talk about what is specifically entailed. Although, I would say overall these solutions would be a step in the right direction.
One of the largest problems I see in higher education is the tenure system. Basically, professors that show their value in the early year of their careers are rewarded with guaranteed lifetime employment. Academics are rewarded based off their past not what they can provide for the future. Anyone who works in the business world knows that employees are paid based off the present value of future cash flows they can provide to the employer. For instance, professors are paid based on many factors like research, teaching, and service. No doubt that some of the highest paid members of a college (besides athletic coaches) are the most prolific professors. What seems evident to me however is that research and teaching are very different. It is rare to find a professor that is both prolific in research and a quality teacher. In terms of research professors are rewarded more for publishing their research in a top journal as opposed to a second or third rate journal. This is interesting college is a place to educate people. How does research a professor does enhance student learning? People could say, “Well it makes the professor on top of his field”. The articles academics publish are not meant for the lay person. Sometimes even other academics don’t fully grasp the articles. So why is research rewarded if it doesn’t pass on knowledge to students? Public schools put more pressure on professors to publish and in some ways are more like research institutions. Private schools on the other hand don’t emphasize research as much and focus more on the quality of the teaching. Teaching should be compensated since that is essentially is what the school is providing. If schools want researchers they should just pay them to research but not force them to teach courses. Allowing professors who are good at teaching to just teach is a good idea. The school would allow professors to use their comparative advantage (research or teach) which would make everyone better off.

One no brainer for some departments in higher education is to privatize them. Departments could get sponsorship from corporations or private donors, and rely less on the school (or taxpayers if it is a public school). If companies really wanted to they could even form partnerships with schools and work with researchers. The problem is too many universities have departments that have little to no value. So many people go through college and get a degree but never end up using that degree.

Getting rid of the tenure system would be a great idea. One common argument about tenure is academic freedom. This is the argument that professor should be free to tell students their thoughts even if the subject is controversial. This argument really doesn’t make much sense given many subjects are not subjective. For instance, how political can a math professor get over 2 + 2 = 4? Also students usually pick universities that have similar values. So if student A is conservative he most likely isn’t going to pick a school that is liberal. Although, even within conservative schools certain departments usually have the same political orientation. Also, students are usually perceptive in how the teacher acts. Often they will tell their friends about a crazy professor who rambles on about things that have nothing to do with the subject. In a more free market approach schools if they wanted to could randomly record lectures of professors to see what exactly they were telling students. Parents should also be allowed to see what professors are teaching their students (since usually they are the ones paying). In a market setting people get to see what they pay for. College seems to be different. Somehow it seems as if people wonder through college take classes and get a degree. However, many courses in college a student ultimately never uses. College is useful in teaching people how to have some discipline, working in groups, and networking. Too much money is spent on education for things that have little to do with educational outcome. Parents and students rightfully complain about college costs. Colleges decide to build brand new facilities even though it is unlikely that it will increase student knowledge and expanding existing facilities would be much cheaper. Dorms today look like hotel rooms compared to the dorms of yesteryear.

Higher education needs market intervention. Allowing colleges to think more like businesses is a step in the right direction. Departments should have to justify why they need to spend money on X. Funding from donors, corporations, and foundations would also be beneficial. Another great idea would be to get the government out of funding college education. Truly private markets provide what employers, students, and parents would want. One problem I have is when career centers of colleges show statistics of how much students make when they get out of school. However, often what people really care about is how well they are doing over a period of time. A better study would be to look at students that graduated, their GPA, and to see how well they are doing now. Someone could land that first job, but then quit or be fired so that really doesn’t tell us much about long term employment prospects. What I find interesting is that people often graduate high school and then go to college. I would be curious to see what would happen if people graduated high school worked for a few years to not only save money but build some maturity skills of living in the real world.