Tuesday, May 14, 2013

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE

From the Daily Beast.  A discussion of student debt and how it has a bigger impact at third and fourth tier institutions.  Online will not be the savior of weakening institutions. 

The colleges with the most to conceal tend to be expensive 2nd- and 3rd-tier private institutions. For instance, 85 percent of students from Ohio Northern graduated with debt averaging almost $49,000, while the median starting salary for graduates is just $44,800. Compare these figures with the statistics for Princeton, where the average debt is $5,225 for the 23 percent of graduates with any debt, while the median starting salary is $56,900.

Adjuncts anxious about job security have realized that giving higher grades improves their student evaluations, which often determine whether they remain employed. The “resortification” of colleges also encourages students to view themselves as customers, and instructors as retail workers employed to serve them. The A is now the most common grade on college campuses nationwide; it accounts for roughly 43 percents of all grades given. Meanwhile, results of the Collegiate Learning Assessment, a test used by more than 500 colleges to measure academic progress, reveal that 36 percent of students make absolutely no improvement in writing, complex reasoning, or critical thinking during four years of college.

No comments: