President Barack Obama has proposed a plan of “performance-based higher education funding.”
He wants to “grade” colleges and universities, including law schools, on affordability, graduation rates and the earnings of their graduates. This sounds good, but upon closer examination, it is clear that this would be a disaster.
It is impossible to compare American colleges and universities because they serve so many different constituencies.
Some help students work their way through school; they are ideal for children from lower-income families.
Berea College in Kentucky even requires students to work on campus, in return for which they pay no tuition. Berea admits only students from relatively low-income families.
How can anyone compare them to students attending Occidental College, Columbia University and Harvard Law School?
Clearly, students who have to work their way through college or graduate school are less likely to graduate. If they do obtain a degree, they frequently take longer to complete their studies. Why? Because it is very hard to juggle a job, school and, often, a family life.
I enormously admire my students in the evening division of The John Marshall Law School. They work all day and grab a sandwich on their way to a 6 o’clock class, then get home late and get up the next day to do it all over again. Some have to drop out or at least take longer to get their law degrees.
I also admire the female students with small children who must take fewer courses and thus take longer to obtain a J.D. Some of them also work for their tuition and living expenses.
I am proud that John Marshall has always facilitated education for working students and students with heavy family obligations.
Does Obama understand that the low-income students on Pell Grants and similar programs must work and often drop out? Under his plan, a college that accepts students on such programs will suffer under his “grading system.”
The worst part of his plan is the proposal to rate institutions on how much their graduates earn. How plutocratic can we get?
A college that produces graduates who become financiers on Wall Street will “look good” in comparison with a college that produces teachers in inner-city schools — or community organizers, as Obama once was.
In the 38½ years I have taught at John Marshall, I have seen many of “my alumni” find careers in relatively low-paying government jobs, such as assistant state’s attorneys.
Others, especially racial minorities or those from ethnic immigrant communities, open solo practices in the neighborhoods from which they came. Surely they are providing a great service.
Are they to be less valued than the graduates of elite law schools who earn a million dollars a year as partners in corporate law firms?
Let me relate an anecdote: In 1926, William Penn College in Iowa admitted a penniless Armenian refugee who knew very little English.
For four years he worked his way through school, and the college helped him do so. The college took a chance on Max B. Lousinian.
In 1931, he co-authored an article on the development of ethanol from cornstalks that was published in an international journal of chemistry and was one of the first treatments of that subject. Could a college take a chance on such a person under Obama’s plan?
There is a better way to address the problems of higher education.
As the president and vice president of the American Association of University Professors, Rudy Fichtenbaum and Hank Reichman have written Obama would help higher education more by trying to give every child better preparation for college and to help college students pay for their education.
Instead, he is setting up a “ratings game” among America’s institutions of higher education.