We have been molded from the age of five to have the
mindset of wanting to attend a college or university be our priority. Our
parents and teacher have implemented such mentality that the percentage of
college graduates has increased by forty-one percent. As more students are
seeking higher education, colleges and universities are taking the opportunity
to benefit more financially. As Hacker and Dreifus state in Are Colleges Worth
the Price of Admission! “higher education has become a colossus-a $420 billion
industry.” The integrity of providing an excellent education for students is no
longer a college/university goal. Instead, they are thinking in a business
prospective, how they could improve their business. From less rigorous
curriculums to higher tuition prices, the universities have shaped the way
students think of educations. Students are now consumers and university
presidents are CEOs supervising the complexes of the college experience. To pay
for that experience, students are taking out an average of about thirty
thousand dollars in student loans. The overall student debt in the US has now
exceeded one trillion dollars.
One
of the first problems of the higher education institutions system are the
professors who have no motive to improve their teaching because they are
tenured. As exemplified recently, students pay high tuition to get the education
for their future jobs. Thus they expect that their professors will provide the
adequate learning needed, which is not always the case. Many professors in
higher education institutions are tenured meaning that their job position will
still be safe. By having professors job secured for the rest of their teaching
career, it has shown that they are less motivated to provide the adequate
education that their students are paying. Students no longer are getting their
tuition worth if professors do not want to share their knowledge and wisdom
needed for students to use in their future jobs.
Hacker and Dreifus projected the idea that
college/universities shouldn’t be a “spin-off” of medical schools, research
centers, and institutes because it takes away time from the other faculties
members to teach. I must disagree with Hacker and Dreifus on this point because
if students are paying over thirty-thousands dollars for their education and be
in debt for many years, the higher education institutions should be able to
provide many resources such as clinical shadowing and research opportunities.
Students learn the most when they are hands-on because they can visually see
what they have learned could be applied to. Gaining this hands-on experience
will also help the students in their future jobs because most likely they will
have to perform a research study or be familiar with a specific technique.
Also, through these opportunities, the student can build connections that will
be useful in getting a letter of recommendation when applying to graduate
school or a job as it adds more value to the application.
As a first-year college student, I can
attest that I have seen how a higher education institution is a business. Some
professors are overworked with a full schedule for the institution to not
higher another professor, which impacts the student learning as I see students
like me not being able to attend office hours because of the minimal amount
offered throughout the week. Also, there is the situation where they force you
to take certain classes that do not pertain to your major. At the beginning of
the semester I was assigned a particular class that had no relation to my
major, and the counselor insisted that I should take it because it was easy A. Yes,
I could have earned a “free” A, but why waste my time and money on a class that
I will not need in the near future. By taking that class I was delaying myself
from being able to advance in the main courses required for my major and
putting myself in the position of owning more money to the school.
Higher education should not be a business;
it should be a place where students who are eager to obtain a profession get
the knowledge and practice needed to achieve higher job position in the future
with financial stability. Higher education institutions should be more focused
on the education provided not the checks receiving.
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