Make College Pay Off

Skills Versus Stuff #4: The Citizenship Vacuum

2010-03-18T04:53:00.002-04:00

Just about everyone laments over the vast majority of high school and college graduates who know very little about American government. Students do not know such facts as the number of Senators in the U.S. Senate, and they have little understanding of the broader organization of federal, state and local governments. Many also whine over the apathy that leads to low voter turnout and the selfish behavior of citizens at all levels and ranges of education, social statuses and political parties.

Plenty of blame exists to go around both within and outside the educational community, but let’s just focus on the academy. As is true in mathematics and English, professors of history, political science and other social sciences are more interested in making mini-experts out of their students rather than functional, participating citizens. The social science disciplines that compete for students cannot agree that learning about government is more important than learning the esoteric concepts of their disciplines. The fractured college curriculum has wrecked the high school curriculum because courses in psychology, sociology and anthropology have become alternatives to courses in government, economics or civics.

The community service and “do-good crowd,” to which I belong, frequently minimize the importance of governmental institutions. The left-wingers want to teach how government does bad things, and the right-wingers want students to recite the constitution. Neither care to help students understand what their rights and responsibilities are and how they can shape government policy in the public interest.

The students do not help in this very much. Most think government is boring, in part because it’s complex and confusing and in part because, well actually, it is pretty boring to worry about jurisdictions and legal details.

The media doesn’t help by focusing on conflict among politicians, elections as a big game and the sex lives of the politicians. In addition to creating cynicism, the media fills the minds of people with minutia that crowds out the basic fundamentals of government and ultimately the exercise of reason.

Filling the citizenship vacuum requires providing students with the basic skills necessary to understand how government affects them and how they can participate in government. For students to see the need for government, the ways in which government can solve or at least ameliorate societal problems and how policy is made, they need a host of skills that are in short supply among our high school and college graduates. Among these skills are attention to detail, information gathering and evaluation skills, a problem-solving approach and the ability to work with and influence people. With these skills, students will be ready to interpret the constitution, case studies on governmental decisions and current policy debates.

Choosing a Graduate School

2010-02-28T09:26:00.000-05:00

See my blog in Ron Culp’s blog on hire learning. It will give you a quick checklist that will save you time and money in achieving your career goals through some graduate education.

A Memo for College Freshman: Envision Now a Job-Getting Resume When You Graduate

2010-02-09T04:02:00.001-05:00

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a vision.” This anonymous quote is great advice for college students, especially freshmen who don’t want to end up working three part-time jobs and living at home after graduation.

Envision what your resume will look like before the end of your freshman year. Planning and taking action to launch yourself toward a rewarding career, without being sure what that career will be, needs to start now.

I know this from my experience with more than 1,500 students whom I have advised at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University over the past 40 years. One of them Sarah, started in her freshman year getting a job in an academic office and taking a leadership role on her residence hall floor. She took a series of skills courses that gave her the ability to use data analysis software. She obtained an internship between her freshman and sophomore year that is usually reserved for rising seniors. She became president of her sorority and then leader of the campus wide organization of Greeks. All of this enabled her to land a high paying summer internship between her junior and senior year. The company that gave her the internship hired her in October of her senior year. I have seen similar results, perhaps not as spectacular, with 20 or 30 students each year who have seen their final resume as the goal of their college experience.

What should be in this resume? Knowledge of the specific field you have selected is not vital. Employers are more interested in capabilities and potential than specific knowledge. They prefer to teach their information their way. If you are like most college students, you are not sure of what field you would like to go into anyway which makes it difficult to target what knowledge you will need.

Your resume should be about the skills you have developed over the four years. They include a strong work ethic, written and oral communications, working with and influencing people, gathering information, applying computer skills like Word and Excel, gathering information, number crunching, asking and answering the right questions and problem-solving.

Potential employers will be looking for indicators that tell them if you have these skills, and so will graduate schools and professional programs like law, management, public administration and business.

How do you convince an employer you have these skills? You need to have experiences beyond the classroom such as these:

1. Part-time jobs on and off-campus during the academic year that show commitment and skill mastery. The Resident Adviser position is viewed by all employers as evidence of time management, problem solving and people skills.

2. Summer jobs or major internships every summer. It shows you were good enough to be hired. These summer jobs and internships frequently lead to a permanent job. This experience will also help you figure out what jobs you might want to explore.

3. Community service and other types of volunteer and academic field project work that shows you are more than a good test taker and paper writer.

4. Participation in student organizations. Make the commitment necessary to take a leadership position, like president, treasurer or head the membership committee.

5. Go off campus for a semester or two to special programs overseas or even within the United States. There is no better test of work ethic and problem solving than study abroad experiences. Make sure the off-campus program is more than just an excuse for traveling and having a party.

To convince employers you have the skills, you must have these types of experiences to make your resume and interviews credible. This requires planning that begins now. Selecting courses and those sections of courses that will help you develop these skills. But don’t depend on your coursework alone. Get involved your first semester in no more than two volunteer activities—one on campus and one off campus-that helps you start applying what you are learning in the classroom. Start looking for summer internships by December for the following summer. By spring of your freshman year, decide which semesters you will be off campus so you make sure you graduate on time.

Following this advice, you will be sure to land yourself any job you want if you plan effectively. When asked if there is anything worse than being blind, Helen Keller said, “Yes, to have sight but no vision.” You may see your college experience as something beneficial, but without a vision for the future, employers will not find you a positive addition to their companies.

Skills Versus Stuff #3: Most Mathematics Professors Don’t Like Statistics and Applied Math*

2010-01-29T08:34:00.002-05:00

If this blog sounds eerily similar to my previous blog, Skills Versus Stuff #2: For Writing Instructors, Stuff is More Fun than Skills, it is similar and for the same reason. Both writing and math teachers prefer to teach stuff over skills.

Most mathematics professors really don’t like statistics or any form of applied mathematics because they see mathematics as an art students should enjoy, not a skill they should develop. They are forced to teach it in order to keep their checks coming in just like most writing professors don’t like developing the writing skills of students, but also need to get paid. Writing professors avoid the drudgery of freshmen writing courses by teaching substance about anything they like or theories of writing.

Mathematics professors teach the logic behind the formulas so they don’t have to mess with data about the real world that would hide the beauties of mathematics. Because math professors are unwilling, or perhaps unable to teach math as a skill, the rest of the university professors complain about the lack of “training” in statistics and applied mathematics which their students need. After years of trying, many departments like Management and Sociology set up their own courses in their departments. This creates duplication, not only raising college costs, but also for students who are frequently forced to take the math courses as prerequisites.

Mathematics faculty members are proud to announce that math is an art even as they claim some of this esoteric math may someday have practical application. Math professors complain about having to teach students mundane things like compound interest rate calculations. Teaching applied mathematics and statistics requires continuous practice on real data, something not likely to appeal to the creative side of those who have become mathematicians.

Mathematicians see the tools of mathematics as instruments to exercise the logic that leads to mind-tingling proofs. Many of them don’t even see statistics as real mathematics. In some colleges, it has led to separate departments, just like English faculty call for separate writing programs. They became mathematicians because they loved the thrill of the proof, and they continue to chase that high and want their students to imbibe as well. When they develop problems, the “data” used is always hypothetical, like white balls and black balls, because real data is too messy and too hard to get.

The losers are the students, most of whom want to use mathematics as a tool so they can develop the skills to analyze data to make real world decisions or to master the stuff of other disciplines. Students usually have to take more courses than are necessary. They leave college unable to interpret the statistics they will find everyday in the mass media or when their doctor’s give them a prognosis on the illness of a loved one. In addition, college students who want to become mathematics teachers in high school are forced to major with 30 credits, at least 18 of which have more to do with math as an art rather than math as a tool. They drop out of the math major and create a shortage of high school math teachers throughout the country.

Once again, the choice of stuff over skills has a devastating impact on today’s college students. Just like there is clear evidence that college students have poor writing skills, there is equally clear evidence, according to U. S. Department of Education in a report published in 2005, that graduates are weak in quantitative analysis. (http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/12/16/literacy) This unfortunate situation is likely to continue until the faculty and students come to the realization that “it’s the skills, stupid.”

* I always hedge my comments with “most” because there are always exceptions.

High Achievers in Their "Dream Jobs"

2010-01-26T04:31:00.003-05:00

See my article on Ron Culp's blog "Culpwrit" about what happens to high achievers after college.

Skills Versus Stuff #2: For Writing Instructors, Stuff is More Fun than Skills

2010-01-02T17:21:00.000-05:00

The conflict between skills and stuff is no more apparent than in the freshman writing courses given at many colleges. Ostensibly created to teach writing skills that college professors complain their students don’t have, the introductory courses don’t seem to do the job. Complaints from faculty members are louder than ever.

The reason is that faculty members, whether part of the English Department or in the new fangled Writing Programs, like stuff more than skills. They justify this by arguing that students have to have something insightful and creative to write about. They agree that writing an essay on what students did on their summer vacations is not college material. They prefer to fill their classes with readings and discussions of literature, literary criticism or whatever they happen to find interesting. So how Israel has done wrong to the Palestinians, why racism and sexism is alive and well in America or the real meaning of Star Trek, can become the substance to write about and therefore to spend class and homework time studying.

Stuff becomes the mainstay in other ways. The following description for a required beginning writing course at a university states: “The development of writing skills requires that students become rhetorically flexible, which involves cultivating their awareness of many factors that shape the diverse perspectives and histories of the audiences they encounter.” Rhetorical flexibility comes from textbooks on rhetoric replete with lectures and tests. “Cultivating their awareness of many factors” is cover for gaining knowledge about audiences that the instructor chooses to describe.

In addition to the inclusion of content on any imaginable topic, rhetorical theory and knowledge of their audience, some writing faculty members define their role as helping students express good ideas. With the emphasis on the “good ideas” and less on the “express,” this definition opens the door to students writing about their own stuff which means spending class time on the meaning of their stuff.

Faculty members are more concerned with what students write, rather than how they write. Thus, we end up with a bunch of “creative-minded” students who can’t even construct a complete, intelligible paragraph.

The underlying reason for the rush to stuff is easy to understand. To improve the writing of freshman requires students to write a lot and instructors to spend their precious time on evaluation and coaching. Correcting and testing for grammar, developing the ability to edit and proof and drilling on organization is mundane, redundant and a drag. Writing skills can only be developed through practice; stuff can stimulate the mind. College faculty will choose stuff every time and are very clever at justifying the choice.

The Graduate School Option

2009-12-28T09:33:00.002-05:00

See my article on graduate school on Ron Culp's blog Hire Learning: Career Guidance for Young Professionals

Skills versus Stuff #1: A Primer

2009-12-22T11:58:00.001-05:00

Is undergraduate education about the transmission of knowledge to students or the development of skills and character? Most college professors would say it is about both, but when it comes to determining degree requirements and designing courses and curriculum, the transmission of knowledge prevails. Professors assume that by some magical process, acquiring knowledge improves skills.

This sloppy and uncontested assumption has created a K-12 and college curriculum that produces too many grade-grubbing knowledge hounds who dump whatever “knowledge” is required in tests and papers. The same system also produces too many students turned off by education who resist learning “stuff” for its own sake. Lastly, it produces too few graduates who can write, solve problems, use commercial databases and apply statistics—truly valuable skills.

This is the first in a series of blogs on why skills should be the primary goal of all education systems. Keep in mind when reading the blogs that stuff is defined as what is said to be knowledge in the various disciplines. Stuff in these disciplines, specifically the social sciences, includes symbols, concepts, ideas and theories that cannot be tested. Scholars use this stuff as the body of their arguments as each tries to prove he or she is right.

Skills, on the other hand, are practical and applicable across all disciplines. But too many professors dismiss them as being mundane and tedious. Then again, all professional success in every field depends on the mastery of the mundane and tedious. Brain surgeons, after all, need to make sure they choose the right lobe to operate on.

What Do You Really Need to Learn in College?

2009-12-20T11:15:00.002-05:00

See my interview about making college pay off on College Scholarships.org

The 80-20 Rule and Life

2009-12-03T16:51:00.001-05:00

Business people know that the first 20% of the time they spend selling their product will yield 80% of their sales; the last 80% will yield only 20% of the sale.

Survey researchers know that they will receive 80% of the responses they are going to get within the first 20% of the time they allotted for the surveys come in.

Students should know that the first 20% they spend on doing a term paper or cramming for a test will yield a B, but they need to devote four times that to get an A.

The big question that the 80-20 rule poses is whether or not spending the 80% to get the last 20% is worth it. In simple economic terms, it’s a question of the benefits outweighing the costs.

Perfectionists, those whose persistence has overcome great odds to succeed, and good surgeons would say yes. Those who have chosen half a loaf, cut their losses and can figure out what is important and what is not, would say “it depends.”

Susan and Faith

2009-11-30T08:12:00.000-05:00

A student named Susan made an appointment to see me about the fact that even though she had a 3.4 GPA, she was bored with academia and could not get herself involved in anything except gossip and parties. She wanted me to tell her how to get engaged in her education both in class and outside of class. At one level the answer seems easy; just follow Dale Carnegie’s brilliant dictum “to be enthusiastic, act enthusiastically.” At another level, the answer may seem hard to find because it has to do with Susan’s personal development. In most of my experience, students eventually grow out of this partying and gossiping mentality, although not for a decade or so.

As I finished my session with Susan, I noticed a student, appropriately named Faith, waiting outside my office. She was waiting for me to sign twenty certificates of achievement for members of an organization she had headed. She had taken over the organization six months ago. This organization was one of those “give us $75, and you can say you are a member of our prestigious honors society without actually doing anything.” Usually, the president of the organization faces a lack of interest among members so the organization does nothing. I informed her that I was the faculty adviser for the organization only because no one else would do it, and I wanted to give students a chance to make something out of what was basically nothing. So it was up to her. The next thing I knew there was a barrage of events, mostly fundraising and a year-end banquet. She had attracted a band of loyal followers, many of whom she had not known before she became president.

So I asked Faith to tell Susan what made her tick. Faith did her “life is wonderful” routine and said that the organization had such potential, and she just could not let it be useless. When Faith left, I said that this is an example of the Carnegie principle. Faith was successful because she was Ms. Enthusiasm. Susan asked if having Faith there was a setup. I answered, “No, fate prevailed.” I never heard from Susan again. But I am still enthusiastic about enthusiasm, and I know some day Susan will get it.

Why We Have a Financial Crisis

2009-11-16T10:53:00.000-05:00

If you really want to understand the grass root cause of our current overdose on debt, just sit in my office as I talk with juniors and seniors. Several of them are able to graduate a semester early or go part-time in their last semester. Such a move could save them as much as $15,000.

When I suggest this approach, some students are excited to save the money. But almost as many say, “but I like college.” I am not sure whether they mean they like studying and going to classes, or they like getting drunk on a Tuesday night.

I usually ask, “Will you be graduating with debt and will the extra semester raise your debt?” I figured that they might be willing to pleasure themselves with another semester of college at the expense of their parents.

Shockingly, they almost always say that they have debt and spending an extra semester would add another $5,000+ to their debt. Even more surprising, many of these students have worked 30 hours a week while carrying a full load and have paid for a lot of their college education. They also cannot tell me how much the extra $5,000 will add to their monthly payments over a ten year period.

When I meet with juniors and seniors for career and academic advising (I always do both), I am astounded that none of them can answer the question “how much debt will you be leaving college with,” never mind how much will that costs a month. We are training the next generation to embrace debt so they can have a good time in college.

Does this sound like the people who bought bigger houses than they needed because they could get the loan? Does it sound like those who run up credit card debt for purpose of immediate gratification?

Who says colleges don’t teach students anything? Learning to live with and expand debt may be the most widespread educational outcome of a college education.

The "P" Word

2009-11-04T22:24:00.000-05:00

High schools should help students think of themselves as budding professionals in whatever field they pursue. The terms in the thesaurus for “professional” – “skilled,” “experienced,” “proficient,” “learned,” “trained,” “able,” “adept” or “masterful”—collectively express the idea.

Students need to understand career success in our complicated modern world takes a set of skills associated with the concept of “professionalism.”

When talking to high school students, I ask them the difference between a high school basketball player and a professional basketball player. Their initial answer is “MONEY,” which leads me to ask the next question--“why do they get all that money?” They may say “skills and talent” but even they know it is about dedication, hard work, following the rules, teamwork and experience. These are the characteristics that students need to develop.

I do not believe it is too early to plant the idea of professionalism in the heads of ninth graders. Our teenagers may act like children and feel more entitled than ever before, but they also have more opportunities to take responsibility whether it is the good kind, like raising money for charitable causes or the bad kind, like reckless sexual activity or binge drinking. They are ready to be provided a model of a successful adult and be encouraged to follow that model.

Planting the seed, however, is not enough. High school and post-secondary programs must also provide practice that will entice and enable students to develop a broad set of professional skills that are vital to their own survival and the survival of the country. Now go forth and plant, but make sure the seed grows!

College Education and Health Care

2009-10-30T14:57:00.004-04:00

College tuition and the cost of health care are similar in that both continue to escalate. For health care, this is understandable because people are afraid of dying. Apparently, the higher education industry has been successful in using a similar fear tactic: the idea that failure to get a college degree is a death sentence for the “American Dream.” The Charles A. Tindley Accelerated School in inner city Indianapolis goes as far as to welcome students with a sign that says "College or Die."

The latest issue of the electronic newsletter College Parents of America quotes Patrick Callan, the president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. He says, “Given the financial hardship of the country, it's simply astonishing that colleges and universities would have this kind [sic] of increase. It tells you that higher education is still a seller's market. The level of debt we're asking people to undertake is unsustainable.”

Fear of poor health and the threat of death drive health care and will always create a seller’s market. But should the same be true for a college degree? A college degree does not guarantee the American Dream. Apparently, students’ fears of ending up in the economic dumpster will continue to enable college officials to drive tuition up just as their increasing debt reduces their chances of living the American Dream.

How Citizenship is Demeaned by Colleges: Let Me Count the Ways

2009-10-27T11:37:00.000-04:00

Does the undergraduate experience help to prepare its graduates to be responsible citizens? Given that the public relations machines of higher education spin out biased news and frequent lectures about being a good citizen, students need to look at the downside.

• The high costs of a college education mean more debt for graduates who then have less time to volunteer, serve on community boards or even pay attention to public policy discourse. Graduates instead spend their time trying to make as much money as possible to pay off these debts.

• The low value relative to the high cost of higher education makes students distrust most societal institutions. Students come out of college unprepared for the work force and dissatisfied by so many courses that were poorly taught and not related to their interests.

• Despite occasional token representation, students are ignored in curriculum design, faculty selection and program requirements. They are treated more like serfs than citizens in the decision-making that affects them. Students should not have power over these decisions but should be consulted on a systematic basis.

• Courses offered in political science and history tend to be theoretical and focused at the national level when local government is the best place for any neophyte to start learning about and practicing citizenship skills.

• Few, if any, colleges require all their students to take courses on government which sends a clear message that either citizenship is not about government or that developing citizenship skills is not as important as learning, for example, MLA or APA citation procedures.

• While college faculty help students become good citizens by educating them to have an open mind (one of the few systematically documented outcomes of a college education), they overdose them on questioning authority and ignore the importance of respect for authority.

• Community service rarely generates academic credit and is rarely integrated into the academic curriculum making it very clear that citizenship is much less important than academic scholarship.

The next time you hear some college administrator or faculty member brag about citizenship and whine about how students do accept the responsibilities of citizenship , remind them that citizenship is best taught by example, not exhortations.

Liberal Arts versus Professionalism

2009-10-21T11:07:00.001-04:00

True believers in the value of a liberal arts education usually present themselves as an alternative to the narrow, mundane and overly specialized nature of professional school education. The professional schools counter with the argument that they are relevant and that they provide students what they are paying for. Having evolved from liberal arts colleges and faculties, professional schools have too much liberal arts-envy to see or tell the truth.

The truth is that liberal arts colleges are more vocational than the professional schools. The goal of most liberal arts faculty is to find the best and brightest students and then turn them into academic prodigies.

An academic prodigy is a student who has the commitment to the narrow and specialized activities that lead to living in the world of academic scholarship. They learn and practice the trade associated with gathering information, proper citation, doing lab work and generating product in the form of books, articles, presentations and curriculum that meet industry standards.

No matter what the liberal arts apologists say to the contrary, they provide specialized morsels of knowledge that are defined by the rules and regulations of the scholarship industry. Terms like “well-roundedness” and “critical thinking” are used to package their output to unsuspecting parents and students. They use these terms to convince themselves that they are not vocational schools.

But liberal arts programs are the most vocational of them all. This would not be a bad thing for those who choose it as a vocation if the thousands of students each year who want to join the academic profession did not have to spend 9 years—on average—after college to get their Ph.D. and then find out that only 10% of them can actually find jobs.

Message to College Students: Do Well by Doing Good

2009-10-11T18:59:00.000-04:00

No doubt that you did some community service in high school. Some of you did it because you are a good person and the reward was in the doing. Some did it as a requirement to graduate, and others saw it as a way to beef-up your college applications. Whatever the reason, volunteering in programs on campus and off campus can help you develop the skills every employer wants. Employers want skills such as a strong work ethic, communication, writing, teamwork, problem solving, and many of the crucial attributes which cannot be measured on a 4.0 scale.

It might seem harsh to say, but non-profit organizations depend on volunteers and low paid workers who may have limited commitment or skills. These organizations have no choice but to give you experiences before you are really ready for them. For example, a local community center might like to have a monthly newsletter to distribute but does not have the funds to hire a professional. If you have some basic skills in Microsoft Publisher or PageMaker, the center will give you a chance if you just ask. As someone with no experience, you now have an opportunity to be a newsletter designer, editor, writer and publisher. If you do a reasonably good job, you could have a product to put on your resume or in a portfolio when you seek a job.

Volunteering at a non-profit like the Boys and Girls Club that really needs you solves the following paradox: you cannot get a job without experience, and you cannot get experience without a job. As a volunteer, you can run after-school programs, summer camps and club sports teams for younger kids. In the old days, craftsman offered apprenticeships that gave novices experience in exchange for their labor. That’s how Benjamin Franklin became a printer, which led to him owning his own press. Today, volunteering at a non-profit provides evidence of your experience to future employers.

Employers recognize these experiences as valuable in three different ways. First, volunteering off-campus is evidence of willingness to be adventurous. Second, it can show skills associated with the work you did. Tutoring nine-year olds is a test of patience, communication and focus—all of which employers value. Third, it shows that you are care about something bigger than your own narrow self-interest.

The external benefits of volunteering are numerous as well. You will have contact with other college students who have similar goals, oftentimes building lifelong relationships. Even better, maybe you will meet Ms. or Mr. Right! Finally, volunteering may become a habit for the rest of your life that will bring you much joy and fulfillment.

But let’s get back to the main point. Community service will make you a better hire. I have seen it time and again. To ensure that community service will lead to a stronger resume, follow these guidelines:

1. Do not become a volunteer junkie and ignore your grades.

2. Do not flit around from one experience to another. Try two or three and then make a serious commitment to spend a least three semesters with one organization.

3. Treat your volunteer activity as if it were your job. Do some serious research by asking around before you volunteer or make a short term commitment (even a couple of hours). Look for organizations that have responsible staff members who treat volunteers with respect. Like any job, you need to show up on time, work very hard, do what is asked of you and take the initiative to expand your duties once you are sure you are doing your original task well.

4. Look at the staff as a source of training, networking and a letter of recommendation. You can become an apprentice if you have a caring staff that will mentor and advise you. Non-profit and government staffs need all the help they can get; to the extent that you can fill that role, you will be taking on the kinds of professional responsibilities you will have in the work world. Pleasing someone who supervises you is a winning career strategy.

5. See if you can get college credit after a semester of volunteering. This may require some extra work on your part to coordinate with your faculty advisor and organization, but it is almost always worth it. Most professors require a written reflection paper or presentation which summarizes your volunteer activities. Increasingly, credit is offered as part of general electives as well as fulfilling major requirements.

Don’t worry if you have other motives than making the world a better place. Make the commitment to a cause you support, and you will gain a big edge over your competition for the job you want. Doing good in a serious and competent way is a direct path to doing well.

For more information on doing good and doing well, visit my website or read by book How You Can Help: An Easy Guide to Doing Good Deeds in Your Everyday Life.

What to Look For in Choosing a College

2009-10-07T11:15:00.001-04:00

When searching for a college that helps prepare you for a rewarding career after graduation, consider the following:

· Lots hands-on experience in the classroom: Completing 120 credit hours of coursework consisting of textbook reading, lectures, memorization, and multiple choice tests is unlikely to be an effective use of your time and tuition. Colleges that provide the broadest range of opportunities for hands-on experiences are the best places to be. These experiences vary depending on the field. In the physical sciences, they involve assisting faculty in the laboratory with research projects. For business careers, it can be business plan competitions. In fields like law, journalism, publishing, politics, government, social work, education and non-profit work, internships for credit are crucial. Technical fields like engineering, architecture and design will provide the necessary skills only if hands-on experiences with local building firms or businesses are an integral part of the program.

· Out of class opportunities: This includes opportunities for skills development through athletics, Greek life, work-study, student organizations, internships, residential hall activities, and community service. Serving as a captain of an intercollegiate athletics team, the President of a sorority, a food service supervisor of other students, a Resident Advisor, or a tutor for disadvantaged students are positions where students can hone the general skills that employers want. Look at a school’s student life or student affairs website for more information about extracurricular activities and ways to get involved outside of the classroom.

· A strong career services program: Students should examine the amount of office space and personnel allocated to career services, and whether or not various campus programs exist to help freshmen and sophomores start early on pursuing summer internships and developing career skills. They should check to see if the career services office has purchased proprietary computer services like eChoices, Discover or SIGI Plus, which help students explore and track their progress in their major and career development. Students should ask for data on placement rates for new graduates in the fields they might enter. The data itself is not likely to be accurate because those who get jobs tend to answer surveys and those who don’t, fail to respond. Nevertheless, the fact that records are kept and made public is good signs.

· Many internship opportunities: A college that fails to place internship type experiences at the center of their career services and academic programs is one to avoid. Internships provide crucial opportunities to develop and demonstrate skills employers want and to test-drive possible careers. To some extent, size and location matter in selecting a college, but these should not be determining factors from a skills perspective. Colleges near a metropolitan area of 250,000+ provide more internship opportunities and more adjunct professors with real world experience than those that are not. Larger institutions (10,000+) have a greater variety of job-oriented programs and more opportunities to learn outside the classroom. A small institution, or one in a rural setting, can still be a good choice if students spend at least one semester participating in an off-campus program abroad or in a major city and obtain solid job or internship experiences in the summer.

· Professors who care about their students: Students should be wary of schools where professors are detached from or uninvolved with their students outside of the classroom. E-mail or call a professor in a program in which you are interested in. If they respond, it is usually a good sign. Find out if professors conduct research projects with students or if they advise a student organization on campus. Networking with professors who are genuinely interested in you is a good skill to develop, especially when you’re in need of a recommendation or are looking for internship, job, or research opportunities in the field.

· Adequate computer facilities and electronic classrooms: Given the central role of computers in today’s workforce, students should check for adequate computer facilities and electronic classrooms. Although students need their own computers, they will use computers provided by the institution for special software and files integrated into the coursework. Adequate computer cluster facilities should eliminate standing in line during crunch times. Professors who use the web and PowerPoint in their classroom presentations serve as role models for the skills students will be applying throughout their careers.

While these programs and indicators are not an exhaustive list of what the perfect college would have, they provide a good framework with which to work. Students would do best to consider these areas when conducting their college search more so than how many national championships the basketball team has won, the school colors or mascot, the party scene, or how nice the freshmen residence halls are if they are truly looking for a valuable experience to prepare them for the real world after graduation.

Skills and the College Search Process

2009-10-01T08:46:00.004-04:00

The irony of the college search process is that students who do it the right way have developed the skills described in my book, 10 Things Employers Want You to Learn in College. Selecting a college properly requires that students have the following skills:

1. Good work ethic: They pursue projects with diligence and prepare materials sufficiently ahead of the deadline. They meet every deadline without stress. They take responsibility for the entire process.

2. Physical skills: They do not get themselves exhausted on their college visits so they cannot pay attention.

3. Oral communication: They can listen well and provide appropriate responses in interviews.

4. Written communication: They can write college essays without Mommy and Daddy writing it for them or taking responsibility for proof-reading.

5. Working with people: They can learn from their peers who are interested in the same college, and they can establish good relationships with admissions officers and college faculty to get their questions answered.

6. Influencing people: They can build a strong case for financial aid and for acceptance of credits from Advanced Placement (AP) and other type programs. They can use the interview process to help them gain admission.

7. Gathering information: They can organize the materials they receive in the mail, so they can access what is important, and they can search the websites to get answers they want.

8. Using quantitative tools: They understand the financial costs and the resources they have so they can project how much money they will need and where they will get it. They can use spreadsheet programs to organize data that they will need to make the decision.

9. Asking and answering the right questions: They can see through the hard and slick sell that colleges use to fill their seats and pay attention to the detail of the course requirements and financial hoops they will have to jump through.

10. Problem-solving: They can treat the decision of choosing the right college as a problem they need to solve. They can weigh alternatives with benefits and costs in mind and reach an informed decision.

In addition to these ten skill areas, applicants to four year colleges who have the skills employers want also have a sense of maturity and self-confidence that is not always found even from college graduates. They realize that they are the consumers and are not afraid to get both classroom and non-academic experiences required to be prepared for a career right out of college. They do not fall prey to the Groucho Marx syndrome. The mid-20th century comedian said, “I don’t care to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.” They will not choose a school because it will give them or their parents reflected glory. Finally, they balance immediate gratification with considerations of long term consequences so they have fun while doing what is necessary to make their investment payoff.

Very few students exercise the skills listed and the good judgment choosing a college requires when they are juniors or seniors in high school. Those who do are ready to make the most out of the college experience or, as Bill Gates did, take on the world without the security blanket of a college education.

The #1 School of Education in the United States

2009-09-04T18:16:00.002-04:00

Let’s see if you can guess the very best school of education in the United States today. America judges all institutions of higher education, including schools of education, by their efforts in teaching, research and service. Keeping these three goals in mind, answer the following questions:

1. Which school of education teaches the most students who perform best as teachers?
2. Which school of education conducts the best and most widely used applied research?
3. Which school of education delivers the most service to the community through its direct efforts and the efforts of its graduates and alumni?
4. Which school of education attracts the best and the brightest applicants?
5. Which school of education is most cost-effective in delivering its education?
6. Which school of education has the most formal cooperative relationships with other schools of education in the United States?

The answer is Teach for America. Before I address the objection that TFA is not a school of education, let me provide answers to these questions.

Which school of education teaches the most students who perform best as teachers?

TFA “graduates” more students who teach in schools located in areas of poverty than any other school of education by at least 2,000 (Teach for America). According to a 2007 study of 785 principals across all 25 regions in which TFA teachers were placed, “Nearly all principals (95 percent) rate Teach for America corps members as effective as, if not more effective than, other beginning teachers in terms of overall performance and impact on student achievement.” 90 percent said they would hire TFA teachers again (2007 National Principal Survey, Policy Studies Associates, July 2007). As far as the quantity of instruction provided to beginning corps members goes, the number of class contact, in-service training and study hours as well as instruction from collaborating schools of education are as great or greater than most M.A. programs.

Which school of education conducts the most widely used applied research?

TFA corps members are required to use sophisticated benchmarking methodologies to assess and inform their teachers. All TFA practices are researched based. TFA corps members collect and report data daily which TFA staff analyze and use to improve their programs. In addition, TFA programs contracts with outside independent organizations to assess the outcomes of their educational programs.
Schools of education faculty conduct research that is mostly published in peer review academic journals. This means that the research is designed to contribute theoretical knowledge or answer methodological questions. Some faculty do studies for schools and government that are applied research, but there is no guarantee, as there is for TFA research, that it will be used.

Which school of education delivers the most service to the community through its direct efforts and the efforts of its graduates and alumni?

While other schools of education have trouble recruiting and placing their graduates, in disadvantaged areas. TFA only places its “graduates” (corps members) in such areas. It serves those who need better schools the most and it finds, inspires and places thousands of teachers each year. Sixty-six percent of TFA alumni are working full-time in the field of education, while 93 percent are supporting the TFA mission in other related careers. TFA alumni are dedicated to service.

Which school of education attracts the best and the brightest applicants?

Eleven percent of Ivy League graduates apply to Teach for America. Thirty-five thousand students applied for 4,100 positions in 2009. Corps members earned an average GPA of 3.6 in college, and 89 percent say they held a leadership position in at least one campus organization. Top employers are willing to promise TFA alumni jobs once they complete their two years of required service for TFA.

Which school of education is most cost-effective in delivering its education?

The projected operating budget of TFA in 2009 is $148 million. TFA receives funding from businesses, individuals, foundations, and government organizations (Teach for America). For 4,100 students in the 2009 corps and 3,700 in the 2008 corps, the cost per student is just under $20,000.

Which school of education has the most formal cooperative relationships with other schools of education in the United States?

TFA has partnership agreements with more than 30graduate level educational programs. In these agreements, instruction provided by TFA staff generates graduate school credit as part of degree requirements. The cooperative agreements are a win-win for TFA staff, college faculty from the participating schools of education and corps members.

Is TFA a School of Education?

The evidence is overwhelming that TFA beats any single school of education by a mile. You may object, however, by saying it is not a school. It has no campus. It has no faculty positions and tenure. It does not give academic credit or award degrees. It has no pomp and circumstances. It has no bloated theoretical curriculum to meet state certification requirements for every faculty members desire to have a piece of curriculum.

TFA only has dedicated staff members who act as educators and a system of continuously improving practices in the form of courses, coaching sessions, mentoring and student evaluation. TFA delivers education, research and services second to none.

Recalling Mark Twain’s quote, “I never let schooling get in the way of my education,” maybe I should have not written this article. If TFA leaders began to think of themselves as faculty in a school of education, they may fall victim to the rigidities that plague today’s schools of education.

25 Ways to Make College Pay Off

2009-07-07T16:38:00.001-04:00

Read Nate Desmond's review of my book 25 Ways to Make College Pay Off on his blog "Debt-free Scholar."

Say Yes to Education

2009-07-05T10:32:00.002-04:00

Say Yes to Education is a national non-profit that encourages students to graduate high school by guaranteeing them tuition for a college that joins its program. It also provides assistance to the school district to help students perform better. It is a reasonable idea except that it oversells the importance of a college education. See my article in the July 5, 2009 issue of the Syracuse Post Standard.

Teach for America Is For Real

2009-06-19T07:08:00.003-04:00

I have been an advocate of Teach for America since the early 90’s when I learned of the ideas of its founder, Wendy Kopp, and more importantly, that she made the idea happen against all odds. More than 50 of those whom I have advised have become TFA members over the last decade.

TFA is no organization that claims “excellence” and then lets anyone and everyone in. Nor are accepted TFA teachers just tossed into struggling schools to “wing it.” Teacher training is intense and the standards are high. TFA takes its business seriously, and the results show.

TFA’s accomplishments are well known. 35,000 applicants applied for 4,100 available positions in 2009 alone. Principals report in surveys that first year TFA teachers are better than first year teachers from traditional B.A. and M.A. programs. Math and English achievement student test scores year-in and year-out demonstrate that TFA teachers improve student performance. Most TFA teachers manage to push their students to achieve multiple years reading level growth in a matter of a few months. Even after their two-year commitment to TFA expires, alumni go on to do remarkable things including establishing new and successful schools and advocating for educational reform.

As a student of high school and college education, however, I have learned not to trust statistics, survey results and reported successes alone without direct backup from someone I trust who has experience. I need more hard evidence because the truth is in the details.
One of my 2009 graduates, Katelyn Hancock, is writing a blog which provides details on a daily basis at http://katelyntoday.wordpress.com/. Katelyn is a first year TFA corps member now going through the five week training period to prepare her to teach a middle school class starting in August.

Here is what I learned so far from her descriptions of what she calls “boot camp.” :

1. The five week training session is intense both with respect to time on task (80 hour workweek) and focused training with approximately 50 hours of direct instruction in the form of talks form TFA staff members, practice teaching and different kinds of exercises).

2. The message to the new corps member is clear; raise the academic achievement of students.

3. Each corps member continuously updates a monster spreadsheet as the key management tool which insures delivering the coaching that is necessary for new teachers.
Read Katelyn’s blog to get the full picture from a shrewd new college graduate who knows how to detect BS.

If TFA is for real, why do the majority of faculty in Schools of Education and their academic apologists attack TFA? That is a topic for another blog.

Unbundling the Pre-Packaged Four-Year Degree

2009-04-14T23:14:00.000-04:00

The current four-year, 120 credit hour package reminds me of cable TV companies that require consumers to buy 120 or so channels when they only want to watch a dozen. Although some college students may need four years to mature and develop, many—especially the increasing number of “adult” students—need more tailored programs to prepare quickly and competently for the world of work. The traditional four year program is a cash cow for colleges but a costly and frequently poor investment for students.

This is true not only for general or "core" requirements where students are forced to take a smattering of the physical sciences, social sciences and humanities as well as math and writing, but also for majors. An economics major wants to take a few micro courses, a few macro courses, and maybe some statistics but usually has to take another 12 credits in specialized material that is of little interest or use to most undergraduates. Students who hope to become high school math teachers must major in math which means taking twice as many math courses as they would need even for the most advanced high school student. Just like I have to buy the cooking channel when I pay for my cable package, students have to spend money on courses unrelated to their future careers or interests in order to get their degrees.

The only difference is students can’t flip through these courses like TV viewers can flip through the channels. It’s more like requiring viewers to watch each channel for 30-90 hours before they could go to another channel. A package of courses that met their educational goals would not only save students time and money; it would better prepare them for the careers they intend to follow.

Guest Blogger: “Private College Acceptances: Feeding the Ego” by Katie Lewinski

2009-04-09T21:07:00.002-04:00

As a sophomore at Syracuse University, Katie Lewinski survived Bill Coplin's "Improving Undergraduate Education" course and was inspired to take it upon herself to make sure she and others make college payoff. Her biggest pet peeves of American undergraduate education are lazy and incompetent students, the uselessness of the liberal arts degree and the lack of career preparation in the curriculum.

In my senior English class, my teacher put up a poster on the classroom door with “College Acceptances” written in big letters at the top with every student’s name listed. Students would come in and proudly write down the prestigious institutions they had been accepted to, making a scene so that classmates would notice. My teacher would even give us updates on the latest list additions: “Congratulations to Johnny, who got into Duke!” and “Wow, Kelly, accepted to Brown!”

At the time, I thought this list was a good idea. I admit that I myself wanted other students to know which schools I had gotten into. I wanted the attention.

But competition among high school students to get into the “best” colleges has reached a new level. It has become a game to see who can one-up who. The College Board, College Prowler and the U.S. News & World Report's “America's Best Colleges” have become modern day bibles for the families of most high school seniors.

Parents, teachers and guidance counselors are convincing students that if they don’t go to one of these elite universities, they’re a failure and an embarrassment. These grownups are the primary driving force behind the overselling of the four-year degree.

Students took no pride in writing down “Community College of Rhode Island” or even “University of Rhode Island” or “Rhode Island College” on the acceptances list in my class. Most didn’t even bother. There were no spaces on this poster to write “Army,” “work,” or anything else, because it was assumed that everyone was going to college—preferably a four-year private university.

It seems that many parents are only concerned with where their child gets accepted, never mind what they actually learn there, or what their grades are after first semester. I bet most parents would be surprised to hear that only 35 percent of students graduate in four years and 56 percent earn a degree in six years, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

The influence that parents, teachers, guidance counselors and American society in general have on a student’s decision to attend college is tremendous. A survey conducted by the California Student Aid Commission and EDFUND in 2005 found that “among those who were enrolled in college at the time of the survey, two-thirds rated their parents’ influence as a 10 (on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being a very strong influence)” and “the average rating for how important parents were in the decision to go to college was 8.2.”

Maybe my teacher was adding to the stigma that those who do not go to four-year institutions are not academic successes. Or, perhaps she was just looking to boost her own ego and that of the principal and school as a whole.

Parents are equally as guilty. College acceptances season can be the greatest time of the year for some parents. If nothing else, it gives them a chance to brag to the neighbors as they walk the dog, sporting their new hooded sweatshirts and matching hats donning the logo of the institution their kid was accepted to. Whatever the cause, this revived obsession with “prestigious” universities must stop. It’s the work ethic of the student, not the prestige of the college that counts in the end.

Empty Academic Calories in College

2009-04-07T13:25:00.001-04:00

A traditional liberal arts advocate once told an audience of students that college is like a great intellectual feast. Sort of like Old Country Buffet for the mind.

The definitions, concepts, facts, quotes, models and theories transmitted through lectures, readings and other activities can be viewed as ends in themselves, just like a good meal.

Or, they can be viewed as the process material through which you practice the skills that will get you a good job and make you a good citizen. They are like the food you eat. From that food, you develop muscles and healthy tissue and have fun in the process. But the process is not the purpose. You don’t live to eat; you eat to live.

Unfortunately, far too many faculty members think the stuff they are transmitting is what’s important. Knowing the definition of cytoplasm in freshman biology becomes one of their educational goals. They see their role as the transmitters of knowledge rather than the builders of skills. In their minds, academic credit is only worthy of such goals.

Don’t be confused by their vision of a great feast of stuff to learn. The skills you learn are the vitamins and nutrients. The rest ends up… well, you know where.

It’s Still the Skills, Stupid

2009-04-05T20:22:00.003-04:00

10 years ago, I wrote a newspaper article entitled “It’s the skills stupid.”

Since then, college life has become more expensive—that will always be a constant change and with the downturn in the economy, students need to make more out of their college education than just a good time or intellectual development.

Consider this: nearly 50% of you will not graduate after five years of your four-year program. Even if you do graduate, you are likely to have trouble finding a job and even more trouble in landing employment that you see as a path toward a happy future. Worst of all, you may end up at home—which makes no one happy.

So, as true today as before, here are my 8 rules for getting the most from your college education.

1. Say to yourself once a day “It’s the skills, stupid.” Keep asking yourself “What skills do I want to exercise after college that I could not before college?”

2. Make a list of the skills you want to develop and then choose courses and programs that will help you develop those skills. Do not think the choice of a major or program solves your problems. Undergraduate professional school programs like management or communications require a lot of general education and sometimes require that students learn little of which they can apply. Conversely, majoring in fine arts because you enjoy it will not prevent you from taking some applied statistics or technical writing courses.

3. Know the range of skills and consciously choose those that you want to learn: These skills include: obtaining and assessing information, reading, writing, communicating, calculating, reasoning, using computers, problem-solving, making decisions, feeling, enjoying, learning and, as H.L. Mencken said, distinguishing appearance from reality.

This list does not specify mastery levels, which is the most critical task. For example, you should know how to interpret percentages but you need not necessarily master calculus. One final point about your list: the skills need not be only those you think you will need for a career. They also can be those you think will help you have fun and, yes, that includes wine tasting.

4. Understand why you personally have trouble focusing on skills. Your high school education blinded you to the centrality of skills as you turned yourself into a test-taking and paper-writing machine. You will probably try to repeat this pattern in college unless you focus on skills.

5. Don’t look to college faculty to guide you to the skills. Look at college faculty as the cooks for your educational feast. Their secret desire is not for you to enjoy your meal but for you to become cooks just like them. They want you “to study the study of” so you can become their junior colleagues and protégés. For example, the history professor teaching you about the American Revolution may expose you to different historical interpretations of the American Revolution. That is useful, but when she forces you to make interpretations of the interpretations of those interpretations, you are entering the realm of “the study of the study of.” There is much too much of that throughout the college curriculum, leaving you with less time than you need to develop critical skills.

6. Computer skills are a good thing—now more than ever. Hopefully, you need no convincing. Take advantage of computer training--even if your professors ignore or disdain it. They will love it when you show off the skills for them. (And don’t look at your fingers when you type.)

7. Take as many credits as possible that require fieldwork and programs away from campus. You can earn academic credits in a setting where it is more difficult for the faculty to force you into “the study of the study of.” You can transform the concepts, theories and models you have studied into skills as you are brought face-to-face with reality.

8. Look for opportunities outside of class in work and extracurricular activities and especially in the summer to develop the skills you think are important. These experiences will help you make better course selections the next semester and will demonstrate to you what skills you need to develop. Things like:

Becoming a resident advisor to show communication, problem solving and work ethic skills.
Reporting for the school newspaper to show evidence of writing skills.
Staying involved in community service to show caring for others.
High-quality summer internships to show that you were already “hired” and have mastery of certain skills.
A university job with management responsibilities to show attention to detail, managing people and work ethic.
A telephone sales or survey job to show work ethic, communication skills and the ability to deal with rejection.
A research project with a professor to show analytical and information gathering skills.
Courses that emphasize writing and team projects to show the ability to work well with others.
Becoming a treasurer for a student organization to show money management, attention to detail and leadership skills.

Parents Should Spend More Time on their Children’s Career Preparation

2009-03-22T15:19:00.001-04:00

Parents “helping” their children are obsessing over the wrong thing. They are so busy worrying prestige, grades and finances that they lose sight of the bigger target: helping them get on a viable career path that will keep them from settling back home, like 60% of today’s college graduates do.

Parents who worry about the prestige of the college or that their kids will not get into any college are wasting their time. There are plenty of good colleges with very successful alumni, and all but 200 of them accept 95% of their applicants. Prestigious colleges may have better (read “richer” social networks), but research is inconclusive on whether they correlate with higher incomes. Moreover, prestigious colleges have arrogant students who drive each other crazy. The colleges tend to be stingy with academic credit for hands-on real world experiences and offer little latitude on getting around degree requirements that are useless for career development.
Parents who worry about their children’s GPA should calm down as long the GPA isn’t heading south of 2.0. According to surveys conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, employers rate GPA 17 out of 20 on what they consider important in their hiring decisions.

Parents who obsess over cost also need to think more clearly. Encouraging their children to look for scholarships or hassle the financial aid office is okay but saving money may not be about upfront costs. If their child doesn’t graduate in four years but takes six years or, much worse, says he has to go to graduate school, all the money saved will be lost. Cost is always an important consideration but minor when compared to whether or not the graduate is ready for a viable career path after college.

Parents should be most concerned over how prepared their child is to move on career-wise after college. As noted in my book, 25 Ways to Make College Pay Off: Advice for Anxious Parents from a Professor Who’s Seen It All, the career development value of college can be divided into three areas: skills, character and career exploration. First, students must develop the skills that employers want, with the emphasis on the soft skills like communications and people skills, basic number and computer skills and time management skills. Second, they must develop character; particularly their work ethic and their honesty, both which employers complain are missing in new college graduates. Third, they need to explore career options to find out what they like to do and what they can do well and this can only be done, for the most part, outside the traditional coursework.

Parents can point their children in the right direction by paying attention to the jobs and internships they take, the activities they undertake outside of their coursework and making sure they go to the office of career services early and often.

The Hidden Curriculum

2009-02-22T11:01:00.001-05:00

College and university administrators try to get their courses to be more relevant to undergraduates, with only modest success. Fortunately, the steady growth some types of “student affairs” activities is creating a powerful supplement for those undergraduates who take advantage of them.

Students participate in intra-institutional competitions like the one sponsored by J.P. Morgan Chase at Syracuse University annually. Students met on a Friday (missing classes of course) for a five hour exercise to “research problems and solutions on topics such ‘Going Green’.” A panel of executives put together by the company judged the winners and gave away $3,500 in prizes. Other colleges may not have J.P. Morgan Chase footing the bill, but they conduct competitions over business plans, performance activities and scientific experiments.

Inter-collegiate activities like moot court, debate and Model UN’s are increasing in almost every subject are. They create experiences that require the application of the skills and theory provided in the classroom to problem solving and, in some cases in the sciences, professional scholarly activities.

Colleges provide other significant enrichment opportunities. They have lecture series for students to learn from leaders from academia, politics, business and the nonprofit sector. Residence life and student affairs programming provide leadership training programs as well as mentoring on management and organization.

Conferences held by honors societies like Golden Key and the National Society of Collegiate Scholars whose membership requirement allows for significant numbers of students provide regional and national meetings for students. One of the most powerful and high level educational activities is provided by Bill Clinton’s Global Initiative meetings where select students are funded to attend a conference where world leaders engage in discussions with the audience. Corporations like GE and success alumni offer short courses on campus as well as weekend type learning sessions.

All of these activities serve the career and skill development interests of students that the vast majority of coursework does not. Soft skills are frequently an integral part of many of the experiences, and the information provided is usually more up to date and concrete than students can expect in typical courses.

While the reports about how little students study for classes make it seems like they are all drinking beer, the reality is this. Those students ready and able to use college to prepare for life and careers have the opportunity to learn from those experiences what they thought they were going to obtain from their coursework. They find themselves in more powerful learning environments than the typical classroom because their peers in these activities want to learn also. These learning opportunities are activity-based and hands-on.

The good news is that students are increasingly taking advantage of these types of activities and employers are looking for them on resumes.

The bad news is that students don’t get academic credit for these experiences. Faculty members never have in the past and see them as a distraction from learning what they want their students to learn. They frequently ail to make their students aware of the opportunities and actively discourage participation if it means missing classes. Some students who could benefit by the experience choose not to participate because they are afraid their GPA’s might go south. That students are participating in these opportunities despite these obstacles proves that they are eager to learn what they came to college to learn even if it means more work and stress.

Faculty members could recognize the value of these activities and bundle them into courses where they performed the evaluations through assignments and the activities themselves would be the “classroom treatments.” Everyone would win, including those concerned with tight budgets.

Too Many People Are Going to College

2009-01-04T10:53:00.001-05:00

In his latest book, Real Education, Charles Murray writes, “too many people are going to college.” Murray, whose earlier books Losing Ground and the Bell Curve made him a darling of the right and an enemy of the left, is not afraid to say what others do not. Whether it is political correctness or the fear of losing their jobs, faculty and administrators in higher education cannot bring themselves to utter such blasphemy, at least in public.

Murray is not quite as radical as his attention-grabber implies. He really means too many students are going into traditional four year degree programs, particularly liberal arts programs. Community college and technical programs are okay. Professional school undergraduate programs should be reduced in length to prepare for credentialing tests.

His focus is on the 35% students completing liberal arts degrees. He argues that about 10% of the students should be going to liberal arts programs because only about that number are interested and capable of getting a “real” liberal arts education. By letting so many incapable and uninterested students into traditional four year programs, he argues as a matter of faith that we are dumbing down the educational experience. On the one hand, we fail to prepare the elite to run the country and, on the other hand, we deprive those who don’t belong there of an education that will pay off.

The 10% sounds about right to me if we define the B.A. as Murray does, the old fashion academic study of what was offered (not really studied) a hundred years ago. From my experience, most students cannot master even the fundamentals of what professional scholars do in their disciplines. This is not a recent phenomenon. When I did my Bachelors at Johns Hopkins in the late 1950’s, the majority of those students couldn’t handle the Federalist paper and other standards of a liberal arts education either. In fact, if you read histories of higher education since antiquity, the vast majority of students in college were never in engaged in the life of the mind.

Murray maintains there is a place for almost all students in some kind of post-secondary education. He favors technical programs of shorter duration. I would add longer program that give students time to grow up and to develop the skills and character employers want. These programs would place students in internship and off-campus experiences for as much as 50% of a four year program. It would not require of them 120 credits of traditional academic coursework.

If we accept Murray’s analysis that too many people are in traditional college programs, we would have to face a more shocking and destructive idea--- there are way too many liberal arts faculty in higher education today.

A Dialogue with Ben Franklin

2008-09-30T10:04:00.003-04:00

I interviewed Benjamin Franklin recently. Remembering that Ben established an Academy in Philadelphia in the 1750’s that eventually led to the University of Pennsylvania, I wanted to get his take on the current state of higher education. A recent piece in Greentree Gazette summarizes much of this disalogue, but I thought my blog readers would like to see the primary text.

BC: What motivated you to set up the Public Academy in the City of Philadelphia?

BF: Youth were being sent to Europe for formal education, which not only separated the child from his family and therefore his most important source education, his parents, but was too elitist and impractical for a country on its way to becoming a democracy.

BC: What did you plan to have taught at your academy?

BF: Arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, rhetoric, grammar, literature, history, drawing, handwriting, accounting, geography, morality, logic, natural history, mechanics, and gardening.

BC: Why these subjects and not others?

BF: Schools cannot teach everything so I thought these would be the most useful for students and for society. I have always made a strong distinction between the useful and the ornamental.

BC: Can you be more specific about the distinction?

BF: I tried very hard to encourage the teaching of modern languages and discourage the teaching of Latin. In my day Latin was no longer needed to learn what scholars had to say. Learning Latin therefore was something that one could wear as a sign of distinction but had little practical use.

BC: Were you successful in eliminating Latin from the curriculum and have more useful topics taught in your Academy?

BF: Not really! A year before I passed, I withdrew my support because the students were “disappointed and deceived.” The “Latinists” had destroyed my initial vision for the Academy.

BC: Many would object to your distinction because it challenges the premise of liberal arts education that what you may call “ornamental” has utility by broadening the perspectives of undergraduates and teaching critical thinking. It also heightens lifelong commitment to learning, which some argue is essential to an interesting life.

BF: The ideas of “broaden perspectives,” “critical thinking” and “an interesting life” are not very precise and easily lead to self-delusion among the faculty that their own scholarly interests provide utility.

Do you mean to tell me undergraduates today spend more time on the ornamental rather than the useful?

BC: It’s not Latin but it is scholarly achievement for its own sake.

What advice do you have for those of us today that want our education system to encourage the development of individuals to achieve their own personal goals and fulfill their responsibilities to society?

BF: The advice is as simple as it is difficult to achieve. Teachers and administrators must put their students and the public good ahead of themselves. Teachers must love their students more than their own specialized subject matter, and administrators’ must act as agents serving students as their clients. That is the essence of public service, of which education is by far the most important.

All Academics Are Tribal

2008-09-06T09:37:00.002-04:00

All Academics Are Tribal

Tip O’Neil’s was a congressman whose leadership of the House made him a national figure. His well-know quote that all politics is local provides a powerful insight into state and national politics. Understanding that higher education is controlled by tribes provides an insight into why costs are rising and why much of what is taught is not as useful as it could be to so many students.

The most powerful tribes are academic departments in each college and university. Members of these departments are steeped in the rituals of their disciplines and, more to the point, act to maximize their member’s self interest to the detriment of the other tribes. Members of departmental tribes go to national meetings once or twice a year to renew their in-group spirit in order to do battle back on their own campuses. The younger members of the department go to seek approval in the form of publications so they can rise in the ranks back home or in most cases join a more prestigious departmental tribe somewhere else.

Just as national and state policies are created through pork barrel among local interests, curriculum, resource allocation and policy is created through trade-offs among various tribal groups. This leads to curriculum bloat most evident in the course requirements of liberal arts programs where students are required to sample courses from many departments on the grounds of producing well-roundedness but really to make sure every department gets enough enrollment to hire more professors.

The role of national and international meetings and associations are also confederations in nature and in general are more powerful and permanent than the confederations that develop within institutions. Travels to state, regional, national and international meetings each year is a pilgrimage to place where bitching and moaning about their own institution provides sustenance for yet another year and at the same time the opportunity to join a tribal cousin at another institution where more happiness can be achieved.

Paper delivered at conference and publications in the discipline bring status within their individual’s local tribe because it brings more prestige within his or her national tribe. These acts of reaffirmation are extremely important not just because they generate the basis for tenure, promotion and raises but because they create a sense of importance and self-worth among a group of individuals who are needy. The neediness is a function of the torture associated with the academic rites of passage associated with getting the Ph.D. and getting tenure.

So what are the results of academic tribalism?

The politics of academics are more vicious and less productive that even our current sorry state of national politics. As many have pointed out, this is because the stakes are mostly symbolic.

There is a clear pecking order among tribes. The Arts and Science Confederation is superior to the loose confederations of the professional schools. Natural sciences are higher than social sciences which are higher than the humanities. In the social sciences and humanities, those disciplines that can give scientific pretense, usually through the manipulation of numbers or making up equations or just a slew of funny hard to understand words, have more prestige. Their disrespect for those that are less formalistic is apparent. Just talk to the economists about one of the less formatlistic social sciences like sociology for a couple of minutes if you want evidence.

The costs of college operations are not containable for the same reason that our federal and state budgets grow every year. The only way to get a decision is to give everyone a piece and give the riches and most powerful a bigger piece.

Students play the same role in the machine of higher education than taxpayers play today and serfs used to play in the middle age. They provide the resources and get a less than valuable return for the time, effort and money.

Technology also drives Re-engineering of higher education

2008-07-29T09:48:00.004-04:00

Democratic ideology has helped move the locus of power from faculty and administrators to students as I noted in my last blog, but technology has been the key factor in giving students consumer power. In my latest article in the Greentree Gazette, I argue that technology has not only given students more power; it has also forced professors to play the role that Socrates played in the education of youth. Socrates did not transmit knowledge, he built skills. Faculty have no choice but to move from transmitting religious, secular or professional scholarly dogma to building the competencies of students.

Democracy comes to higher education

2008-07-08T10:00:00.003-04:00

Faculty and administrators have always been in a struggle for power with their students and in the vast majority of cases have been on top. However, the democatic imperative that has been changing political structures throughout the world are now finally impacting higher education. The result as I noted in my latest article in the Greentree Gazette is the consumer-driven re-engineering of undergraduate education.

College May Be AS Risky As Running a Prostitution Ring

2008-06-24T09:21:00.005-04:00

In Risky Business, Tom Cruise plays a high school senior who dances around in his underwear and sets up a prostitution ring house in his upscale parent's home while they are on vacation. After this foray into the dark side, Tom's character is interviewed by an alum from Princeton, and is quickly admitted to this Ivy League paradise. The movie implies that his activities the night before were risky while going to college was unfettered opportunity. I am not saying that running a prostitution operation is less risky than going to college. However, I am saying that college carries more than enough risks. Check out my latess article in Greentree Gazette that suggests the need for warning labels on college admission materials.

Why I am Angry

2008-06-18T08:24:00.001-04:00

I was recently interviewed by a magazine called The Greentree Gazette: Business Intelligence for Higher Education. The editor, Jeff Wendt, worked with me to do what he calls a "one minute interview." He organized my interview around the why I am angry theme and my frustration in helping to make undergraduate education serve its students. He says that higher education in the United States is like the restaurant business. It's decentralized and the quality as well as type of education provided varies greatly. He sees the business changing as a result of what he calls "'consumer-driven re-engineering." Jeff thinks it is happening. I hope it is happening so I won't be angry any more. Click here to read my interview and learn about a publication read by 50,000 higher education administrators.

Let Them Eat Cake #6: College Students Ignore Excel and Sales

2008-04-13T10:22:00.002-04:00

While colleges advertise their potential to help students find rewarding careers as diplomats, doctors, journalists, lawyers and engineers and other fields associated with the upper class, they frequently avoid preparing their graduates for the real world. In fact, there are several studies that show graduates lack basic soft skills like team work and interpersonal communication and some obvious general skills like arithmetic and writing memos.

But worst than that, students come of college with poor preparation and poor attitudes about two powerful skill areas that can lead to rewarding careers. Not only is an example of colleges selling cake instead of bread; it is also example of impressionable and immature college students preferring cake themselves.

The first skills area is Micro-Soft Excel, a spreadsheet program which can be used for everything from managing lists to do basic statistical analysis. Many of my students have gotten and succeeded in internships and jobs because they could perform the functions of this program. Of course, there are other programs like Micro-Soft Access and SPSS or web design programs that will make students even more desire but having Excel is a requirement for success.
Excel is not just some little trivial computer program, but actually a way of thinking. While students are busy learning that the Security Council of the United Nations has some countries with veto power or that Shakespeare may or may not have been gay, they frequently fail to develop facility with this program. Moreover, they think having Excel skills is beneath them. If only they knew that Excel is Life.

Many students do take a course that requires the learning of Excel. However, like all skill-oriented educational objectives, coursework rarely does the trick. Too many instructors treat teaching Excel like they were teaching history of the middle ages. There will be reading, maybe some exercises and then a test. Like most education, experience is the real teacher so students need to actually do Excel either in a class or in outside projects.

The second skill area the college students fail to appreciate is sales and be prepared for. I have had hundreds of students say to me something like “I didn’t come to college to go into sales.” I don’t know if it was the play Death of a Salesman or just the penchant of Americans to be royalists, but this attitude ignores one basic fact. If you want to rise to the top of your field, you will be a salesperson, selling yourself and your work. To become a partner in a law firm, for example, you cannot just be a solid technical lawyer. Partners bring in new clients which, hello, is sales.

Money is not everything; job satisfaction is important long with many other intangibles. College graduates tend to dismiss sales as a boring and mundane activity. Nothing can be further from the truth. The field of sales is the most demanding of all fields because it requires excellence in many areas: intellect, information gathering analysis, decision-making and the soft skills.
For that reason, the supply of good salespeople never satisfies the demand for them. Consequently, the law of supply and demand operates. Good salespeople can choose their spots and find the companies that provide the rewards and working conditions they prefer. And by the way, today’s successful sales people know Excel like the back of their hands.

Not by the Hair of my Chinny Chin Chin

2008-02-11T19:23:00.000-05:00

While lecturing to my 100 student freshman class and assuming that many of them would wait until the night before to write their first paper, I got the bright idea of asking them if they understood the lesson of the Three Little Pigs. As a six year old, I was scared, if not traumatized by the thought of being eaten by a wolf if I didn’t work hard and smart. The fear still remains six decades latter for me. Every time I think of cutting corners, a voice goes in my head tells me that I will suffer the fate of two of the three lazy and stupid pigs. The students’ reactions shocked me.

The first surprise was that only half the class had even heard of the story. Then, I remembered the Hebrew proverb, “Do not confine your children to your own learning, for they were born in a different time.” I was in for a much bigger shock when I tried to tell the story to the clueless 50%. I planned to explain that three piglets were sent by their mother to make their way in the world. The first two built their houses out of grass and sticks respectively because it was quick and easy. The wolf blew their houses down and ate them. The third pig built the house out of brick and not only survived the wolf’s powerful breath, but tricked the wolf into coming down the chimney and falling in a pot of boiling water, after which the hardworking pig ate the wolf.

Half way through the story, several students interrupted to tell me that I got it wrong. They said that the first two pigs escaped and ran to the house of the third pig and lived happily ever after. The wolf just moved on as if the frustration was enough of a punishment. Others disputed this story and confirmed that the two lazy pigs and the wolf got eaten. At first, I was incredulous to this new rendition, but I have learned over the years that students usually know what they are talking about even though what they know is not always worth talking about. Apparently, there was a very successful Disney version in the 1930’s which started the process of destroying the message I received when I was a child.

Subsequently, all kinds of creative things were done to the story to make it longer and more enticing. The most disagreeable finding from my student’s research was that that cleverness, not hard work, is the key to success. Apparently, the people who have rewritten The Little Pigs have forgotten Thomas Edison’s dictum, “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”

I was in for a final but enlightening shock when one of the new versions had the brick-building piglet who invited the other two to live in the new brick abode was a female piglet. She showed compassion for her little brothers by protecting them from the consequences of their laziness. The wolf remained a male of course. It wasn’t the feminist twist that got me but that the creative people behind these rewrites were propagandist seeking to control the minds of six year olds. Or, perhaps they were just hoping to get more sales.

Readers may object that the original Three Little Pigs was also propaganda since it was selling the idea that hard work and cleverness pays off. While this objection is not unfounded, it also indicates why our cultural messages are so confusing to today’s 20 year olds who prefer instant gratification instead of hard work. Too many of them have built their financial houses out of plastic. Messing around with the story of the three little pigs results in confusion. These more nuanced and competing messages may explain why Game Boys, X-Boxes and Play Stations have replaced such tales since there is no ambiguity in fictionally blowing up cars and killing people.

Children like clarity. Put all this together and it may explain why college students spend less than 10 hours a week on school work outside of class, why 60% of recent college graduates live at home with their parents and why employers complain about the work ethic and willingness of new hires to pay their dues. It may also explain why many corporations are hiring from China and India young engineers in the search for budding Thomas Edison’s.

Woodrow Wilson’s Trouble with Higher Education

2007-12-17T11:07:00.000-05:00

I have always felt ambivalent toward Woodrow Wilson’s presidency (1912-1921). On the one hand, he had a vision of the League of Nations and bringing idealism to the way the world is organized. On the other hand, he was naïve and stubborn which eventually led to political rejection and indirectly to World War II. But then I discovered in the Johns Hopkins Alumni Magazine an article written by W. Barksdale Maynard who is publishing a biography of Wilson in 2008 (September, 2007 Johns Hopkins Magazine, pp.42-47). Now, with respect to higher education, Woodrow Wilson is my hero.

After giving up a law practice that he found boring, Wilson attended Johns Hopkins in 1883 as a Ph.D. student in political science so that he could learn and write about American government.

Johns Hopkins is credited (discredit in my mind) with bringing the German model of a research university to America. The model emphasizes scholarly research and pretty much treats undergraduates as cash cows. I attended Johns Hopkins from 1956-1960 where I received my B.A. in social science and was one of the cash cows (thank goodness tuition was around $2,500 then).

Woodrow Wilson must have felt like I felt when I started at Hopkins. He wanted to gain a broad understanding of American government but was faced with a curriculum that was highly specialized. According to Maynard, Wilson had to memorize specialized facts for examinations and to read thousands of pages of very specialized information. Wilson grew so angry at the professors’ “specializing mania,” that he tried to get them “fired for incompetence.” Finally, after complaining to his father about how useless the education was, he took his father’s suggestion to quit and write the book he wanted to write.

And here is the best part of the educational graduate experience of Woodrow Wilson. He wrote a book called Congressional Government which impressed his professors so much that “although Wilson never completed the requirements for the PhD, Johns Hopkins granted him one anyway in 1886, just three years after his arrival.” You would never know this from reading the write-up of Wilson on the Princeton web site which says, “His doctoral dissertation, “Congressional Government,” led to teaching positions at Bryn Mawr, Wesleyan and finally Princeton.” I’d like to see a Ph.D. student in political science today write a book and after he wrote it, get it accepted as a doctoral dissertation if in fact that is what happened.

Woodrow Wilson became a professor and then president of Princeton (1902-1910) where he changed Princeton forever. He is responsible for the term, “Princeton in the Nation’s Service” which more recently added the “Service of All Nations." He instituted reforms to improve the quality of undergraduate education through small discussion sections. Of the Ivies and most research universities, Princeton cares more about its undergraduate and more about developing a commitment to make the world a better place. Not that Princeton does a lot for its undergraduates, but it seems to do more than the rest. That it is better than the rest is due in no small amount to the vision of Wilson. He didn’t face an easy time of it at Princeton, but he made a difference.

What does this saga of Woodrow Wilson tell suggest? Specialization is the by-product of a university that stakes its reputation on scholarship and that specialization may have even a more devastating effect on undergraduate education than on graduate education. Just as the narrowness of Wilson’s Ph.D. education prevented him from learning as broadly as he wanted to learn, much of what is taught at the undergraduate level in the top 200 colleges is specialized, theoretical and esoteric. Exceptional students who have leadership potential can be frustrated by the rigors of specialization but still move on with much success. Unexceptional students may be harmed more than helped by an education that has as its primary goal to promote learning that is solely in the domain of specialized academics. More than 120 years after Wilson’s experience, undergraduate education has changed much less than one would hope. Students are still forced to learn what those in the Ivory Tower themselves like to learn.

Education Policy is Not about Workforce Competitiveness

2007-11-24T08:27:00.000-05:00

The primary focus of federal higher education policy is not the competitiveness of our workforce. It is hardly on the radar screen of politicians, higher education lobbyists and administrators of most four year colleges. They ignore the question of how to make public funding of post-secondary education increase the skill base of our workers so they can compete in the global economy. “Global competitiveness” may be in their rhetoric but as they say, “money talks, BS walks.” If they were serious, they would support more assistance for students planning to enter professions like pharmacy, nursing and engineering and less general assistance for all students to study anything they want.

The workforce goal of all post-secondary education should not be degree completion but instead the extent to which students acquires the skills and character necessary to prosper in an appealing career. The degree is an ornament that may or may not reflect academic achievement given grade inflation. And academic achievement is hardly a measure of preparation for a career. Business leaders Jim Skinner, the CEO of McDonalds, Bill Gates and thousands of other millionaires don’t have college degrees. Co-op programs, like the ones at Rochester Institute of Technology, are so successful in preparing their students for technical jobs that many students never finished the degree because as a result of their junior year co-op placement they are offered a position that may pay as much $65,000. It is an easy choice: $65,000 and no tuition and no coursework that has little application versus a hefty tuition payment and finishing course requirements that may or may not have some utility.

Despite the criticisms in Congress about the high cost and poor performance of undergraduate education, the prospects of change are little to none. The executive and the legislative branch are too pre-occupied with access by the disadvantaged to a traditional four year degree and with providing subsidies to the middle and upper middle classes so little Johnny can have a cheaper four year experience that is more about self-actualization than career preparation.

At the heart of the problem is that a college education is usually defined as completing a traditional four year academic program rather than the thousands of other post-secondary training options now available from community colleges, career colleges, training institutes and apprenticeship programs. The most destructive consequence of the traditional four year college for all mentality is that it stigmatizes all other forms of education. It encourages school districts to put most of the resources into college prep rather than to introduce to students to a variety of career options in high school. No wonder students flounder in college trying to discover their career interests. Too many low academic performers end up in remedial courses to prepare them for general associate programs in community colleges and four year schools, and too many of them never make it.

Disadvantaged students, the exact group of students whom politicians, lobbies and university administrators say they want to help, are hurt the most by this stigmatization. If these students saw a direct payoff to their earning power through technical options gain through more focused and shorter post-secondary programs, they might be more inclined to learn to read, write and master arithmetic. If 100 percent of high school graduates could do that, we would be on our way to providing our employers a workforce that had prerequisites for the skills needed for a competitive world economy.

College Education and Mind Control

2007-11-06T10:40:00.000-05:00

Controversy over whether or not professors should influence their students’ views on political and culture issues continues to grow. Examples and research shows that the faculty are to the left of the rest of the country. Nothing can be done about that, and it actually makes sense if you see academics as big picture thinkers who strive to be outside the box.

The controversy is not over the ideological predisposition of the faculty but over how much faculty members try to shape what students think. I have seen many instances of it at Syracuse and read about it at many other colleges. Recently, the University of Delaware gained national attention with its educational programs in the residence halls which have systematically encouraged what the administrators themselves call a “treatment” for various forms of “bad attitudes.”

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education or FIRE described this program . FIRE, a group that claims it works to make sure all viewpoints are heard, cites that according to the program’s materials:
“The goal of the residence life education program is for students in the university’s residence halls to achieve certain “competencies” that the university has decreed its students must develop in order to achieve the overall educational goal of “citizenship.” These competencies include: “Students will recognize that systemic oppression exists in our society,” “Students will recognize the benefits of dismantling systems of oppression,” and “Students will be able to utilize their knowledge of sustainability to change their daily habits and consumer mentality.”

You might say that this and other attempts are mind control and that they have no place in the university. However, nothing could be farther from the truth. Education is about mind control. I like to define education as mind-changing experiences whether it is learning how to work Micro-soft Excel or developing a more informed and nuanced view on some current political issue. The question is what is supposed to change.

I see education as changing how students think and not what students think. Except with respect to “stuff” like technical terms, factual content, concepts to process the information and knowledge that has been verified as much as possible (which usually means the physical sciences), professors are in the business of helping students ask and answer appropriate questions, seek a variety of opinion, use information to make informed decisions, problem solve, and above all, detecting B.S.. In short, we are in the business of developing skills and character.

If you accept this purpose, it doesn’t mean your students will be value free. They will decide how much they value specific goals that are both private and public. In the process, they will value and respect other’s opinions, they will listen before they speak, and they will weigh evidence carefully. If they do this, they will conclude that democratic principles make sense and they will not be subject to many prejudices and excesses that worry those on the left.

To illustrate how insidious the efforts to tell students what to think rather than how to think is, one only has to look at how many faculty define citizenship. They emphasize that a good citizen questions authority, watches out for the trampling of civil rights and works for change. They rarely teach that in the vast majority of cases, citizens should respect authority. They should at least listen to government leaders enough to judge whether they support or oppose their ideas. They should obey the vast majority of laws like stopping at a stop sign. They should support their government by paying taxes and not throwing their trash out of the car window. They also need to realize that the citizens’ information and the detailed knowledge of experts is always less complete than that of the policy-makers. This doesn’t mean they don’t have the obligation to criticize those making policy. It does mean they have to eliminate the arrogance that leads them to conclude if a policy-maker does something they disagree with than that policy-maker is either stupid or corrupt.

Ultimately, what professors do to help develop the minds of their students is about the democratic process and citizenship. Telling their students to be for or against the war in Iraq, or affirmative action, or gay rights or illegal immigration is autocratic. It shows little faith in the capacity of students to think as individuals and is the root of autocracy. Helping college students develop the capacity to reach an informed position is democratic and the duty of faculty members.

Let Them Eat Cake Watch #5: College Board as Cake Maker

2007-10-25T16:51:00.000-04:00

The College Board describes itself as a “not-for-profit membership association whose mission is to connect students to college success and opportunity.” A multi-million dollar business with high salaries for its top executives, it has thirteen offices across the U.S. It monopolizes the testing market with such products as the SAT’s, GRE’s and AP courses. It has one advantage most mega-businesses don’t have. As a 501c3, it is able to lobby the U.S. Government with the help of foundations and powerful higher education lobbies to create more demand for its products in the name of the American Dream.

Like all of the higher education lobbies, the College Board plays the equity card to gain more markets for its products. While the organization pushes “college-for-all,” its test results show that children in disadvantaged areas are far below the norm. These results are relatively good predictors of college completion. Using the American Dream to open the coffers of foundations and governments as well as the pocket books of parents of all income levels, the College Board works hard to oversell the value of a four year traditional college education.

In September, the College Board issued a press release entitled ‘Education Pays’ Report Showcases Importance of Access to Educational Opportunities and sponsored a panel with the president of the Spencer foundation and the president of the Pew Partnership for Civic Change. Most foundations that support higher education are like the College Board, a slave to the college for all mantra. Since the leadership of all these organizations graduated from four year colleges, they can’t get beyond the guilt and arrogance that says “everyone should be like me.” Add to this guilt and arrogance, the fact that the bigger demand for four year colleges, the bigger the demand for College Board products, and you have an insatiable drive do everything possible to promise to get the entire human race into four year colleges.

The report and the panel did its ritual lament over how access and degree completion rates were low for the children born to families with low incomes and where the mothers did not have a college degree followed by the even more ritualistic call for massive efforts to redress this problem. All of this talk lays the groundwork to ask for more public spending on higher education and by implication traditional four year bachelor degree programs. Other postsecondary options were not given much ink.

The sleaziest part of the press release was the attempt to ignore and dismiss the high cost of college tuition. The release said “The typical college graduate who enrolls at age 18 earns enough in the first 11 years to compensate for taking time out of the labor force and borrowing to pay the full tuition at a public four-year college.” Evidently, this was the best spin the PR department could place on the debt-producing consequences of pursuing a college education, but it is not very persuasive. For starters, 11 years is a long time. Plus, it says “borrowing to pay full tuition” rather than total tuition costs. That would probably add another decade for most students.

One cannot fault the College Board and its supporters for acting like a money-hungry, subsidy seeking and influence peddling lobby group in the name of making American a better place. But it’s harder to forgive it for ignoring the opportunities provided by community colleges, career colleges and apprentice training programs that would better serve the majority of teenagers in America and especially those whose mothers didn’t get college degrees.

Get Your College Freshman to Plan a Career-Ready College Education by Designing the Ideal Resume They Hope to Have in their Senior Year

2007-10-16T11:13:00.000-04:00

To help college freshmen plan their college years so they will be on a viable career path when they graduate, I suggest that they create an ideal resume that will be ready by the fall of the senior year. GPA and academic is far from enough. Employers want to be provided clear evidence that your child has the work ethic, communication and analytical skills identified in my book 25 Ways to Make College Pay off: Advice for Anxious Parents. They also want to see some serious attempts to explore careers while in college.

This ideal resume may include a few of the following items:
• A Resident Advisor to show communication, problem solving and work ethic skills
• Reporter for the school newspaper to show evidence of writing skills.
• A steady record of community service to show caring for more than one’s self.
• A paid summer internship during the junior year that is competitive like those offered by General Electric or highly sought after non-profit jobs like working for the Children’s Defense Fund to show that a student passed a rigorous selection process. The internships themselves provide additional skill practice across the board.
• A University job where the student is given management responsibilities, even in food service, to show attention to detail, managing people and work ethic.
• A job require cold calling like alumni fund raising or a phone survey that shows communications skills and a willingness to accept rejection
• A research project with a professor or senior thesis to show higher level analytical and information gathering skills
• Courses that emphasize writing and team projects to show the ability to work well with others.
• Treasurer for a student organization, even a fraternity or sorority, to show money management and leadership skills

The point about this list is that coursework serves as a starting point. The proof is in the doing in the world outside of the classroom. Career ready college graduates see everything they do in their four years of college as an opportunity to practice their skills. The kinds of activities listed above will provide that opportunity. The best option is for students to take courses that get them into the real world. Colleges are offering more courses, even in Liberal Arts Program, to provide practice for the entire set of skills. Your child needs to take such courses even though they are more time-consuming and challenging.

It’s never too late or too early. Planning for a resume they would like to have when they graduate college could also help high school students think about college choices. If your child is past her freshman year in college, it is better to be late than never.

Let Them Eat Cake Education Watch #4: Get them started on cake early*

2007-10-07T10:58:00.000-04:00

A serious and dedicated elementary school teacher e-mailed me the other day to request that I help provide Syracuse University T-shirts to his first grade class. His rationale was that it would impress upon students the value of education, and they would work harder to learn more.

Those of you who read this blog and my books can imagine how this raised my already too high blood pressure. The word “college” is used to mean traditional four year undergraduate programs when in fact many, if not the majority, of teenagers would be better off going to work or going into shorter and more technical training programs. The purpose of K-12 education should be learning for its own sake and learning for a purpose, not going to college. Brainwashing six year olds that they should go to traditional four year colleges may make this teacher and our politicians feel good, but it sends the wrong message.

Just to be sure I was not making an unwarranted assumption; I emailed this teacher and asked if he meant by “college” all post-secondary education or a traditional four year program. This was a test that would determine whether or not I paid for the t-shirts.

Well, he failed the test. He informed me that the intent of the school was a four year university degree for all students. I wrote back and said that I could not provide the t-shirts because his view of college was too narrow and added that many students with B.A.’s and Ph.D.’s are driving cabs in Washington, D.C.
In his final email, he writes that "many cab drivers with B.A.'s and Ph.D.'s" … see the value that they have placed on education (in) … enriching their personal knowledge, not necessarily their bank account.”

Fair enough but then he commits one of the basic sins of the “let-them-eat-cake crowd.” He values education as an end itself and so should everyone else. He informs me that he plans to receive a doctoral degree, even though “it may not contribute considerably to his bank account.” In other words, what’s good for him is what’s good for everyone.

The heart of the problems our schools and colleges face in both engaging students and in preparing them for life is the prevalence of the self-serving and myopic viewpoint that education is an end in itself, an ornament that has tremendous intrinsic value. It is not very different from the people at Lexus telling us that to own a Lexus is an ornament to be worn proudly.

Ben Franklin was big on the distinction between the two general purposes of education---useful and ornamental. He came down on the side of the useful. To do otherwise is to support a curriculum that is out of date and an elitist viewpoint that serves only the educational establishment.

There are a few differences between a four year college degree and a Lexus. First, Lexus provides a reliable means of transportation. Four year college degrees don’t reliably transport a majority of students who begin college toward a fulfilling career or an enriched life. In fact, almost half of college students fail to graduate in six years.

Second, while the cost of the Lexus is steep, a college education costs a lot more. In many cases, students have debts that can be $400 a month for a decade.
Finally and most importantly, car buyers have choices, and Lexus doesn’t receive government subsidies to promote its cars over competitors. School children are oversold on the value of a four year traditional college education and stigmatized by the “let-them-eat-cake crowd” if they dare think of anything else. And taxpayer’s money subsidizes the undergraduate college industry and the stigma that it uses so effectively.

If I bought the T-shirt, I would be contributing, albeit in a very small way, to the stigmatization of plumbers, electricians and the majority of people in this country that make a nice living from jobs that do not require a traditional four year college degree? Besides if this teacher really wanted to motivate the kids, he would give them jerseys with names like Alex Rodriguez, Serena Williams, Le Bron James or Peyton Manning on them.

One final note for readers who are worried about the elementary school children and the idealistic teacher! I suggested that the teacher try some higher up university official who would surely agree with him and not me. He did, and the kids got the T-shirts. But I got to make this teacher and all of the colleagues who I am sure he shared my email with think for at least a split second about really helping their students rather than just feeling good about themselves.

*This is the third in a series of blogs with the theme “let them eat cake.” The phrase is attributed to Marie Antoinette when she was informed that the poor had no bread. The series is about how colleges give undergraduates the frills and not the basics. See the paragraph at the end of The Let-Them Eat Cake #1 for a longer explanation.

Let Them Eat Cake Watch #3: Seven Reasons why the media ignores career colleges*

2007-09-30T09:57:00.000-04:00

“Career colleges” are what the for-profit college call themselves. These colleges are 39% of those participating in federal government loan programs. About 2.1 million or about 8% of college students are enrolled in programs that range from six month certificates in technical programs through Ph.D. programs. They graduate larger percentages of minority students and have a higher completion rate than private non-profit and public colleges and community colleges. They also reduce the cost to students who eventually complete a four year degree by providing the first two years of college at a much lower rate.

Yet, career colleges are rarely mentioned in newspapers despite the efforts of the Career Colleges Association and its more than 1,200 members. A recent survey reported by the Imagine America Foundation,which provides millions of dollars in scholarship money to students attending career colleges, found the students and parents were not aware of the full array of opportunities to rewarding careers available through career colleges. I have never seen for-profit colleges mentioned in the national electronic or print media unless they buy their own advertising space. When the media does mention career colleges, it is sometimes about scandals and sometimes about growth in numbers but almost never in the glowing feel good stories about four year colleges. Why this neglect and selective reporting?

Let them eat cake explains it all. Here the top seven reasons, the media ignores the career colleges:

Number 7: They don’t have football teams.

Number 6: They would require journalist to use the words “post-secondary educational institutions” instead the shorter word “colleges” which is less susceptible to the editor’s red pencil.

Number 5: They provide programs in such variety that they cannot be quickly and easily discussed and therefore would slowdown the production of their copy.

Number 4: They demonstrate the “old news” that the free enterprise system works to provide greater flexibility in responsiveness to market trends and less cost to the consumer than the traditional four year non-profit and public college.

Number 3: They lead to jobs like plumbing and police which journalists apparently think are not good enough for the bulk of Americans, disadvantaged or not.

Number 2: They carry a stigma and journalists are afraid of stigmatization by association.

Number 1: Career colleges are not where most journalists went to college.

*This is the third in a series of blogs with the theme “let them eat cake.” The phrase is attributed to Marie Antoinette when she was informed that the poor had no bread. The series is about how colleges give undergraduates the frills and not the basics. See the paragraph of The Let-Them Eat Cake #1 for a longer explanation.

The Apprentice-Mentor Approach for a Career in Film TV and Radio or Anything

2007-09-23T10:08:00.001-04:00

In my book, 25 Ways to Make College Pay Off: Advice for Anxious Parents from a Professor Who's Seen It All, I suggested that students should look for special training programs outside of their college like Dale Carnegie Training. I then went on to fantasize by writing, “if students could build their own bundles of courses and not worry about degrees, they would be better off.” The other day that I discovered that what I fantasized actually exists.

An organization called the Apprentice-Mentor Association runs a program called, Get a Mentor. The program helps students to get the education they need for a career they want without going to college. The mentor personally guides the student’s education primarily through experience he or she arranges, as well as through specific course manual work augmenting the hands on lessons. The training is individualized and flexible.

Get a Mentor provides one-on-one training for careers in (1) film/video production, (2) recording/sound engineering and (30 radio/TV Broadcasting. It was started by Phillip Trout, co-founder of the Columbia School of Broadcasting. With 50 years of experience working with those interested in pursuing careers in arts and entertainment, he believes that educating through apprenticeships is by far the most effective approach.

The program is simple. People apply and Phillip finds them a mentor who gives them an unpaid apprenticeship. Phillip thoroughly interviews the applicant to make sure the commitment, focus and capability are there. Ideally, when the mentor thinks the student is ready, he hires him and helps him find a job. According to Phillip, 100% of those who finish get a job in the career field they want. About 80% finish. Check out the site to see how it works. I provide no guarantees that Get a Mentor is as good as it sounds but from my study of the web site and an extensive interview with Phillip, it sounds like the real deal.

Applicants range in age from 16-69 and pay a one-time fee of approximately $6000. The mentor gets half and the organization gets the other half to cover advertising and administrative expenses. Obviously, Phillip makes virtually no money for himself on this. He does it because he wants to help people find a career that matches their passion without being sidetracked by the 40 courses, many of which are on unrelated subjects and an enormous debt.

The program is specialized to the film/video, recording/music, and radio/TV broadcasting fields. It is primarily related to technical training, but the apprenticeship program teaches most of the professional skills I advocate in my books. It also builds character and allows students to explore a career that they think they want. If you read the testimonies on the web site, you will see that the graduates of the program move into jobs, many of which are technical but some of which lead to general filmmaking and script writing.

Or if you are a want-a-be film maker, you could do what one of my students did. He received his four year degree from the Syracuse University Newhouse School of Public Communications and moved to L.A. without a job. He called me six month later to tell me excitedly that he was up for a dog walking job with a famous director. He submitted his resume and competed with three others to get the job. I am not sure if he got it. Apparently, dog walking can lead to a mentorship relationship, probably not with the Director, but with one of his staff.

I am not criticizing this student. He didn’t make a mistake doing a four year degree at Syracuse University because when he came to college he had no idea what he wanted to do and he only decided at the end of his sophomore year to enter the program in television, radio and film. He wasn’t focused and would not even have applied to the Get a Mentor Program if he had known about it before his junior year.

What lesson can we draw from the existence of the Get a Mentor program? First, for those who have a clear field interest, four years of college is not necessary. Apprentice training beats assembly line smorgasbord coursework hands down.

Second, lack of focus makes it difficult to take advantage of a program like this. An undergraduate education may be a way to find focus, although I am not sure it is the optimal way. The 120 hours of incoherent coursework just as often slows down the focusing process. Students naively think that the coursework exposes them to the real world when most coursework without a field work component only exposes them to theoretical views of professional scholars.

Third, the mentor-apprentice approach not only is cheaper, it is more flexible. The program has been successful with people from 16 to 69, some of which are in college and some of which are holding down a full time job. To complete the program, the student in effect has to make room for a part-time job spread over time or for a full time job taking no more than a year.

Now the big questions are? What other programs could be run this way. And how many Phillip Trout’s are out there to coordinate them? I’m open for nominations.

College Rankings: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

2007-09-09T08:19:00.000-04:00

College rankings are here to stay as long as students and their parents see the college application process as a game to win. There is nothing anybody can do to reduce the role of college rankings except to recognize and deal with the consequences.

The Good

College faculty and administrators feel hassled by college rankings for good reason. Ranking publications have become the only powerful de facto voice in holding colleges accountable. Government officials and politicians are too divided and scared to do anything other than create study commissions that lead to little more than discourse. Students and parents are too threatened by the fear of retribution and too dazzled by college sales pitches to pressure for change. When the college guides like the most popular, America’s Best Colleges published by U.S. News and World Reports, speaks, college administrators listen.

Although the ranking publications and guides are so superficial as to be little more than a rough screening device, they can promote good things for students. Six years ago, for example, America’s Best Colleges started listing “programs to look for.” They listed colleges that excelled in the following categories—(1) internships, (2) senior capstone, (3) first-year experiences, (4) undergraduate research/creative projects, (5) learning communities, (6) study abroad, (7) service learning and (8) writing in the discipline. The impact appears to me to be significant if what happens at Syracuse University can be generalized. Over the past five years, we have all these things going on with increased intensity. There were plenty of voices on campus supporting these ideas for decades, but all of a sudden, they gained traction.

The Bad

Reliance on college rankings de-emphasizes the real purpose of the application process----to find the good fit for the applicant.

A good fit should be primarily about self-exploration than college exploration. Applicants have to make choices about a large variety of things like size of campus, travel time, academic programs, career preparation, physical facilities, social scene and price. Unless applicants have a clear idea of what they want out of college, they are not really to make a productive choice.

Using the rankings to make a choice is a way to avoid the serious self-reflection required to benefit from a college education. It substitutes the question “what do I want from my college experience” with the question “what college will make me a success.” It ultimately means that the students are less likely to take control of their education and more likely to think a college education is the key to success when in fact their skills, character and career exploration are the real keys.

The Ugly

Because college rankings raise the level of competition among students, some ugly things are happening.

Perhaps, the ugliest is the cheating by students and their parents. Students tell me that they know many peers, not including themselves of course, whose parents or professionals write the applications essays. This teaches their children two life-scaring lessons. The first is that they are not good enough to succeed honestly. The second is to cheat.

Some ugly behavior can be found among some of the colleges which provide information to ranking organization with a public relations mindset. This means that when they give statistics they do so with the 50 year old book How to Lie with Statistics as a guide. When calculating things like class size, average SAT scores and graduation rate, the cut the numbers in a way that sounds most positive. I assume most of them stop short of fudging numbers.

The ugliest consequence of college rankings is their contribution to rising college costs and student debt. Schools compete for students because they want to have better rankings, and the better rankings will yield more students. The cycle produces pressure to charge more and to worry less about cost to the student. That is how we end up with a student who has a good entry-level job but a $1,400 a month debt load and is about to declare bankruptcy.

Both the college rankings and the runaway costs reduce the effectiveness of college as a path of social mobility. In addition to making college too expensive, it incentivizes colleges to give more scholarships for merit and fewer scholarships for need. It oversells traditional four year programs when there are many high paid careers through for-profit career colleges and community college. It does the opposite of what the GI Bill after World War II did for a huge number of Americans.

Parents: Community Service is not just for the Soul but also for Career Preparation

2007-09-01T09:31:00.000-04:00

College students should do community service not just because they want to give back or they want to build up their resumes. Whatever the reason, volunteering in programs on campus and off campus can lead directly to the skills every employer wants. Employers want a strong work ethic, communication, writing, teamwork, problem solving, and many of the crucial attributes that can’t be measured on a 4.0.

It might seem harsh to say, but non-profit organizations depend on volunteers and low paid workers whose skills or commitment may be limited. These organizations have no choice but to give your children experiences before they are really ready for them. For example, a local community center might like to have a monthly newsletter to distribute but does not have the funds to hire a professional. If your child has some basic skills in Microsoft Publisher, the center will give him a chance just for the asking. From someone with no experience, your son now has an opportunity to be a newsletter designer, editor, writer and publisher. If he does a reasonably good job, he could have a product to put on his resume or in a portfolio to get a valuable internship experience or a job.

Volunteering solves the following paradox: You can’t get a job without experience, and you can’t get experience without a job. In the old days, craftsman offered apprenticeships that gave novices experiences in exchange for their labor. Today, volunteering at a non-profit provides evidence to future employers that a college student has the skills and not just a good GPA.

Employers recognize these experiences as valuable in three different ways. First, volunteering off-campus is evidence of the willingness to be adventurous. Second, it can show skills associated with the work you did. Tutoring nine-year olds is a test of patience, communication and focus—all of which employers value. Third, it shows that your child cares about something bigger than herself. The willingness to think about the team rather than the self is in short supply and employers highly value it.

To insure that community service will lead to a stronger resume, your child should follow these guidelines.

First, don’t become a volunteer junkie and ignore your grades.

Second, do not flit around from one experience to another. Try two or three out and then make a serious commitment to spend a least three semesters with one organization.

Third, treat the volunteer activity as if it were a job. Your child should:
· Do some serious researching by asking around before she volunteers
· Make a short term commitment (even a couple of hours) and see how it works out.
·Look for organizations that have responsible staff members who treat volunteers with respect.
. Show up on time, work very hard, do what is asked of you and take the initiative to expand duties once she is sure she is doing her original task well.
·Look at the staff as a source of training, networking and a letter of recommendation.
·Become an apprentice if you have a caring staff that will mentor and advise you. ·Please a supervisor, aka boss
·Try to get academic credit so you have more time for community service. Non-profit and government staffs need all the help they can get.

To the extent you’re your child can do community service, he or she will be taking on the kinds of professional responsibilities she will have in the work world.

PARENTS CAN EASE CAREER FEAR FOR YOUNG ADULTS

2007-08-25T08:30:00.000-04:00

Guest Blog by Tim Conway*

Many teenagers and twentysomethings suffer from what I affectionately call "Career Fear."

Career Fear is an inertia-inducing syndrome caused by:

1. Too many options: 250 academic majors; 3,500 colleges; 12,000 occupations.

2. Failure to narrow options: high school seniors now apply to an average of five colleges – a behavior that leaves some with "buyer's remorse" due to concerns about campus fit. Plus, novice job hunters randomly chase any opening without matching their skills to a preferred industry.

3. Procrastination: delaying the selection of an academic major, internship or first job indicates anxiety about the decision-making process.

Further, young adults often express to me that they don't want to get "stuck" in one academic field or career. This attitude is reflected in current statistics: undergraduates change majors 2-3 times (which adds time-in-school and tuition dollars); and university alumni job hop 3-4 times by age 30 in hopes of finding that elusive Perfect Job.

Let's assume that your son or daughter is unsure about their future. I suggest you do the following:

1. Normalize the Situation: mention that you grasp how challenging it is these days to make life choices. Reassure a student that it's okay to feel a bit overwhelmed by the vast number of Higher Education options. Tell an “emerging adult” that you care about their decisions; remind them that you're committed to deliver ongoing support.

2. Reduce Pressure: let your children know that there's plenty of time to make important decisions so they shouldn't "rush" into a full-time course load or employment (especially Late Bloomers who require extra time to mature). A feasible alternative is to take a Gap Year to: test an occupation via a part-time job; take general education classes at community college; complete American Management Association seminars (on assertiveness, time management, public speaking, leadership); volunteer with a non-profit (e.g., AmeriCorps).

3. Set Personal Goals: to reduce the number of paths, convince a confused collegian to write short-term Personal Goals that are specific, realistic and have deadlines. Research indicates that writing goals boosts the odds of achievement due to increased focus and accountability. So if Junior is complacent, insist that he draft several goals to move forward. Make sure to reward steady progress (e.g., favorite meal, bookstore gift certificate).

Personal Goals must center on building skills, developing character traits and exploring careers, such as:

I will schedule meetings with Admissions staff at X number of universities by X date.

I will investigate majors during freshman year through conversations with academic advisers and seasoned professionals by X date.

I will participate in on-campus activities in my discipline during sophomore and junior year (e.g., Marketing Club, Engineering Society).

I will secure an internship in chosen field during junior year and conduct a directed employment search senior year.

4. Target Hiring Organizations: in a competitive job market, it’s essential to aggressively pursue firms that actually have hiring needs. To uncover growth ventures, job seekers should:

- Join industry groups (e.g., American Bankers Association) to meet-n-greet company executives and tap membership databases

- Ask librarians and industry professionals about best resources (such as directories and business journals)

- Talk to friendly university alumni who can share insights about openings and income potential

- Use affordable research -- http://www.hooversonline.com/ and http://www.vault.com/ -- to be aware of hot product/service categories, geographic regions and start-ups

5. Facilitate Internships: the earlier a son or daughter "dips a toe" in the global workforce, the better. Why? 62% of hiring authorities state that new employees held internship positions according to a study by the National Association of Colleges and Empoyers
. To entice an undergraduate to obtain hands-on experience, provide names of influential contacts (e.g., corporate managers, community leaders, entrepreneurs). Encourage an offspring to visit on-campus Career Services to review available internships and upcoming Job Fairs.

6. Consider 1-on-1 Academic/Career Coaching: some parents retain a 3rd party adviser to identify a young person’s natural abilities, hidden talents, personality, values and interests. A savvy mentor can use this information to energize an individual to "play their strengths" in classroom, at employment interviews and during internships. With practice, a candidate is soon able to confidently present distinct attributes to gain an edge.

By being proactive, parents can assist a son/daughter to minimize Career Fear while maximizing learning, performance and satisfaction.

*Tim Conway operates Ignite Young Adults (http://www.igniteyoungadults.com/) to "fire up" individuals about college, employment and graduate school: 847-749-1394 (office) or timconway@igniteyoungadults.com. He wrote the chapter entitled "securing that that first job" for my book 25 Ways to Make College Payoff: Advice for Anxious Parens from a Professor Who's Seen it All.

Get Your College Freshman to Plan a Career-Ready College Education by Designing the Ideal Resume They Hope to Have in their Senior Year

2007-08-21T10:04:00.000-04:00

To help your college freshman plan his or her college years so she is on a viable career path when she graduates suggest that he or she create an ideal resume that will be ready by the fall of the senior year GPA, academic honors and a major or majors is far from enough. Employers want to be provided clear evidence that you child has the work ethic, communication and analytical skills identified in my book 25 Ways to Make College Pay off: Advice for Anxious Parents. They also want to see some serious attempts to explore careers while in college.

This ideal resume may include a few of the following items:

A Resident Advisor to show communication, problem solving and work ethic skills

Reporter for the school newspaper to show evidence of writing skills.

A steady record of community service to show caring for more than one’s self.

A paid summer internship during the junior year that is competitive like those offered by General Electric or highly sought after non-profit jobs like working for the Children’s Defense Fund to show that a rigorous selection process verified the skills and that the internships themselves provided additional skill practice across the broad.

A University job like working in food service where the student is given management responsibilities to show attention to detail, managing people and work ethic.

A telephone sales or survey job that shows communications skills and a willingness to accept failure

A research project with a professor or senior thesis to show higher level analytical and information gathering skills

Courses that emphasize writing and team projects to show the ability to work well with others.
Treasurer for a student organization, even a fraternity or sorority, to show money management and leadership skills

The point about this list is that coursework serves as a starting point. The proof is in the doing in the world outside of the classroom. Career ready college graduates see everything they do in their four years of college as an opportunity to practice their skills. The kinds of activities listed above will provide that opportunity. The best option is for students to take courses that get them into the real world. Colleges are offering more courses, even in Liberal Arts Program, to provide practice for the entire set of skills. Your child needs to take such courses even though they are more time-consuming and aggravating. Planning a college senior year resume could also help high school students think about college choices. If you child is past her freshman year, it is never too late to think concretely about the future.

A template for planning four years of college is provided in my book will help your child get have the career producing resume is available eletronically and free of charge.

Dr. Byrne Got Me? Response to her book review

2007-08-12T10:30:00.000-04:00

Dr. D. Lynn Byrne reviewed my latest book, 25 Ways to Make College Pay Off: Advice for Anxious Parents from a Professor Who's Seen It All in her blog, BellaOnline: The Voice of Women.

I liked that fact that Dr. Byrne made a legitimate criticsm when she said, “Personally, I think Coplin glossed over the post-college experience intentionally.” This is not my area of expertise. I asked Tim Conway to cover job-hunting and Andrea T. Dolph to discuss the first job in a brief fashion. They could have written a lot more. Conway is a full time professional career adviser for young adults and Ms. Dolph has written a book on the subject of first jobs. My purpose was to illustrate that character and skills developed in high school and college will shape what happens after graduation. I like to quote Yogi Berra on this: It’s déjà vu all over again. Hence, I severely limited the amount they could write. Dr. Byrne gave me a little pass here, and I thank her. Check out her blog, I found it honest and helpful.

Dr. Byrne didn’t like my point that graduate school should not be a default option because in some fields, you need a graduate degree. Obviously, she is correct about some fields requiring the degree. For those students whose minds are set on fields like medicine or counseling and who have actually tried the fields out with jobs or internships while in college (e.g., all would-be medical students should spend some time as an EMT), going straight to graduate school is the best choice. However, for the vast majority of jobs, no graduate school is necessary for success and even for those like law and education, a couple of years of experience after college might be a good idea. In education for example, students could participate in Teach for America or one of the Teach for America type programs which not only allow them to see if they like teaching at a full salary but also gain credits to their Masters. Like a four year college education, graduate school is way oversold in this country. Colleges and universities are always looking for new revenue sources so “buyer beware.”

The Let Them Eat Cake Education Watch#2: Wine or Cookies*

2007-08-06T07:54:00.000-04:00

A high level administrator with a Ph.D. who moved from a private to a public university wrote an article entitled “Trading $80 Wine for Cheap Cookies.” in the Chronicle of Higher Education. When she went for her job interview at the public university, she was given store-bought cookies and a bottle of water instead of a high priced lunch.

She wasn’t complaining. In fact, she liked the new environment much better. Her colleagues were more interested in her research and, like her, sought to “be responsive to public needs.” At the private university she left, this was not the case. Colleagues seemed to be more concerned with their travels and next professional move than their undergraduates.

The flow of money for events, she writes, “created a culture of elitism and entitlement in which faculty members—even those on the political left—participated eagerly.” Favorite occasions for spending money were social gatherings before and after lectures by heavy weights or high priced meals for visiting scholars upon both arrival and departure. Some faculty complained that they wished the receptions and fancy dinners would stop, but they still ate and imbibed.

Some public universities also spare no cost for famous visitors, especially if they are getting $10K or more to speak. The money might not come from the taxpayers but from donated funds, but funds are funds. A dollar spent on $80 bottles of wine paid for out of alumni support is a dollar not spent on scholarships or educational services. If the private university has a small endowment and a want-to-be Harvard complex, the $80 is directly out of undergraduate tuition.

You might be wondering what does this have to do with “let them each cake” which means spending money on fancy things that don’t directly enhance the educational opportunities for undergraduates. The answer can be found in the justifications provided for the expense.

Faculty and administrators justify the expense in several ways. First, they invite a few undergraduates to the elaborate social events. Instead of doing their homework, these undergraduates are blessed with a rarified experience even if they can’t understand much of the conversation. Second, having famous scholars to campus enhances or maintains the reputation of the university which will make the degree worth more. Third, the faculty and administrators will feel better about themselves by rubbing shoulders with the greats and therefore be more energized and better informed to enhance their classroom presentations.

Although you might think these arguments are ridiculous, the students themselves buy into this, especially the viewpoint that a better reputation will make their degree more valuable. They are glad to skip the bread for the cake and in the process learn the opposite of what they should be learning about democracy and citizenship.

The bottom line is that students and their parents are paying for the expensive wine and really big shrimp, and a lot more that has little or nothing to do with the quality of the educational experience. That is probably why the author of the article is a lot happier. She might find the cookies pedestrian, but she no longer feels like a hypocrite.

*This is the second in a series of blogs with the theme “let them eat cake.” The phrase is attributed to Marie Antoinette when she was informed that the poor had no bread. The series is about how colleges give undergraduates the frills and not the basics. See the paragraph of The Let-Them Eat Cake #1 for a longer explanation.

The Let Them Eat Cake Education Watch #1: The New York Times does it Again!

2007-07-24T10:52:00.000-04:00

This is the first in a series of blogs with the theme “let them eat cake.” The phrase is attributed to Marie Antoinette when she was informed that the poor had no bread.* Most educational writers in this country think this way. Their educational goals are “critical thinking” which they define as literary criticism, higher mathematics instead of statistics, and intellectual well-roundedness. They seem to think that these ornaments of education, as Benjamin Franklin called them, are the key to helping the poor live the American Dream. To them, the “phrase vocational education” is like the word, “communist,” was to 1950 right-wingers, something to be abhorred and feared. They are like Jonathan Kozol, who has done a great service to American education by raising awareness about the horrendous educational conditions in areas of poverty but would prefer an educational system that produces artists rather than nurses or plumbers. When asked by someone in the audience at a speech in Syracuse, New York what he would like to see in the education system, Kozol said that he would like to see a system where any little boy in the Bronx could grow up to be a poet. If you ask yourself, “what’s wrong with that,” read no further.

The New York Times, whose writers and editorialists rarely deviate from the “let them eat cake” mindset, announced an essay contest on the topic of "College as America used to understand it is coming to an end." By “America,” they obviously do not mean the people of the United States and especially those among the 17 million students in college.

Here is the theme the contest makers provided:
In the turbulent late '60s and early '70s, college campuses played a major role in the culture and politics of the era. Today, according to author and historian Rick Perlstein, colleges have lost their central place in the broader society and in the lives of undergraduates.

The students are told to read the essay by Perlstein entitled, “What’s the Matter with College.” The title is misleading. It is not about high cost, a graduation rate lower than many inner-city schools, faculty who want to be left alone to do research and the bloated and incoherent curricula. It is a nostalgic look back at the period when he went to college. It is a not-too-transparent attempt to get students to fight the fight they think they fought for a better world.

The contest exemplifies the “let them eat cake” mentality. The students are asked to take up the battle of the intellectual elite who experienced the late 60’s and 70’s. Aside from the obvious narcissism of the enterprise, the most depressing thing about Perlstein’s essay and the contest charge is that it fails to recognize that today’s college students do much more for the poor throughout the world than those of his generation. They have created a national teaching core in Teach for America, are performing international local community service in impressive numbers and looking for jobs opportunities in the not-for-profit sector.

I am a college professor so I can’t write an essay. I hope one of the essayists does on “why the creators of this competition should care about all college students.” It is not likely because the only students likely to participate are eager to join the elite which the New York Times represents or would compete in anything for which there is a prize.

* Sorry for the explanation especially to readers of the New York Times who, even if they are young, would know that the quote is attributed to Marie and, if they are really savvy, that Marie Antoinette never said it. Propagandists based out of London made it up. Anyway in French it's "Laissez-les manger de la brioche" (brioche is a mix between cake & bread; gateau = cake)

Planning the College Experience is Like Planning for a Career: A Guide for Parents

2007-07-21T09:30:00.000-04:00

Parents can help their children develop a strong basis for their careers after college by encouraging them to have a plan. This will be no easy task since the rush of events leading up to the first day of college classes will provide little time for college freshmen to gain perspective by thinking about their future.

It is not that teenagers don’t know how to plan. They do quite well in planning their senior prom or setting up a beer party or researching the video games and machines they buy. It just that the lack of willingness to plan their future because of their priorities, their utter confusion generated by high school education and college brochures, and their fear of growing up.

In Part Two of my book, 25 Ways to Make College Pay Off: Advice for Anxious Parents from a Professor Who’s Seen It All, I discuss how parents can help their children focus some of their thoughts about college during this hectic time in their lives. Getting your children to think about their plans is critical to future success. You can do help by first emphasizing that acquiring skills, building character and exploring careers are essential to their future success. Once you have done that, you need to convince them that a college education is not just completing course requirements for the degree but four years of experience. Their full time job in college is gaining the experiences each and every day of the years they are in college.

So far, I have discussed getting your child to THINK about plans and that maybe that is all you can do. If so, that can be enough. However, it would be better if you can get them to complete a planning document like the one described in Chapter 6 of my book. A template is presented which your children can copy to their word file from my website for personal use only to record and update their colleges for their entire college career. The template requires a college student to:
o Write a mission statement
o Take a skill and character self-assessment inventory plans to improve
o List activities that explore careers
o Present financial plans to cover the costs of the four years
o Plan how they will complete the degree requirements

If your children can complete the planning document at the beginning of college, they can update it once or twice a year. Plans are like pie crust, made to be broken. (Actually, the Russian Communist dictator, Joseph Stalin, used the pie crust analogy when talking about treaties which you should probably not tell your child.) The information in this document is an indication of intentions and not a contract that you children must follow. It is important that you make it clear that plans are flexible. I find teenagers have difficulty understanding that if they have a plan, they still have flexibility to change it along the way.

If your child is already in college, the planning document can still be useful, better late than never in thinking about the future.

If your child refuses to complete all or part of the template, don’t give up. Just use the ideas in the template to ask questions and start conversations. The goal is to get your children to focus on the connection between college and their career future. Writing out and updating plan is no guarantee that they will take use the plan to guide their decisions. Training them to take college to career planning seriously is the real goal, whether or not they keep it all in their heads or put it on paper. .
Good luck!

Opposition to Unbundling Undergraduate Education: Part One

2007-07-15T09:56:00.000-04:00

In my previous entry, I introduced the idea that parents who buy the four year degree are faced with the same situation as all of us in buying our cable TV service. We really don’t want half the channels, but we are forced to buy the package.

The most serious objection to the idea of unbundling undergraduate education comes from those who would argue that college ought to be more than a vocational experience. They typically argue that undergraduate programs will build a better citizenry and create intellectually well rounded critical thinkers.

The citizenship argument is not convincing given the continuing low rates of voter turnout and participation in civic groups even as the number of college graduates increase. There are many other reasons for these low rates, but, as many college presidents collectively and individually complain, four year college programs don’t seem to be turning out active and reflective citizens.

The term “critical thinkers” is so vague that one wonders how critical thinkers can actually use the term with a straight face. Intellectual well-roundedness does not describe most college graduates. The vast majority of college students when forced to take courses outside their area of interest are academic bulimics----cramming and then dumping on tests and papers.

Four years of college experience may still be the optimal path for many students attending college right out of high school because they need the time to mature as well as the academic and non-academic experiences that can be undertaken in four years. However, even these students could benefit from what one Dean of continuing education calls “chunking their degrees.” They could select specific credentials such as technical writing, public speaking, civic engagement and human relations at the general level and accounting, survey research and using spreadsheet programs at the more technical level. Together these chunks might take three or four years, but they would be coherent and focused on specific sets of skills.

Most important students could choose what they considered important not just for their careers but also their lives. The four year college degree is like mothers telling their kids to eat their peas before they have dessert. That’s okay for children; but not for today’s college students.

It’s Time to Unbundle College Education: Part Two

2007-07-09T07:02:00.000-04:00

With runaway college costs and criticism of undergraduate education is increasing among government officials and employers, parents may want to think about radical solutions. One obvious solution is eliminating the traditional B.A. as we know it.

Unfortunately, most students and parents are hung up on the notion that the college degree guarantees success in the workforce when skills and character are the critical factors. Everyone in the working world knows a college degree and a dollar will get you four quarters. Despite this, employers continue to use the college degree as a screening device even though the screen is full of big holes.

If somehow the consumers were to demand that post-high school education is unbundled through shorter and less expensive courses of study, students would develop the professional skills they need in less time and at less expense to them and our country. Because the education would be more focused and students would see the relevance of the formal coursework, employers would be getting more skilled and ready-to-work employee.

Programs that require far fewer than 120 hours would simultaneously save money and increase the value of the investment in education. It would also increase the atrocious four year college graduation rate of about 45%, a rate lower than the average graduation rate in our worse urban school districts.

The idea is to chuck the current four-year, 120 hour package – which reminds me of cable TV companies that require consumers to buy 120 or so channels when they only want to watch a dozen. Although some college students may need four years to mature and develop, many – especially the increasing number of “adult” students -- need more tailored programs to prepare quickly and competently for the world of work. Moreover, economically disadvantaged would benefit the most from an unbundled education.
The traditional four year program is a cash cow for colleges but a costly and frequently poor investment for students.

Evidence of the wisdom of “unbundling” specific courses can be found in continuing education programs, which charge significantly less tuition than traditional programs. At Syracuse University, for example, a program in legal assistance offered through the continuing education department ranges from 15 to 26 credits and provides a certificate, as opposed to a formal degree. To Syracuse Dean Bea Gonzalez, this is a career ladder approach that enables students to build the practical knowledge they need while “chunking the degree.” If they are not satisfied with their career after they obtain a certificate, they can still attain a bachelor’s degree in professional studies, or they can stop at the associate’s level.

One powerful example of how the private sector provides specialized courses to college students is an offering by in finance provided by Wall Street Prep. At prestigious institutions such as Vermont’s Middlebury College and others, for example, this enterprising group of former investment bankers has created a two-day course they call “Investment Banking Boot Camp.” Charging students a fee below the cost of one credit even at most public institutions, the company operates a weekend blitz seminar for those who want to go into finance. Students pay for a competitive edge in their pursuit of jobs in investment and finance because they know employers want the skills set offered by the weekend course.

Unfortunately, when colleges attempt to develop specialized programs they cobble together 40 three credit courses, with less than a third even remotely related to the mission of the program. A new field of study in homeland security proposed at Ohio State University, for example, will be placed into existing four-year degree programs in areas such as political science, sociology and computer science. Consequently, students interested in specific course work directly related to homeland security may end up spending countless hours in meeting basic liberal arts requirements and studying scholarly ruminations in whatever major they take.

One may question the idea of unbundling by pointing out that continuing education programs, for-profit colleges and community colleges already provide unbundled programs, and yet the majority of students pursue the four year degree. The reality is that those who can’t afford or don’t buy the mythology of the four year degree use these alternatives to build their career. If public policy were to subsidize these alternatives more and traditional four year programs less, more students, especially those from lower socio-economic groups, would benefit. Taxpayers would get a bigger payoff for their investment.

Parents who read this entry who have children are not likely to accept the risk for their children even as they agree on the general idea. But they can think about unbundling as they advise children. More thoughts will be provided on that in my next blog.

Advice for Parents: Interns Need to Get a Grip

2007-06-29T15:19:00.000-04:00

So your college sophomore has landed a great internship. No pay but there will be lots of excellent experience. After two days, you get a phone call on how she is oppressed and mistreated. Don’t, I repeat don’t, go into the mode you followed when you child scrapped her knee at four years old. This a great learning moment for your child if you send the message “suck it up.” .

Interns who see themselves as victims of injustice need to get a grip. They don’t realize that beginning as a photo-copying, data entry, fax-sending, mail delivering and list-checking maven is the road to internship success.

And internship success can lead to a promising job after college graduation but only if your child acts like an employee wanting to get a superb performance review.

Internships are not the only way to get experience. A real job in the summer might provide more of an education depending on the student’s interest. Working as a camp counselor at a summer camp makes a lot of sense for students who want to go into education, for example. No matter what field, telephone or door-to-door sales job develop critical communication, time management and work ethic skills. Flipping hamburgers may seem like a dead end job. Just don’t tell that to current McDonalds President, Jim Skinner, who started that way at 15 in Sydney Australia and became a store manager in short order (no pun intended).

Students should have realistic expectations about their summer job or internship. Interns want exciting jobs in politics, television and film and then complain that they are falling over each other and forced to do menial tasks. If their tastes are so demanding, they should expect trouble. If they were less choosy, they might be better off and end up in a dream position. Tim Russert’s working on a garbage truck during the summer gave him added value in the eyes of one of his first bosses, U. S. Senator, Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

While on the subject of realistic expectations, students also need to understand that they have to pay their dues as interns. I had an intern once who, when asked to make a copy of a contract by a paralegal in a lawyer’s office, quit. Presumably, he thought he should be writing the contracts, not copying them.

Contrast that with another student of mine who took a job with a public interest lobby group in D.C. He told me that all the interns were sitting around complaining about having nothing to do. He volunteered to do all the copying that he could during the first two weeks. The next week he was put in charge of a major campaign for the organization, and the complainers were working for him. Students who tell me that that they were given nothing to do are telling me that they failed.

Whether getting a job or an internship, students should see themselves as apprentices. They are making a bargain with the organization to serve as an apprentice. That bargain requires them to pay for their education with their services.

Students have real bargaining power to learn more if they have something to offer their boss. In addition to a hard worker who has a good attitude and good people skills, supervisors are looking for skills in short supply. They include web design, Microsoft Access, Excel and Publisher, and writing skills.

These kinds of skills get the attention of supervisors and can lead to an experience way above expectations. A student working for an established public relations firm wrote me recently “the people here just think I am a genius because I can make things ‘pretty and organized’ as they say. Today was the icing on the cake when the principal of the firm came to me and asked if I was able to do something in excel then put it into a word document and hyperlink that document. I completed the task while he was standing there. I honestly think he would have hired me on the spot.”

So tell your son or daughter that they need to work harder and smarter and that should drop the attitude.

Higher Education and the Sopranos

2007-06-21T08:18:00.000-04:00

Now that the last episode of the Sopranos is over, I can share with you that I have been haunted by some disturbing similarities between the mob and universities. This idea started with the episode when the Columbia University dean took Tony's wife to lunch and asked for $50,000. How could a Columbia University dean pursue mob money? Well, at least he didn't promise to give her daughter an "A.”

Could it be that institutions of higher education collectively also practice a not-so-subtle form of extortion? The mob extorts from the innocent businessperson by offering a deal that can't be refused. Parents are told that if they don't pay an outrageous sum of money, their children will be denied the American Dream. Their precious offspring will live a life of poverty, and a boring one at that. What parent is going to say "no" to that quid pro quo? No wonder the tuition, room, board and fees have doubled since 1986 and rose 5.9% for privates and 7.1% for publics since last year. (College Board Trends in College Pricing 2006).

If not extortion, certainly a case can be made for fraud. While parents take second mortgages on their house so Johnny can go to college, colleges spend money on things having little to do with direct undergraduate educational services. The on-going student loan scandal in which universities give preferences to lenders that provide side payments, like $21,242 to sponsor two receptions at UCLA , reminds me of Christopher running around at a trade show taking expensive free samples.

Undergraduate tuition pays for endless receptions and speakers ostensibly to educate students but more so to entertain the faculty and staff. Undergraduate tuition subsidizes Ph.D. programs, which rarely are self-supporting. It also pays an average of $2,073 for private schools and $454 for public institutions in marketing costs for each student who matriculates. Don't forget the runaway salaries of top administrators closing in on $1 million a year, sabbaticals so faculty can recharge their batteries and try to publish more academic articles, and special financial packages for "academic stars," which usually include relief from teaching.

Not surprisingly, institutions of higher education do not appear to be performing very well despite ever-increasing income and rosy promises. As I mentioned in my previous blog of June 11, employers report that too many college graduates are not ready for the workforce. Add to that, the American Institutes for Research (AIR) reports that 20% of seniors graduating college “were unable to estimate if their car has enough gasoline to get to the next gas station,” one of the measures of basic quantitative literacy. The study also shows low performance in “prose and documentary literacy.” Like the mob, university officials are no fans of financial transparency. There are no clear labels on recruiting material that says something like, "X% of your tuition dollars goes into direct educational services.” Dennis Woods from Stanford University estimates that between 38% and 44% of the income of all colleges goes to instruction. (Chronicle of Higher Education p.35 May 5, 2006)

A final similarity is that the feds are after both higher education and the mob. Congressmen and senators as well as a newly formed federal Commision on the Future of Higher Education are in the hunt. The proposals include various forms of price controls, reorganizing accrediting agencies and, the favorite of Charles Miller who headed the federal commission, testing of college graduates on what they have learned. Coming up with something that works will be a lot tougher than RICO legislation (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) because, unlike the mob, institutions of higher education are thought to be on the side of the angels. But then again there was the “Teflon Don.” More importantly, they have powerful lobbyists not only in Washington but each of the fifty states who can stimulate public opposition to any move that they say will pose a threat to the American Dream. Given the political realities, a modest public policy approach is the best we can expect. I’d settle for a requirement that all institutions of higher education use government-approved labels in their advertising which present a few easy to understand measures, such as graduation rate or percent of direct educational expenditures.

The threat of more draconian government action is a good thing. Few administrators would even try to implement effective reform of undergraduate education without the threat of government intervention, especially after the forced registration of President Lawrence H. Summers by the Harvard faculty, which might be legitimately called an “academic whacking.”

Biography

2007-06-18T09:44:00.000-04:00

Biography: Bill Coplin 6/18/07

Bill Coplin received his BA in Social Science from Johns Hopkins University in 1960, and his M.A (1962) and Ph.D. (1964) in International Relations from American University. He has been the Director and Professor of the Public Affairs Program of the Maxwell School of Syracuse University and College of Arts and Sciences since 1976. He has published more than 110 books and articles in the fields of international relations, public policy, political risk analysis, social science education, citizenship and “doing good.” He co-founded and served as a senior consultant to the PRS Group LLC from 1979 to 2001, which forecasts political and economic conditions in 100 countries. Since 2000, has focused his effort on reforming high school and college.

Reforming College and High School Education
Throughout his career, he has written extensively on the need to reform both high school and college education to better meet the needs for the majority of students who see education as a path to better employment opportunities. He has consulted with more than forty high schools throughout New York State on curriculum. With his publication of Ten Things Employers Want You to Learn in College (see below) in August 2003, he has received numerous interviews and written extensively on how to bring about those reforms. He has written articles on the topic in USA-Today, the Albany Times Union and for Knight-Ridder syndication, newsletters of several different professional organizations including the National Parents Teachers Association, the NCAA News, the National Association of School Boards and educational websites of Newsweek Magazine and the Wall St. Journal. In 2004, he was appointed as Advisor for Professional Skills to College Parents of America. In 2005, he was appointed a consultant to the Office of Workforce Development of the New York State Office of Children & Family Services to help staff in agencies to bring professional skills to youth in their facilities throughout the state. His paper, “Seven ways to reduce instructional costs and improve undergraduate and graduate education” was selected by a seven member panel of national experts for publication by the Lumina Foundation for Higher Education and an article based on it appeared in the Chronicle of Higher education. His latest book, 25 Ways to Make College Pay Off :Advice for Anxious Parents from a Professor Who's Seen It All, will be published July 2007. He has worked off and on with the Syracuse City School District and is currently a member of the Advisory Committee for the Institute for Technology @ Syracuse Central, a new high school to combine career preparation and academic learning for the Syracuse City School District.

Teaching and Advising Awards
In 1993 he received the Chancellor's Citation for Distinguished Service by Syracuse University. He was appointed one of the first three Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor for Teaching Excellence at Syracuse University in 1995. He has received several other awards for excellence in teaching and advising from faculty, students and alumni, including the 2000-2001 College of Arts and Sciences Award for Outstanding Faculty Advisor

High School Curriculum and Training Activities in Citizenship Education
He has designed and implemented curriculum to develop career and citizenship skills among college and high school students. His Public Affairs 101: Introduction to the Analysis of Public Policy served as the base for his contribution to guidelines for the Regents twelfth grade course "participation in government" required of all graduating high school students in New York State. The course has been taken by more than 6,000 students at Syracuse University over the past 30 years. More than 10,000 high school seniors at 65 high schools have taken the course over the past 20 years through Syracuse University’s Project Advance Program. He, with two colleagues, received an award from the Public Employees Roundtable for the best one-year curriculum for increasing the public awareness of the range and quality of services provided by public servants. He serves as the curriculum consultant to the High School for Leadership and Public Service in New York City, which was founded by the NYC Board of Education in 1993 in partnership with the Maxwell School of Syracuse University.

Policy Studies Program at Syracuse University
He has been an advocate and practitioner of building public service into the college curriculum through internships and projects. The Policy Studies Major, which he has designed and managed since 1978 requires at least six credit hour of coursework working on community projects. Each year, his students provide more than $100,000 (according to client estimates) of research services and more than $60,000 in direct services to the clients of nonprofit agencies. Policy Studies majors win a disproportionate number of scholarship awards within and outside the University.

Public Service Activities to Agencies Serving Youth
As a direct by-product of the use of public service in the curriculum, he created the University Reach Program in 1988. The program has received more than $275,000 in grants from the Mott Foundation, Nationwide Insurance, UPS and the Kellogg Foundation to support which undergraduates working with inner-city youth in a variety of projects. Since 1999, he has offered a course where undergraduates offer a range of programs to youth at a housing project located near the University and other locations throughout the city. He became a Board Member of the Syracuse Boys and Girls Clubs to better connect the work of SU undergraduates to the largest provider of youth programs in Syracuse. He received the 2001 President’s Award, the highest award offered by the Boys and Girls Club, for his efforts in the Continuous Improvement System for evaluating programs. He received the Civic Leadership Award at the Onondaga Citizens League 25 Years Award Ceremony.

Improving Local Governments
In 1996, he and the then Chair of the Public Administration Department, Astrid Merget, received a $579,000 three-year grant from the Sloan Foundation to develop benchmarks for government service performance in Onondaga County and establish the Maxwell Community Benchmarks Program. He co-authored a book in 2000, with Carol Dwyer, Does your Government Measure Up: Basic Tools for Local Officials and Citizens. The book has been endorsed by professional associations such as the American Chamber of Commerce and the International City Managers Association. With two colleagues, he published an article in Public Administration Review in 2202 entitled “The Professional Researcher as Change Agent in the Government-Performance Movement.” He also served as vice-chair and chair of the Town of Manlius Coalition in the late 1990’s.

Trade Book Publications

His latest book, 25 Ways to Make College Pay Off: Advice for Anxious Parents from a Professor Who's Seen It All, will be published mid-2007. It provides parents with strategies to coach their children to use their college experience to enter a viable career path after college.

His book, Ten Things Employers Want You to Learn in College, was published by Ten Speed Press in August, 2003. It informs undergraduates how they can use their college academic and non academic experiences to prepare for a rewarding career. GE purchased and distributed 40 copies to career service center at the University from which they recruit.

In 2000, he published a book How You Can Help: An Easy Guide to Doing Good Deeds in Your Everyday Life published by Routledge. The book aims to encourage people to do good. Larry King, Ralph Nader and the presidents of both the Points of Light Foundation and Independent Sector have endorsed the book. All profits from the book are contributed to local programs for disadvantaged youth.

He has co-authored Power Persuasion: A Surefire System to Get Ahead in Business (Addison-Wesley, 1985) which was selected by Fortune Book of the Month Club and has been translated into Danish, German, Japanese, and Spanish.
For more comple information on my activities with respect to both doing good and doing well, consult my web site.
Books: 31 Articles: 51 Chapters: 32

Ben Franklin On Why Johnny Can’t Get a Job

2007-06-14T07:15:00.000-04:00

Ben Franklin started a school in the 1750’s, which eventually became University of Pennsylvania, because parents were sending their kids to Europe for their education. They were returning unable to perform the jobs that need to be performed. He called for a curriculum of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, rhetoric, grammar, literature, history, drawing, handwriting, accounting, geography, morality, logic, natural history, mechanics, and gardening. He was particularly agitated by the practice of teaching Latin when it was no longer necessary since most of the great works were translated into English. He wanted students to learn what was useful to them as workers and citizens rather than what he called the “ornaments” to display their educational attainments.

Two hundred and fifty years later, our students face the same limitations that Franklin sought to rectify and, astonishingly enough, for the same reason. We are not sending our kids to Europe to be educated and Latin is not a requirement, but our K-16 system is heavy on the ornamental and light on the useful just as in Franklin’s day.

Historians teach history as an experience in exploring the past for its own sake rather than what the past can tell us about the present and how to anticipate the future. Math is taught as a form of art rather than as a tool to solve real world, not abstract contrived, problems. Applied statistics is not a high school or college graduation requirement in almost all cases. Scientists teach their scientific disciplines rather than how science can help students live a more healthy life or how our environment can be protected. English teachers focus on deconstructing texts rather than improving writing.

According to a 2003 report by the Business-Higher Education Forum prepared by more that 70 university and corporate leaders, “business and education leaders have focused on the widening ‘skills gap’ between traditional training and the skills actually required to do today’s jobs and those of tomorrow.” The report is not as concerned with technical training as it is with cross-functional skills like “leadership, teamwork, problem solving and communications.” Employers I have interviewed are equally concerned with work ethic, attention to detail and honesty.

We need to rearrange our educational priorities so that our future generations are ready for not only the workforce but also the demands of citizenship and healthy living in the 21^st century. Preparing our future generations for life needs to be central; exposing them to the curriculum evolved out of the 17^th and 18^th century needs to remember the Hebrew proverb: “Do not confine your children to your own learning, for they were born in a different time.”

For more information on the importance of skills and how our schools and colleges could do a better job, see my articles on the subject.

Welcome Message

2007-06-11T09:55:00.000-04:00

I’m not your typical college professor. Most college professors want to develop budding specialists in their field and to make sure their students know something about their field. That is not my primary goal as a college professor. My goal is to prepare students to do well and do good for the rest of their lives. Or to put it in the most graphic terms, I love my students more than my subject.

I have spent most of my college teaching career helping students achieve three goals through their college education:
1. Develop the general professional skills they need for any career
2. Build character to be good employees, family members and citizens
3. Explore career paths so they know where to go after college

I wasn’t always an atypical college professor. After receiving my Ph.D. in 1964, I played the academic game of research and publication well enough to become a tenured full professor in the College of Arts and Sciences and the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs of Syracuse University in 1972. As I was churning out articles and attending scholarly conventions, I realized that my students were suffering. By 1976, I had reversed by priorities. My students came before my other professional activities.

I started a new undergraduate major in 1976 and built it to be a program with very strong students according to employers, graduate schools and many colleagues on campus. See Syracuse's website for testimonials from career-savvy alumni. In the mid-1990’s, I started writing articles for newspapers and other outlets. The launching article was entitled "It’s the Skills Stupid" which was syndicated by Knight Ridder. The positive reaction from that article led me to write a book in 2003 entitled 10 Things Employers Want You to Learn in College and my most recent book in 2007, 25 Ways to Make College Pay Off: Advice for Anxious Parents from a Professor Who's Seen It All.

So, now it’s the Blogosphere for me. It will allow me to interact with those who want college to pay off for themselves and their children. It will allow me to share ideas from my experiences, the latest research in the field and personal stories from others with you.

I want to reduce the enormous financial and emotional risks for those who go to college. The downside is much greater than many realize. Less the 55% of college students graduate in four years.¹ Average college debt is close to $20,000 which limits career choice.² Sixty percent of college graduates say they plan to move back home.³ Many college graduates take jobs in a perpetual stage of job hunting rather than building a solid career path because they lack the skills, character and career focus they should have gotten in college.

While I want to reduce the downside to a college education, I want to increase the upside. Students who see college as a chance to develop skills, build character and explore careers will launch themselves into a viable career path after they graduate college. I know this from my experience with more than 1,000 advisees and 20,000 students over the past forty years and through my discussions with employers. The key to a winning strategy is for students to see a college education not as 120 academic credits required for a degree but as four years of experiences. This strategy works well for all college graduates whether they go right into the workforce or to graduate school. They must embrace the harsh but liberating reality that "A college degree and four quarters will get you a dollar."

(1) Chronicle of Higher Education, Almanac Issue 2006-2007, p. 14.
(2) Quoted in USA Today, May 25, 2007, p. 38.
(3) Peg Tyre, Karen Springen, and Judy Scelfo, "Bringing Up Adultolescents," Newsweek, March 25, 2002, p. 34.