Fallacy of Higher Education

1970

An old saying states that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Since a little knowledge implies only a superficial understanding, this is possibly true.  But in the United States of the 1970s a great deal of knowledge may be a dangerous thing.  On the surface this may appear contradictory, but we examine the fallacy of this thrust for knowledge through higher education, we will find it is not.

What are these fallacies lurking in the American belief in higher education?  To answer this we must raise several basic questions that must be answered first. What is the common American attitude toward education?  What is the traditional position of a college graduate in American society?  What is the qualitative position of education under the demands of universal education?

There appears to be an ambivalence of thought about education in the American mind.  There are many indications that education is viewed with suspicion.  This especially true in the lower economic classes where survival is often in the physical ability of the man rather than in his mental ability.  Perhaps it is a hangover from the frontier, which has given us a tradition of using action to overcome barriers.  We also can see a mistrusting attitude in much of the arts of recent decades.  How many movies showed a rugged hero outsmarting the college upstart?

But America has filled in its physical frontiers and its people are no longer rural-bound farmers and lower class laborers, but a vast middle-class of mostly urban bent.  The problems have switched from the physical to those of a complex sophisticated nature.  The middle-class man, often frustrated by the pressure to succeed, has developed a concept of education as both a means to this success or an excuse for failure.₁  That is, to have an education will provide a hand up to better status, while a lack of it can take the onus off the failure to gain some prestigious position.  In any case, the belief in the power of education becomes a push on the middle-class child to gain as much as possible.  Everywhere in American society we find an emphasis on getting an education.  The child is assaulted by parent, teacher and even public transit advertising to stay in school, get a good education to get a good job; go to college.  Usually he is lectured in school guidance courses on the monetary benefits of education.  The high school graduate makes X thousand dollars more than the non-graduate.  The college graduate makes X thousand dollars more that the high school graduate.  Here we see an emphasis, not on the intellectual benefits of college, but on the money value.  We shall return to the question of monetary gain later.  But here, let us consider the lack of concern about the job waiting the graduate.  There is no real interest in the demands of the job.  Perhaps it is taken for granted that the job will be worthy of four years, or more, of educational pursuit.  But are the waiting positions enough to satisfy an educated person?  This leads to answering the second question.

In the presidential race of 1968, we saw what was a great influx of college youth into the political arena, both as participants in the established patterns and as demonstrators in the street.  Many questions were put forth asking why the students had become politically oriented.  Public interest was not the average image of what a college student should be pursuing.  The student was in college to listen, not to speak.  But this student involvement led to some examination of the students’ position by such political analysts as Theodore S. White.  The thought provoking analysis he set forth does very well in answering our second question about the traditional position of the college graduate in our society.

Traditionally, according to White, college has been seen as preparatory to leadership.  This is certainly true, since we are told in repeated commencement and political addresses that students are the leaders of tomorrow.  But how many leaders can there be?  Everybody cannot be a leader, some must be followers.  Not everyone can be a planner, or designer, or professor.  Some must be machine operators, technicians, clerks.  To be realistic, we must face the fact that there is a greater need for the latter then of the former.  As White points out, New York needs carpenters and yet young people are not becoming carpenters.  In the same state “scores of thousands of students...study international affairs; yet the state department absorbs only 150 new foreign service officers a year...industry only a few thousands.”  What happens when these “scores of thousands of students” realize there is no place for them when they graduate?  What happens when promise is broken?  “What happens to a dream deferred?”  And yet the push for everybody to go to college continues, and leads to the answer of the third question, how does the growth of college enrollment affect the quality of education?

Lets consider a few dry statistics.  The American Council of Education has issued projections of college enrollment to 1980.  They tell the story graphically.  In 1900 there were 238,000 students.  By 1980 this is expected to reach 12,000,000, a rise of nearly 5,000%.  This is out of proportion with the population growth, for population will be up 228.9% by 1980.  Even faculty rise lags behind student enrollment at about 3,000% by 1980.  What can this mean in terms of education quality?  With overcrowded classes, overburdened teachers and too many students who should not be in college, quality can only suffer.  Every child should not grow up to go to college, yet projections say 90% will go to college by year 2000.  This is not just an issue of mental ability, but one of desire.  Many young people would probably not consider college if external factors did not force them to a college desk.  One such factor, as stated, is financial gain.  But with such an overabundance of college students entering the job market, one wonders how soon the gain in salary will level out.  If a firm needs one engineer and has 100 college graduates applying, it does not need to offer a large salary as a lure.

We must also consider the requirements of college as well, for with a huge demand for college training, it is only natural that a supply will be provided.  Whether the supply is of adequate quality is a different question.

This is only a brief, and thus, a superficial examination of a problem of American society, that has heretofore been generally overlooked.  But the time has come to see the problem of universal education.  Solutions involve changing attitudes, so are difficult, but not impossible if we begin to recognize the need.  We have advised every young person to get an education.  We have emphasized the importance of college.  Now it may be time to consider the actual impact of our advice.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Baez, Joan, Playboy Interview. Playboy, Volume 17, No. 7, July 1970

“Battle for a College”, Look, Volume 33, No. 11, May 27, 1969

Bongartz, Roy, “Three Meanies: Weathermen”. Esquire, Volume 74, P. 441, August 1970

Boyarsky, Bill, The Rise of Ronald Reagan. New York, N.Y., Random House, 1968

Bulletin, Philadelphia, Pa., Temple University, 1969

Bulletin, Philadelphia, Pa., University of Pennsylvania, 1968

Bunzel, John H., “An Arrogant Minority Victimized the College”, Look, Volume 33, No. 11, May 27, 1969

“Campus: ‘Backbone’ and ‘Backlash’”, Newsweek, Volume May 12, 1969

“Curriculum”, Collier’s Encyclopedia, Volume 7, Pages 569-586, 1962

Deasy, C. M., “When Architects Consult People.” Psychology Today, Volume 3, No. 10, March 1970

Dobbs, Jr., Allen R. The Job Hunter: Diary of a ‘Lost’ Year.  New York, N.Y., Pocket Books, 1965

“Drive Yourself, College Style”, Psychology Today, Volume 3, No. 10, March 1970

“Education and Civil Disorder”, Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, New York, N.Y., Bantam Books, 1968, Pages 424-426

“Education in the United States” Collier’s Encyclopedia, Volume 8, Page 600-618, 1963

Education Section, U. S. Book of Facts, Statistics and Information, New York, N.Y., United States Government, 1967

Education Section, The World Almanac and Book of Facts, New York, N.Y., Newspaper Enterprise Association, Inc., 1967

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, Selected Writings, edited by William R. Gilman, New York, N.Y., Signet Books, 1965

Etzioni, Amitai, “On Beating Universities into Spearpoints”. Psychology Today, Volume 4, No. 2, June 1970

Eurich, Alvin C. and the Staff of the Academy for Educational Development, Editors.  Campus 1980: The Shape of the Future in American Higher Education, New York, N.Y., Dell Publishing Co., 1968

Farber, Jerry, The Student as Nigger. North Hollywood, California, Contact Books, 1969

Faulkner, Harold Underwood, American Economic History.  New York, N.Y. Harper & Row, 1960

Fink, Rychard, “Federal Aid to Education”.  Collier’s Encyclopedia, Volume 9, Pages 629-630, 1963

Fitts, Donald D., PH.D., interviewed by Larry and Lois Meredith.  Department of Chemistry, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa., 2:00 PM, July 22, 1970 

Ford II, Henry, “Young People, The ‘Establishment’, and the Quality of Life”,  Reader’s Digest, July 1970, Volume 97, No. 579

Freud, Sigmund, Civilization and Its Discontents, translated by James Strachey, New York, N.Y., W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1961

Galbraith, John Kenneth, The New Industrial State.  New York, N.Y., Signet Books, 1967

Goldwater, Barry, The Conscience of a Conservative.  New York, N.Y., Hillman Books, 1960

Goodman, Paul, The Community of Scholars.  New York, N.Y., Vintage Books, 1964

-----        Compulsory Mis-Education. New York, N.Y., Vintage Books, 1962

-----        Growing Up Absurd.  New York, N.Y., Vintage Books, 1960

Gross, Martin L., “’New Class’ at Colleges Bites Hand That Feeds”. The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, Section 2, Page 2, July 19, 1970

Haley, Jay, The Power Tactics of Jesus Christ and Other Essays.  Pages 63-78, “The Amiable Hippie”, New York, N.Y., Grossman Publishers, 1969

Hall, Elizabeth, “A Conversation with Arthur Koestler”. Psychology Today, Volume 4, No. 1, June 1970

Halleck, Seymour, “You Can Go to Hell with Style”. Psychology Today, Volume 3, No. 6, Nov. 1969

Hall-Quest, Alfred Lawrence, “Liberal Education”. Collier’s Encyclopedia, Volume 14, Page 541, 1963

Harnwell, Maylord P., “Towards the ‘70’s: Seeking a New Model”.  Pennsylvania Gazette, Nov., 1968

Harrington, Michael, The Other America: Poverty in the United States.  Baltimore, MD., Penguin Books, Inc., 1962

Hechinger, Fred,  “Education”. Collier’s Encyclopedia Yearbook, page 218, 1970

Hechinger, Fred and Grace, Teen-age Tyranny. New York, N.Y., Fawcett World Library, 1963

Hentoff, Nat, “Freeing the University: Abolish Tenure”,  Evergreen Review, Volume 13, No. 73, Dec., 1969

---- “Higher Education for What?” Evergreen Review, Volume 14, No. 78, May 1970

Heymann, C. David, “Hail Columbia?” Student, Volume III, No. 4, Dec., 1968

“History of Education”, Collier’s Encyclopedia, Volume 8, 1963

Hitchner, Dell Gillette & Harbold, William Henry, Modern Government.  New York, N.Y., Dodd, Mead & Company, 1963

Hoffer, Eric, The True Believer.  New York, N.Y., Harper & Row, 1951

“How Brewster Does It at Yale”, Newsweek, June 15, 1970

Humphrey, Hubert H., The Cause is Mankind.  New York, N.Y., MacFadden Books, 1965

Huxley, Aldous, Brave New World Revisited. New York, N.Y., Harper & Row, 1958

Josephson, Eric & Mary, Editors, Man Alone: Alienation in Modern Society. New York, N.Y., Dell, 1962

Kandel, I. L., “Classical Education”, Collier’s Encyclopedia, Volume 6, 1962

Kay, Harry; Dodd, Bernard and Sime, Max, Teaching Machines and Programmed Instruction.  Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England, Penguin Books, 1968

Keats, John, The Sheepskin Psychosis.  New York, N.Y., Dell, 1965

Kennedy, Robert F., The Pursuit of Justice, Edited by Theodore J. Lowi. New York, N.Y., Harper & Row, 1964

----- To Seek a Newer World, Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1967

Kerr, Clark, The Uses of the University.  New York, N.Y., Harper & Row, 1963

Lesser, Leo, “We Need a Revolution”, Look, Volume 33, No. 11, May 27, 1969

Lukas, J. Anthony,  “The Making of a Yippie”.  Esquire, Volume 72, No. 5, Nov. 1969

Lundberg, Ferdinand, The Rich and the Super-Rich. New York, N.Y., Bantam Books, 1968

Lynch, Robert,  “The Thorpe Syllabus”.  Media & Methods, Volume 6, No. 2, Oct. 1969

Mal,  “The Lumpits”.  The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, Page 72, July 22, 1970

Mazo, Earl & Hess, Stephen, Nixon: A Political Portrait. New York, N.Y., Harper & Row, 1968

McCarthy, Eugene J.,  A Liberal Answer to the Conservative Challenge. New York, N.Y., MacFadden Books, 1964

McLaughlin, Frank, “A Recipe for Triggering Relevance”.  Media & Methods, Volume 5, No. 5, Jan. 1969

----- “What Do we Want Our Children to Be?”. Media & Methods, Volume 3, No. 1, Sept. 1968

----- “Why Study Media?”.  Media & Methods, Volume 3, No. 6, Feb. 1967

McLuhan, Marshall,  Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York, N.Y., Signet Books, 1964

McLuhan, Marshall & Fiore, Quentin, The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects.  New York, N.Y., Bantam Books, 1967

M., Larry, “Education and Paul Goodman”. Philadelphia, Pa., Temple University, 1968

M., Larry & N., Girard, “Three Pillars of Happiness”.  Philadelphia, Pa., St. Joseph’s University, 1968

M., Larry & R., Joseph S., “Warning for Aid”.  Philadelphia, Pa., St. Joseph’s University, 1968

Merton, Robert K. & Nisbet, Robert A., Editors, Contemporary Social Problems.  New York, N.Y., Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1961

Milton, John, “Tractate on Education”, New York, N.Y., P. F. Collier & Son, 1937

Muscatine, Charles & Griffiths, Marlene, Editors, The Borzoi College Reader. New York, N.Y., Alfred A. Knopf, 1967

“National System of Education”.  Collier’s Encyclopedia, Volume 8, pages 570-581, 1963

“New Dimensions of Public service”. Pennsylvania Gazette, Nov. 1968