the valuation of higher education in Texas
Music: Death Cab for Cutie: Transatlanticism (2003)
Yesterday afternoon Texas Governor Rick Perry delivered his "State of the State" address. As expected, he downplayed the monumental budgetary crisis that his "fiscally conservative" administration incubated as an opportunity to make the state government more efficient. As the local NBC affiliate reported last night, cutting education funding was advanced as such an opportunity [play the video to the left].
That's right: he is calling for the University of Texas system to slash tuition by two-thirds so that students can get a bachelors degree for $10,000, inclusive of the cost textbooks. In the same speech, Perry reminded legislators of his 2009 charge that the regents should freeze tuition. Now, whereas the latter is in the realm of possibility, the $10,000 degree is unquestionably an ill-informed, stupid, and a manifestly impossible achievement; this is "political rhetoric" on a stick.
One obvious reason why the proposal is stupid: how does one insist the cost of education be capped, "inclusive of textbooks?" The book cost would have to be capped too. Insofar as the cost of books professors assign are determined by the market, not to mention the latest research and scholarly thought, capping their cost would be tantamount to monitoring what professors can assign. Such a logic is the market dictating speech, is it not? Such an approach is akin to the regulation of public education at primary and secondary levels, is it not? Will we have committees assembled to determine, for example, what books are appropriate for my celebrity culture class? I could go on, of course, but Republichristian politics has never been accused of advancing goals within the realm of possibility or reason (e.g., where's Jesus, anyway? I thought he was coming [back] any day now).
What is not impossible, and increasingly likely, is Perry's approach to higher education, which is clearly based on a "customer service" model. Knowing he would be pressed for answers to the "how?" question, Perry suggested that cheaper degrees can happen if state schools start offering more and more online courses (something that the UT provost is already pursuing here on the "40 acres"). Now, despite the fact that we know the state university system's budget is about to be slashed by double-digit percentages, we also know that what funding is left will be hitched to "outcome based" initiatives. The code for "outcomes based" in Texas differs at the primary, secondary, and higher education levels. At the primary and secondary level, "outcomes based" means standardized test scores. At the university level, however, "outcomes based" simply means the number of degrees awarded.
So, what we have proposed here is a perfect storm for increasingly poor quality high education: the funding is slashed by millions upon millions, a tuition freeze, and now the demand that universities produce more degrees. Sounds like a familiar motto of capitalism to me: do more with less!. To compound the issue, as I've blogged about previously, these "top-down" mandates are met "from below" by students who are increasingly feeling entitled to good grades because they "pay my salary" (again, no they don't). Finally, folks, we have the advent of trickle-up economics! Now that the primary and secondary educational system has been all but destroyed, the university gets it next. Whhhheeeeeeeeeeee!
In my book, the sure sign of a higher educational system headed toward disaster is the adoption of the for-profit university model (that is, online teaching). I'd like to say I'm optimistic, but I'm not. It sucks that President Powers is currently in the hospital and is not around to make a public statement against the new political economy of education. I'll be sure to remind my current students to embrace what they have, as they may be the last generation of students who gets a "real" education, where "real" means value in many, many ways . . . including blood, sweat, and flesh.