In Praise of American Higher Education

Blog: Leadership in Higher Education

These are macabre terms, filled with bad news. Nationally, the death toll from COVID-1 9 has passed 190, 000. Political polarization has reached record levels, with some students honestly panicking a fascist future for America. In my hometown of Portland, Oregon, we have been buffeted by business endings, murderou disagreements between protesters and police, and out of control wildfires that have killed an unknown number of our fellow citizens, destroyed over a thousand residences, and replenished our streets with fume. And in the higher education community, we are struggling. Our campuses are now COVID-1 9 hotspots, hundreds of institutions have implemented layoffs and furloughs impacting a reported 50,000 people, and many reporters foresee a ended financial meltdown for such sectors. As I started to write this paper, a friend expected: “Is there any good news to report? ”

In America today, we love to bash higher education. The negative drumbeat is incessant. Tuition, we examine, is too high. Students have to take too many lends. College does not prepare students for labor. Inequality and intolerance are widespread. Just look at recent journal titles: The Breakdown of Higher Education; Crisis in Higher Education; Intro to Failure; The Quiet Crisis, How Higher Education is Failing America; Higher Education under Fire; The Dream is Over; Cracks in the Ivory Tower, The Moral Mess of Higher Education; and The Coddling of the American Mind. Jeesh.

So, for good news today, I want to remind everyone that despite all the criticism, the United State possess a impressive higher education system. Yes, we have our problems, which we need to address. The government and our colleges and universities need to partner to expand access to college, make it more affordable, and decrease credit loads; we need to ensure that our students graduate with helpful job skills; we need to tackle inequality and systemic racism in admission, hiring, and school curricula. But let us not lose sight of the impressive things we have achieved, and the very real fortes our method possess- the very persuasiveness that will allow us to tackle and solve the problems we have identified. Consider the following table 😛 TAGEND

The United Position has, far and away, the largest number of great universities in all countries of the world. In the latest Times World University Rankings, the United Government is dominant, dominating fourteen of the top twenty universities in the world. These universities- regions like Yale, UC Berkeley, and Johns Hopkins- provision remarkable undergraduate and graduate educations combined with world-leading research outcomes. That reputation for greatnes has drawn the United District the international golden guideline for higher education.

We provide impressive price to our students. As a recent Brookings Institution report observed, “Higher education adds extensive an advantage to students, including higher wages, better state, and a lower likelihood of involving disorder remittances. A population that is more highly educated too confers wide-ranging benefits to the economy, such as lower rates of unemployment and higher wages even for proletarians without college degrees. A postsecondary degree can also serve as a buffer against unemployment during economic downturns. Those with postsecondary positions identified more steady employment through the Great Recession, and the largest part of net jobs created during the economic recovery went to college-educated workers.”

Our higher education capacity is massive. At last-place tally, roughly 20 million students are enrolled in college. This is one reason we are fourth( behind Canada, Japan, and South Korea) out of all OECD societies in higher education degree attainment, far ahead of people like Germany and France. If we believe that mass education is critical to the future of our economy and democracy, this high number- and the fact that most of our institutions could easily grow — should leave us great hope.

The United Commonwealth dominates global study( though China is gaining ). As The Economist were mentioned in 2018, “Since the first Nobel prizes were endowed in 1901, American scientists have won a whopping 269 honours in the fields of chemistry, physics and physiology or remedy. This dwarves the tallies of America’s nearest adversaries, Britain ( 89 ), Germany( 69) and France( 31 ). ” In a recent world standing of university invention- “a list that specifies and ranks the educational institutions doing the most to advance science, fabricate new information technologies and supremacy new sells and industries”- U.S. institutions grabbed eight out of the top ten distinguishes.

We possess an amazing network of society colleges offering very low cost, high quality foundational and continuing education to virtually every American. No matter where you live in the United States, a low-cost community college and a world of see is just a few miles away. This network plies a great foundation for our effort to expand financial opening and contact under-served populations. As Secretary of Education Arne Duncan formerly remarked, “About half of all first-generation college students and minority students attend parish colleges. It is a striking record. No other structure of higher education in the world does so much to provide access and second-chance openings as our community colleges.”

We are agile. Though higher education is often bashed for refusing to change, our capacity to do so is remarkable. When COVID-1 9 broke out in outpouring 2020, almost every U.S. college and university swiveled successfully to on-line education in a matter of weeks. Faculty, staff and administrators, often criticized for failing to work together, collectively made this happen overnight. Now , no matter what the future props, our colleges and universities have the ability to deliver education effectively through both traditional in-person and brand-new online examples.

We have a great tradition, starting with the G.I. Bill, of federal government support for college education. No one in Congress is calling for an end to Pell Grants, one of the few government programs to enjoy overwhelming bipartisan government support in this highly ruptured political age. Instead, the only question is the degree to which those concessions need to increase, and whether that grow should be linked to cost containment by practices or not. This footing of political approval is vital as we look to ways to expand college access and affordability.

Finally, we have amazing Historically Black Colleges and Universities, with excellent academic programs, excellent module, and proud histories. As the society begins to confront its history of racism and discrimination, these institutions ply a singular asset to help the nation come to terms with its past, furnish transformational education in the present, and move forward towards a better future.

So, as we go through tough times, and we continue to subject our institutions to needed or irreplaceable self-criticism, it is important to keep our disappointments and limitations in perspective. Yes, American higher education could be better. But it is remarkable, valuable, and praise-worthy all the same.

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