1. From Inside Higher Ed:
The Maryland Higher Education Commission is cracking down on institutions that provide distance education to students in the state. But the commission has a problem: It doesn’t know who those distance education providers are.
The commission last month fired off letters addressed to presidents and provosts of institutions that offer fully online programs (seen at the bottom of this article), asking them to self-report if they enroll students in Maryland.
“As of July 1, 2012, higher education institutions offering fully online education to Maryland residents must submit an application to register with the Maryland Higher Education Commission,” the letter reads. “A review of the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System has revealed that in 2012 your institution offered fully online programs and enrolled Maryland residents. If any of your current students are Maryland residents and are enrolled in fully online programs, the aforementioned regulation applies to your institution.”
2. The Washington Post reports,
The University of Maryland wants to build an 11-story, $115 million luxury hotel and conference center across from its main entrance in College Park.
The connection I would make is that both stories indicate the priority that Maryland’s state higher education authorities place on education.
If you keep this up, Arnold, you might become cynical. I am sure these higher education officials have only the best of intentions.
What are the obligations of those who control the functioning of institutions of “Higher Education?”
To whom, and for what benefits, do those obligations run?
Sometimes I wonder if the libertarian right insistence on absolutely no cronyism/corporatism/unions/etc isn’t ultimately self-defeating. I don’t know about a university getting into the hotel business, but there are worse things than more education for a society to spend resources on. Is it really so horrible that so much money is spent on education? Should the money instead go to more televisions, more vacations, more junk food? Shouldn’t more money be spent on education as society generates more wealth? And what’s wrong with teachers or taxi unions? Are teachers and taxi drivers so outrageously overpaid? Once you destroy all the buttresses supporting middle class society, including civil society institutions like schools and unions, all that’s left are billionaires and their cheap immigrant labor. Good luck creating a functioning society out of that. “First destroy all the institutions” is not a workable political philosophy.
I don’t see anyone saying that “we” should spend less money on education, only that “we” should spend less public money on luxury hotels and that we should stop building silly barriers to entry into the education business.
I also don’t see anyone saying that teachers are overpaid per se, some of us do think that they, on average, are overpaid with respect to the value they provide but the solution we favour is not necessarily one in which they would (on average) be paid less but rather one in which they would (on average) provide more value. On the contrary, lots of us think that GOOD teachers should be paid more than they are today
You seem to be assuming that more spending on education actually results in more actual education. If you look at education achievement vs. education spending over the last forty years or so, that assumption seems….dubious. One has gone way up and the other has not. No points for guessing which is which.
Secondly, you’re also assuming that the choice is between spending on education and spending on recreation. I don’t think that’s the relevant comparison here. How much, as a percentage of their total income, does the average family really spend on vacations and tv? Probably not that much. Flat screens and cable packages are pretty cheap these days. Flying is cheaper than ever.
Probably the relevant trade off is actually healthcare, considering the way Medicare and Medicaid spending are growing.
I’m not assuming that more spending equals more education. In fact, I’m pretty sure that no innovations of any kind will change outcomes, which is why I’m more or less satisfied with the status quo.
But I don’t see why the futility hypothesis argues for less spending on education. Flying in first class won’t increase my test scores or income, but I still prefer it to the alternative. Many parents understand that Johnny probably won’t ever understand calculus, but they still want him to have the best teachers and schools, and more importantly, the best classmates. School is not ultimately about education, although there are plenty of aspies on the internet who seem to think it is. Nobody got laid attending a MOOC.
You are lapsing into incoherence. Was that your plan?
Flying first class is simply not analogous to wasting money on education. For starters, you’re paying with your own money, and the tangible benefits (wider, cushier seats, more leg room, better food and beverages) accrue directly to you. Money spent on education is largely other people’s money, and the benefits do not accrue directly to either you or me. They probably won’t even benefit little Johnny that much. Instead, they’ll mostly benefit school employees. Sorry, but governments have a moral obligation to spend public money wisely and in such a way as to create tangible benefits for the people whose money is being spent. Simply handing it over to the education bureaucracy because it makes people such as yourself feel good doesn’t count in my book.
Furthermore, you’re neglecting opportunity costs. Every dollar of wasteful education spending is a dollar we don’t have to spend on something that actually generates long term benefits.
The gleaming local high school, with the six tennis courts, two baseball fields, olympic size pool, and football field all look like “tangible benefits” to me. I know it’s fashionable to bash teachers, but plenty of parents prefer that their children be taught by high quality teachers, regardless of test scores. Maybe there is opportunity cost, but what would that be? It seems we have a surfeit of crap, if the alternative is more spending on schools, many, many parents vote for schools.
I wonder what is Arnold’s point. Isn’t it understood that, in a free market aka capitalist economy, an organization should protect its market share? Moreover, should it believe that another industry is more attractive, shouldn’t it try to move into it? You dont need to be a tenured professor (but it helps) to understand that education has limited profit and growth potentials, that luxury hotels are a much more efficient use of your resources? If General Electric went into finance, if Sony became a Hollywood entertainment giant, what is the problem with a Maryland school trying to put down a foot in the luxury hotel business? Are you a communist?!?
I assume you meant this comment as satire. The University of Maryland is neither private nor profit-seeking. If it were, then I would trust its decisions about how to deploy capital.