Page 118 - Crisis in Higher Education

90 • Crisis in Higher Education

to less expensive contractual faculty and, second, by providing a mecha-
nism for students to impact course content and academic standards.
A better approach would have course content set by tenured and profes-
sional faculty in close cooperation with organizations that hire graduates. For
example, business programs would rely on the needs of manufacturing and
service firms to set accounting or finance curriculum, engineering programs
would meet the requirements of professional engineering examinations and
the needs of engineering design firms, and premedicine programs would
consider admission standards for medical schools as well as the content of the
Medical College Admission Test (MCAT). Student evaluation should be used
to assess elements of the classroom experience, including what tools students
need to make learning faster and easier. Evaluation of faculty performance
should emphasize things that students can assess such as whether faculty
members prepared for class and whether they treat students with respect.
The following bullet points examine the impact of root cause 8, “Eroding
Standards,” on the underlying problems listed in Table 4.3.

• Problem 1. Cost: No change.
• Problem 2. Quality decreases: As standards decline, the quality of
education suffers.
• Problem 3. Access: No change.
• Problem 4. Graduation rate increases: As standards are reduced,
graduation rates may actually increase, which addresses this under-
lying problem in a way that ultimately harms students and the com-
panies that hire them.
• Problem 5. Completion time decreases: As standards are reduced,
completion times may actually decrease as students learn less.
• Problem 6. Job placement decreases: Graduates with insufficient edu-
cation may not find or keep good employment. They may find jobs
that are outside of their field of study and pay less.

4.11 HOW LACK OF STUDENT PREPARATION (ROOT
CAUSE 9) AFFECTS THE UNDERLYING PROBLEMS

Lack of preparation may be the most difficult root cause to address because
higher education has as its inputs graduates from primary and secondary
schools. This problem is acute in large urban schools and some rural areas,