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发帖数: 29846 | 1 大学文科文凭泡沫：过去25年，美国大学就学人数增加了50%，但理工科（科学，技术
，工程和数学）毕业生人数和25年相比几乎没有变化
Tuning In to Dropping Out
By Alex Tabarrok
Rick Scott, Florida's governor, created a firestorm recently when he
suggested that Florida ought to focus more of its education spending on
science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and less on liberal
arts. Scott got this one right: We should focus higher-education dollars on
the fields most likely to benefit everyone, not just the students who earn
the degrees. Scott, however, missed another part of the equation: We need to
focus more attention on the students who are being left behind, the
millions of college and high-school dropouts.
Over the past 25 years, the total number of students in college has
increased by about 50 percent. But the number of students graduating with
degrees in STEM subjects has remained more or less constant.
Consider computer technology. In 2009 the United States graduated 37,994
students with bachelor's degrees in computer and information science. That's
not bad, but we graduated more students with computer-science degrees 25
years ago!
The story is the same in other technology fields such as chemical
engineering, math, and statistics. Few disciplines have changed as much in
recent years as microbiology, but in 2009 we graduated just 2,480 students
with bachelor's degrees in microbiology—about the same number as 25 years
ago. Who will solve the problem of antibiotic resistance?
If students aren't studying science, technology, engineering, and math, what
are they studying?
In 2009 the United States graduated 89,140 students in the visual and
performing arts, more than in computer science, math, and chemical
engineering combined and more than double the number of visual-and-
performing-arts graduates in 1985.
There is nothing wrong with the arts, psychology, and journalism, but
graduates in these fields have lower wages and are less likely to find work
in their fields than graduates in science and math. Moreover, more than half
of all humanities graduates end up in jobs that don't require college
degrees, and those graduates don't get a big income boost from having gone
to college.
Most important, graduates in the arts, psychology, and journalism are less
likely to create the kinds of innovations that drive economic growth.
Economic growth is not the only goal of higher education, but it is one of
the main reasons taxpayers subsidize higher education through direct
government college support, as well as loans, scholarships, and grants. The
potential wage gains for college graduates is reason enough for students to
pursue a college education. We add subsidies to the mix, however, because we
believe that education has positive spillover benefits for society. One of
the biggest of those benefits is the increase in innovation that highly
educated workers theoretically bring to the economy.
Thus, an argument can be made for subsidizing students in fields with
potentially large spillovers, such as microbiology, chemical engineering,
and computer science. But there is little justification for subsidizing
sociology, dance, and English majors.
The obsessive focus on a college degree has served neither taxpayers nor
students well. Only 35 percent of students starting a four-year degree
program will graduate within four years, and less than 60 percent will
graduate within six years. Students who haven't graduated within six years
probably never will. The U.S. college dropout rate is about 40 percent, the
highest college dropout rate in the industrialized world. That's a lot of
wasted resources. Students with two years of college education may get
something for those two years, but it's less than half of the wage gains
from completing a four-year degree. No degree, few skills, and a lot of debt
is not an ideal way to begin a career.
College dropouts are telling us that college is not for everyone. Neither is
high school. In the 21st century, an astounding 25 percent of American men
do not graduate from high school. A big part of the problem is that the
United States has paved a single road to knowledge, the road through the
classroom. "Sit down, stay quiet, and absorb. Do this for 12 to 16 years,"
we tell the students, "and all will be well." Lots of students, however,
crash before they reach the end of the road. Who can blame them? Sit-down
learning is not for everyone, perhaps not even for most people. There are
many roads to an education.
Consider those offered in Europe. In Germany, 97 percent of students
graduate from high school, but only a third of these students go on to
college. In the United States, we graduate fewer students from high school,
but nearly two-thirds of those we graduate go to college. So are German
students poorly educated? Not at all.
Instead of college, German students enter training and apprenticeship
programs—many of which begin during high school. By the time they finish,
they have had a far better practical education than most American students—
equivalent to an American technical degree—and, as a result, they have an
easier time entering the work force. Similarly, in Austria, Denmark, Finland
, the Netherlands, Norway, and Switzerland, between 40 to 70 percent of
students opt for an educational program that combines classroom and
workplace learning.
In the United States, "vocational" programs are often thought of as programs
for at-risk students, but that's because they are taught in high schools
with little connection to real workplaces. European programs are typically
rigorous because the training is paid for by employers who consider
apprentices an important part of their current and future work force.
Apprentices are therefore given high-skill technical training that combines
theory with practice—and the students are paid! Moreover, instead of
isolating teenagers in their own counterculture, apprentice programs
introduce teenagers to the adult world and the skills, attitudes, and
practices that make for a successful career.
Elites frown upon apprenticeship programs because they think college is the
way to create a "well-rounded citizenry." So take a look at the students in
Finland, Sweden, or Germany. Are they not "well rounded"? The argument that
college creates a well-rounded citizen can be sustained only by defining
well rounded in a narrow way. Is someone who can quote from the school of
Zen well rounded? Only if they can also maintain a motorcycle. Well-
roundedness comes not from sitting in a classroom but from experiencing the
larger world.
The focus on college education has distracted government and students from
apprenticeship opportunities. Why should a major in English literature be
subsidized with room and board on a beautiful campus with Olympic-size
swimming pools and state-of-the-art athletic facilities when apprentices in
nursing, electrical work, and new high-tech fields like mechatronics are
typically unsubsidized (or less subsidized)? College students even get
discounts at the movie theater; when was the last time you saw a discount
for an electrical apprentice?
Our obsessive focus on college schooling has blinded us to basic truths.
College is a place, not a magic formula. It matters what subjects students
study, and subsidies should focus on the subjects that matter the most—not
to the students but to everyone else. The high-school and college dropouts
are also telling us something important: We need to provide opportunities
for all types of learners, not just classroom learners. Going to college is
neither necessary nor sufficient to be well educated. Apprentices in Europe
are well educated but not college schooled. We need to open more roads to
education so that more students can reach their desired destination.
Alex Tabarrok is a professor of economics and a research fellow with the
Mercatus Center at George Mason University, as well as research director of
the Independent Institute. He is the author of the new e-book Launching the
Innovation Renaissance (TED Books), from which this article was drawn. |
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