This week, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett announced his
second annual budget proposal.
Last year, he sparked a lot of controversy by proposing a 50% reduction
in state funding for Penn State.
This year, he proposes to cut the state appropriation to Penn State,
Pitt, and Temple by 30% and to the State System of Higher Education by
20%. The rationale is
straightforward: Pennsylvania
government is not generating enough revenue to fund at a higher level.
Certainly, the specific percentages will be subject to
negotiation over the next few months.
However, we can expect that the final number will still be a significant
reduction in state support. The
impact will be to further shift the cost of higher education from the taxpayer
to the individual student. This reinforces a fundamental question that has
underpinned much public discussion over the past decade: Is higher education a public good,
which enriches the entire community, or is it a private good, that primarily
benefits the individuals who attend and graduate?
The idea of higher education as a “private” good came into
focus for me recently, when a LinkedIn discussion quoted an institution that
had done an “ROI” report. It used
salary gains by alums as the primary measure of ROI, although it also noted the
positive economic impact on the local community in which the campus is
located. By using this approach, the institution
essentially bought into the idea that its value can be measured in terms of how
a student’s investment in tuition dollars is returned through increased
salary. It is the “private good”
argument.
However, it misses several important considerations. Prime among these is the fact that the student pays for only part of his/her education. The rest is paid by direct state appropriation and, increasingly, by state and federal student financial aid. The taxpayer has a huge investment in the education of each individual who graduates from a higher education institution in the United States. That includes for-profit institutions, which are at the very top of the pile of institutions that receive federal financial aid.
A second, perhaps less obvious factor is that a college
education is not meant simply to prepare one for a profession. The college curriculum has two distinct
components. One is the
upper-division professional component—the major and minor. The other is the general education
component. At most institutions,
this is the broad “liberal arts” curriculum that introduces students to the
culture in which they live, with the goal of preparing them to better
participate as a member of society.
To be sure, for some institutions this idea has eroded to become a
simplistic “distribution” curriculum that gives students a taste of the major
disciplines. However, other
institutions have taken care to ensure that their graduates are prepared to be
both citizens and professionals.
In 1948, as America was finding its way into a new world
order after two World Wars that effectively ended the social order that had
been set into motion by the Enlightenment and set the stage for a global
society and the Information Revolution, a Presidential Commission on Higher
Education issued a report, Higher
Education for American Democracy, which stated that “The crucial task for
higher education today . . . is to provide a unified general education for
American youth . . . General education should give the student the values,
attitudes, knowledge, and skills that will equip him to live rightly and well
in a free society” (quoted in Gail Kennedy, Education
for Democracy, 1952). The
Commission outlined eleven objectives for general education:
1. To
develop for the regulation of one’s personal and civic life a code of behavior
based on ethical principles consistent with democratic ideals.
2. To
participate actively as an informed and responsible citizen in solving the
social, economic, and political problems of one’s community, State, and Nation.
3. To
recognize interdependence of the different peoples of the world and one’s
personal responsibility for fostering international understanding and peace.
4. To
understand the common phenomena in one’s physical environment, to apply habits
of scientific thought to both personal and civic problems, and to appreciate
the implications of scientific discoveries for human welfare.
5. To
understand the ideas of others and to express one’s own effectively.
6. To
attain a satisfactory emotional and social adjustment.
7. To
maintain and improve [one’s] own health and to cooperate actively and
intelligently in solving community health problems.
8. To
understand and enjoy literature, art, music, and other cultural activities as
expressions of personal and social experience, and to participate to some
extent in some form of creative activity.
9. To
acquire the knowledge and attitudes basic to a satisfying family life.
10. To
choose a socially useful and personally satisfying vocation that will permit
one to use to the full[one’s] particular interests and abilities.
11. To
acquire and use the skills and habits involved in critical and constructive
thinking.
Today,
one can argue that the global Information Society requires a fresh assessment
of general education. Regardless,
institutions of higher education that rely on tax support need to articulate
how their curriculum helps advance the total society and not simply the careers
of individuals. We cannot walk away from our societal
mission just because times are tough.
Instead, we need to find new ways to express how we are engaged with
society and to communicate that to all of our stakeholders. The general education curriculum is one
component of that.
A strategic engagement initiative
should also include a strategy for engaging through outreach, research, and
technology transfer. It is time for
the academic community to look up and look out, beyond our campuses, and to
engage our institutions with the broader society that they serve.
