Walker Attending The Education Bubble

[Kathianne]

Does anyone not see him as presidential contender down the line?

http://blog.heritage.org/2012/07/05/morning-bell-governor-walker-breaks-new-ground-in-higher-ed/?roi=echo3-12479641793-9064558-4531c084dc9297e586900700ca283be5&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

Here's the conclusion, go read the article:


...Walker’s plan is a real solution to the problem of college affordability, cutting costs for the student and the taxpayer. The first-in-the-nation Flexible Degree Program is a great step toward giving all students their chance at the American Dream.

[Kathianne]

One of the reasons for higher ed bubble:

http://ricochet.com/main-feed/Grade-Inflation-Accreditation-in-Higher-Education


Grade Inflation & Accreditation in Higher Education

(http://ricochet.com/main-feed/Grade-Inflation-Accreditation-in-Higher-Education) Paul A. Rahe (http://ricochet.com/Profile/Paul-A.-Rahe) · 6 hours ago



When I returned from my sojourn at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland on Tuesday after having the catheter out the previous day, I found a pile of mail waiting for me – the usual bills, a get-well card from a kind nephew, and so forth. Among the items was an issue of Inside Academe, which is published by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA: www.goacta.org (http://www.goacta.org/)) – an outfit that serves a watchdog function with regard to the madness that has American higher education in its grip and that seeks to interest alumni and trustees in setting things straight.


On the third page was an article that caught my eye. It begins:

America’s higher-education accreditation system is broken. The current system – which forces schools to be certified by regional accreditors in order to receive federal money – was created to safeguard taxpayer dollars. But today it safeguards mediocrity and the status quo.

Once a school receives accreditation, it hardly ever loses that status, but new schools – especially innovative schools – often find it prohibitively difficult to obtain accreditation. The system misleads parents into believing that accreditation equals quality, and it wastes piles of money. Christopher Eisgruber, provost of Princeton University, testified that renewing accreditation can cost a single college or university over $1 million and hundreds of hours of staff time.



The claims advanced in these two paragraphs, in fact, understate the problem. The accreditation system was originally set up by colleges and universities with an eye to separating the sheep from the goats so that parents could have some idea of what they were getting into. The federal government had nothing to do with it. But the old order was hijacked a long time ago, and in the process yet another instrument was created for the micro-management by the federal government of entities that would not otherwise fall under its jurisdiction. The maneuver is simple. To get federal funding, a school must be accredited, and to get accreditation they must meet certain standards.


There are two things wrong with what goes on. The first is that the accrediting agencies are worse than useless. They are extremely intrusive and demand all sorts of data that the institutions must assiduously collect; they systematically ignore the deep-seated corruption that besets our colleges and universities; and they make everyone, including those of us who teach in the classroom, jump through ridiculous hoops.
Much could be said about this, but one issue can stand for all. In the last half-century, all but a few of American colleges and universities have, in effect, abandoned grading. Consider the history of grading (http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2012/05/todays-grade-inflated-lake-wobegon.html) at the University of Minnesota, which is one of the better state universities. As one observer puts it, “In 1960, the average undergraduate grade awarded in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota was 2.27 on a four-point scale (http://www.gradeinflation.com/Minnesota.html).,” and now 53% of the grades given are A’s.

In other words, the average letter grade at the University of Minnesota in the early 1960s was about a C+, and that was consistent with average grades at other colleges and universities in that era. In fact, that average grade of C+ (2.30-2.35 on a 4-point scale) had been pretty stable at America's colleges going all the way back to the 1920s (see chart above from GradeInflation.com (http://gradeinflation.com/), a website maintained by Stuart Rojstaczer, a retired Duke University professor who has tirelessly crusaded for several decades against "grade inflation" at U.S. universities).

By 2006, the average GPA at public universities in the U.S. had risen to 3.01 and at private universities to 3.30. That means that the average GPA at public universities in 2006 was equivalent to a letter grade of B, and at private universities a B+, and it's likely that grades and GPAs have continued to inflate over the last six years.



Since 1998, as Mark J. Perry points out, the average grade given in most classes taught at American colleges and universities has come to be an A. Witness the headline in the Twin Cities Star Tribune: "At U, concern grows that 'A' stands for average (http://www.startribune.com/local/154595855.html?page=all&prepage=2&c=y#continue)."

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