The Commodification of Education

I'm a teacher.  A college teacher.  Every day, or just about every day, I am engaged in the dissemination and creation of knowledge.  I put dissemination first because, as a teacher, whatever knowledge I create is often (not always) bound up in the process of disseminating knowledge to, or provoking knowledge in, my students.  It's a good gig.

But it is not my job to get my students jobs.  I say this because, apparently, some people out there think that I, and my colleagues, should somehow be held responsible if our students do not get jobs.  This, at least, is the message in an op-ed by conservative blogger Glenn Reynolds (I usually ignore Reynolds as just another right-wing ideologue, but this argument requires some response...) (HT Sullivan) .  In regard to the growing problem of student debt, which I recognize as a problem, he writes:       

Student loans, if they are to continue, should be made dischargeable in bankruptcy after five years -- but with the school that received the money on the hook for all or part of the unpaid balance.

In other words, if students have not been able to find sufficient employment to pay off their college debt five years after they graduate, the school should be responsible for some portion of that debt.

This assumes that the primary purpose of a college education is to secure post-graduate employment and a certain level of salary and benefits.  But that is not the purpose of a college education.  The purpose of a college education is to further one's education, plain and simple.  What a student does with that education is not the responsibility of the teacher.  Confucius understood this:

The Master said: "I never instruct those who aren't full of passion, and I never enlighten those who aren't struggling to explain themselves.

"If I show you one corner and you can't show me the other three, I'll say nothing more.  7.8

Students, by these lights, must take responsibility for their education.  A teacher can, to use a different metaphor, open the door, but the student has to walk through.  If the student does not take the initiative, then learning will not happen.  Period.  And the teacher is not responsible for whether the learning actually happens or not.  We make learning possible, we cannot guarantee its accomplishment.  We can show one corner, but the student has to show the other three...

Similarly, what a student does with his or her knowledge (assuming he or she has gained some) after college is beyond the duties of the teacher. The teacher must strive to teach well but he or she is powerless to effectuate actual knowledge within the student or to shape the student's memory and use of the knowledge in the future. 

Now, it is true that higher education tends to provide people with intellectual skills that can yield relatively high earnings in the future.  But that is not our purpose, especially at a liberal arts college like the one that employs me. I never think about how my classes might be directly useful to jobs after college.  Indeed, when I teach ancient Chinese philosophy, my mind is far, far away from such instrumentalist concerns.  I am not producing a commodity that can produce a certain exchange value.  I am engendering an understanding of texts and ideas in and of themselves. 

Of course, colleges will, for recruitment purposes, endlessly promote the argument that a degree is an economically useful thing, leading to higher salaries, etc.  That same argument is used to justify high costs of college education.  And that's bad.  The materialist promotion of liberal arts is an effect of the broader society in which we are embedded, a society that demands that just about everything be justified in materialist terms.  I, for one, am happy to ignore all that, and simply assert that knowledge has its own rewards.  I am a fervent defender of the useless. And, yes, I know, it's easy to say that when someone is paying me to be, effectively, useless....

Daoist irony aside, while there is plenty of knowledge that is instrumentally useful, and that knowledge can be found in college curricula, we must be accepting and protective of knowledge - like ancient Chinese philosophy! - that is not useful.  If we were to descend into complete instrumentalism we would lose much that is essential to humanity.

Finally, exorbitant college costs are a major problem.  Prohibitively high tuition is an obstacle to learning, excluding good students from the opportunity to learn.  Confucius recognizes this:

The Master said: "I never refuse to teach anyone, not even those so lowly they come offering nothing more but a few strips of dried meat."  7.7

So, yes, debt-free financial aid must be more widely available.  This doesn't mean, though, that we should make colleges, and teachers, responsible for the post-graduate employment and salary of their students.  How about going back to the not so old idea of progressive taxation to support public goods like access to education generally?  I suspect Confucius, and especially Mencius, would be open to that idea.  Reynonlds, not so much...

Comments

[Deirdre Garrity Heilbron]

Sam: When we went to freshman orientation meetings at Boston College in September 2009 one of the speakers, Michael Hynes, SJ spoke about what parents should expect from a college education. He made three points: higher education is a rigorous and sustained conversation about questions of human existence among the widest possible circle of the best conversational partners. It is NOT about getting a job or a six figure income. The student's part is to pick conversational partners wisely, to participate and to ask 'why'. While I wanted to give him a standing ovation, his words were met with stunned silence.

[TFF]

Indeed, education is an ongoing conversation about Human existence which basically equates to how "I," "we," all of "us"- (Humanity)- belong to each other and thus the world. The "why" question emerges from our innate sense of wonder and the "what is" question points to our fundamental urge to survive and flourish, "I'm here, so let's go and create beauty...until I'm 'totally used up.' (GBS)
...Death, then is the great equalizer. The depth of one's particular awareness of her/his own mortality throughout this dramatic conversation, as well as one's openness to it (death), determines the depth of one's life and identity....

[Sam]

Wow. There is a beautiful convergence here. Tracy went to BC. Perhaps she knows Fr. Hynes. And Deirdre is from Rye, where Tracy's husband, Joe is from. And I am from Rye and now live in Williamstown, as does Tracy. And we are all in fundamental agreement. Way is vast.... And Jesuits understand education...

[gar]

Wisdom vs Training

I was trained to "be a welder" a role that provided financial security. A lifestyle that provided access to divergent perceptions. And a fortunate long life to appreciate, cause and effect, and the root of emptiness.

in peace,
gar