dagblog - Comments for "The Business of Universities"

Excellent piece. I especially

acanuck — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 22:37:55 +0000

In reply to The Business of Universities

Excellent piece. I especially like your suggested advertising slogan: "Princeton: Where We Disabuse You of Your Less Realistic Dreams." It might work as an actual ad (assuming that Princeton does need to adverise).

Things have changed a bit at

Nebton — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:24:46 +0000

In reply to I'm a humanities guy, Nebbie.

Things have changed a bit at Georgia Tech since I was an undergraduate (these were the times before US News & World Reports created their coveted rankings which factored in such things as graduation rates), but I still remember this speech at orientation:

Only about a third of our incoming students graduate from here. So, look to your left. Look to your right. If one of them graduates, you won't.

I feel sorry for those two people…

I'm a humanities guy, Nebbie.

Doctor Cleveland — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:13:05 +0000

In reply to I agree, but actually at most

I'm a humanities guy, Nebbie. The only math I did in college involved iambic pentameter. So joke all you want; I'm at peace with it.

And yeah, Georgia Tech, like other A-list technical schools, doesn't fit my model because you can't switch to majoring in history. But Georgia Tech has already pre-sorted its students through its admissions process, so everybody has the same core skill set. I was thinking of schools where you've got a range of majors and a range of students with different aptitudes; in that environment, you don't want to wash kids out, so much as to nudge them toward something that's a better fit. (And now that I think of it, I can recall one person who was told, at an Ivy League college, that he shouldn't major in English because he was probably better at other things.)

I agree, but actually at most

Nebton — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:47:00 +0000

In reply to Well, okay, Genghis, I

I agree, but actually at most places washout courses are discipline-specific. Princeton isn't interested in washing any of their new undergraduates out of college; they spent too much time and money admitting the class, and the insanely difficult admissions process at elite places means that the students come, er, pre-washed. But they are interested in washing them out of certain fields; if someone thinks s/he wants to be an engineer, but doesn't want to put in the work, the sooner they figure that out the better.

At Georgia Tech (my undergraduate school), there weren't too many disciplines you could switch to if you decided you weren't cut out to be an engineer. At least, not too many disciplines you could switch to that were signficantly less rigorous. There was the exception, however—Management and Management "Science". Switching to one of those majors was known as "taking the M-train". (We had a lot of fun names for various disciplines: IE, or industrial engineering, was known as imaginary engineering as it had very little to do with what most would consider actual engineering; Architecture was known as Architorture, for obvious reasons.)

P.S. What's your discipline anyway? I hope I'm not stomping on any toes! (I still remember my dad telling me about agricultural engineering, which I then made fun of before he had a chance to tell me that was his undergraduate major! I'm a little too quick with a joke sometimes.)

Yeah, Nebbie, it's true. But

Doctor Cleveland — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:43:11 +0000

In reply to I second Genghis' comments

Yeah, Nebbie, it's true. But I was leaving the knowledge economy and the relative emphasis on teaching and research for other posts.

Well, okay, Genghis, I

Doctor Cleveland — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:34:15 +0000

In reply to The Business of Universities

Well, okay, Genghis, I glossed over the business/foundation distinction, mostly for rhetorical purposes. But thanks for dealing with my larger point, than even a non-profit foundation has economically rational behavior. And I would say that this goes on most levels, although I chose the Ivies as an illustration.

As for building booms: it's true it's part of a competition for the best students. But it's also part of the logic of being an administrator. Upgrading the campus is something that's easier for administrators to control, and easier for them to take credit for, than a series of small improvements inside the classroom. What goes on inside classrooms can only be influenced indirectly, with pretty blunt instruments, and if somehow a university president managed to get 15% better teaching out of the whole faculty, it would be hard for people to see exactly how s/he contributed to that.

@Nebbie- I agree, but actually at most places washout courses are discipline-specific. Princeton isn't interested in washing any of their new undergraduates out of college; they spent too much time and money admitting the class, and the insanely difficult admissions process at elite places means that the students come, er, pre-washed. But they are interested in washing them out of certain fields; if someone thinks s/he wants to be an engineer, but doesn't want to put in the work, the sooner they figure that out the better. Students don't get washed out of the humanities or social sciences, usually. because a lot of those students can be trusted to switch to something more lucrative somewhere down the line. (If most of your anthropology students end up lawyers or TV execs, that's fine.)

But the elite places also sometimes put up a high bar for arts classes. A friend of mine who used to teach creative writing at an Ivy-league school was recently talking about how students had to apply for fiction-writing classes. He and a colleague would get 400 applications a semester, with writing samples, for 60 places. My friend found this shocking and joyless, and was startled that his students treated the process as completely normal. And I heard what my friend was saying, but I also thought: that school wants its students to know how hard it is to be a writer. They're interested in sorting out the future writers who are willing to work hard and compete and audition from the people who would like to be writers but won't hang in there when it gets tough.

I second Genghis' comments

Nebton — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:32:00 +0000

In reply to The Business of Universities

I second Genghis' comments that the alumni-as-customers is a very insightful way of thinking about the University business-model (or foundation-model, whatever). It does explain the presence of "weed out" courses at the Freshman (or "First year" if you're at UVA) level in universities. They don't want to waste time on students who won't be successful alumni.

That said, I think you're glossing over something mighty big when you choose to ignore research grants as customers. Much of the dissatisfaction with Universities is with how professors favor research over teaching. Of course, I know you know this. Perhaps you weren't glossing over it because you felt it was unimportant but because you realize it's obvious and wanted to tackle the less obvious (to many of us) emphasis on pleasing alumni.

I don't think that the word

Michael Wolraich — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 04:24:47 +0000

In reply to The Business of Universities

I don't think that the word "business" means what you think it means. An organization that lives off donations is not a business, it's a foundation. The most successful foundations are not those that do the best work but those that raise the most money. Nonetheless, I find your core position that top universities' core customers are alumni to be profound and insightful. My preppie liberal arts college tracks me wherever I go and arranges for friends of mine to call me up and ask for donations. (By contrast, I also studied in the UK, but my government-funded British university only sent lame donation requests and long ago lost track of me completely.)

Your argument also answers a question that has been bugging me--why does my alma mater relentlessly upgrade facilities that don't require upgrading. I'm sure that the new library will be nicer than the old library, but the old library is only 40 years old. Does it really have to be replaced already? I figured that the college just had too much money on its hands, but your post adds some complexity to that thought. The colleges and universities are competing for the top students in order to cultivate the top alumni donors. In order to compete, they need "state of the art" facilities to demonstrate how superior they are.

The result, unfortunately, are luxurious but inefficient institutions caught in a never-ending race to be more luxurious than the competition.

PS Needless to say, I'm not a very desirable alum.