In spite of several excellent nights of sleep according to the data from my BiPAP breathing machine which is supposed to be helping me, I’m still fighting severe chronic fatigue. Thus, I’m not ready to publish the promised second post in my series on Key Performance Indicators. Therefore, I am very happy that Erik Benson, a guest author of two previous posts (Where are you? Cultural intelligence and successful leadership in a university context and The Value of the Liberal Arts to the University), has volunteered to jump in with his essay below that actually fits very well with some of the directions I intended to pursue in my future posts.
Basketball, Billboards, and Promises We Can’t Keep: A Problem in Higher Education
In the movie White Men Can’t Jump, the two main characters (played by Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson) meet on a basketball court. Snipes’ character sizes up Harrelson’s as an easy mark for a hustle but needs some cash to place his bet. He assures his friend who stakes him the money that they will go out for dinner with the winnings. He soon discovers, however, that he has been hustled, and cannot make good on the promise of dinner.
Besides appealing to By’s passion for basketball, this anecdote is a classic example of making a promise one can’t keep. While funny in a movie, it is also a sad reality in higher education. There is a common expectation that a college education guarantees one a job for life. Yet a wide array of sources, from systematic surveys to social media, reveal that many college graduates (and their parents) have been left feeling that this promise has gone unmet. The college graduate who is struggling to find a job and has moved back in with his or her parents has become a common cliché.
This cliché is not baseless, nor is it limited to the “usual suspects.” As Derek Newton notes in a 2018 article in Forbes magazine, liberal arts majors are popularly associated with the college-educated Starbucks barista. Yet a recent study of the employment prospects of college graduates yielded some surprising results. It focused on underemployment, which refers to people with jobs “for which they are overqualified.”
The study revealed that a surprisingly large number of graduates with majors in business and health-related fields were underemployed, even five years after graduation. Newton observes, “In other words, for every cliché of a barista or bartender with a liberal arts degree, there were ten with a degree in business.” Considering that business or health-related fields are often sold as “safe” career choices, the reality must be shocking for many graduates. Little wonder, then, that many have growing doubts about the efficacy of a college education.
Popular manifestations of this are readily evident. Mike Rowe, the face of such shows as Dirty Jobs, is but one of the critics questioning the conventional wisdom about college education. Rowe emphasizes that he is not “anti-college,” but that he has a problem with the overwhelming push to get young people to go to college. For one thing, not everyone is “cut out” for college. For another, there are many unfilled jobs that do not require a college education, but simply some vocational training and a willingness to work. Coupled with the high cost of college, the intense pressure on young people to go is even more inexplicable. In sum, the ideal that is sold doesn’t match reality.
Rowe is not a lone voice. Even within higher education ranks, doubts abound. In a 2018 piece on the state of higher education for Christian Scholar’s Review, Jack R. Baker and Jeffrey Bilbro comment on seeing a slew of billboards along I-94 in southern Michigan for numerous institutions (including their own) rife with promises of fulfilling jobs, careers, and lives. The fact that each makes the same promise of a unique or distinctive experience is remarkably ironic. Their experience is anything but unique. Such billboards abound across the country and are but one venue of the onslaught; television, radio, laptops, and electronic devices are all flooded with such sales pitches. My own institution has ads that pop up on seemingly every webpage, and billboards throughout western Michigan trumpeting a 94% job placement rate for graduates and a chance at “a life that matters.”
This points to additional promises colleges make beyond material rewards. They offer assurances about safety, significance, and future fulfillment. Whatever the slogan, graduates are assured of a life of adventure and significance. Of course, this ties in with material results; few likely envision a life of significance as a barista. Yet there are non-material results. Christian colleges have long been seen as being an ideal venue for finding a spouse. However, besides the fact that this is not the institution’s reason for being, this ideal runs afoul of such realities as student demographics. Still, this is on oft-repeated sales pitches to potential students and their parents. Of course, this has been part of a larger narrative of Christian colleges as “safe havens” for students. This is a big selling point for parents who fear what their children will be exposed to at a state institution, and who thus want assurances that their children won’t be challenged regarding their beliefs. In fairness, on the flip side, many state institutions are marketing much the same idea of being “safe places,” albeit under different guises. Yet the reality is that a good college education exposes one to different people, divergent ideas, and deep thinking, none of which are “safe.” Put simply, we will disappoint those to whom we make that promise.
The tendency to make promises that cannot be kept poses a big problem for higher education. The more it is done, the more the narrative of unfulfilled promises is fed, the more doubts about the value of a college degree rise, and the more downward pressure we will see on enrollment. Put simply, the “brand” will lose its credibility, and “sales” will reflect this. It is a tendency that needs to be broken, and the starting point for doing so is to acknowledge and engage with reality, as we are doing in this forum.
References:
The Permanent Detour: Underemployment’s Long-Term Effects on the Careers of College Grads (Boston: Burning Glass Technologies, 2018).
Jack R. Baker and Jeffry Bilbro, “How Wendell Berry Helps Universities Inhabit Their Places,” Christian Scholar’s Review 47:4 (Summer 2018), 415-22.
Derek Newton, “It’s Not Liberal Arts and Literature Majors Who Are Most Underemployed,” Forbes 31 May 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereknewton/2018/05/31/its-not-liberal-arts-and-literature-majors-who-are-most-underemployed/#7959111911de (accessed 11 February 2019).
Mike Rowe, “Mistaken Stance on the Importance of Higher Education,” Mike Rowe (17 July 2017). http://mikerowe.com/2017/07/otw-mistakenstanceonimportanceofcollegeed/ (Accessed 31 January 2019).
Erik and I trust that this post has provoked some thinking on your part and we hope that you will let us know those thoughts via the comment section below. At this point, I make no promises concerning my next post other than to say it will either be a follow-up to Erik’s post or the second post in my Key Performance Indicators series. Even after 10.3 hours of sleep last night, according to the readout on my BiPAP, my body is telling me it’s time for a nap. Until next time, I’ll snore away!