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How can we affect public support for public higher education?

Brian Leiter

A philosopher in the University of Wisconsin sytem writes:

I'm writing to ask if you'd be willing to host a thread focused specifically on the question about strategy, raised by harry b in a comment on The Republican war on public higher education: it's now the law in Wisconsin, concerning "what we [who want to protect public higher education] should be doing to change the minds of voters so that they put the break on the politicians." I'd be very interested to see discussion of this pressing issue, which should be of broad interest and concern.

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15 responses to “How can we affect public support for public higher education?”

  1. Brian

    Recent example of interest:




    (Go to 7m 14s point in the video)

    "We have to revolutionize what higher education means. It will still lead to four year degrees for a lot of people, but we can't afford to graduate people with a mountain of loans for a degree that doesn't lead to jobs. How many Greek philosophers do we really still need in America?"

    When an increasing share of the population seems to see higher education as mere vocational training and as a credential used to further one's self-interest, then the argument for subsidizing that may lose its power. If the public can be convinced that higher education is still important for the public good (and that education is a good in itself, as opposed to a means to an end), then perhaps its continued support could be justified, in light of these political arguments.

    The attack on the humanities in particular is concerning; philosophy as a field of study can apparently be dismissed with a sneer by a top politician, and few seem to notice or care. The "Greek Philosophers" quip is a recurring talking point in Rubio's speeches. We can see a looming threat, then, to many fields of study that are not most incentivized by the market economy.

    Reply
  2. middle-class prof

    I think state officials are often quite unaware of the financial realities of being a prof at a state school.
    For example, they assume that most profs make well into six figures. We don't (especially at branch campuses).

    When legislators are given figures by righties, it is usually for Full Professors. But, the distinction between Full and *all* is lost, so it radically inflates the numbers.

    Perhaps some simple salary data would help. What are the lifetime earnings, up to 45 years of age, for a FT professor versus a plumber or electrician (who started in the trade at 25, say)? What are the annual earnings at 45? (Don't forget to note student loans.) This is not to say that I would rather be a plumber, but only to point out that we would inhabit the same financial universe.

    I think that most legislators would be surprised to find that your average early- to mid-career professor is firmly in the middle class– if not tenuously in the middle class–and likely earning the same as a plumber. Showing that we are basically middle-class working schmucks should make the debate less hostile. 95% percent of the population thinks we are all living the lifestlye of pampered Oxford Dons, when most of us are just struggling to make the mortgage, put braces on the kids, and scrimp for retirement (which is usually much later than most workers, I might add!).

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  3. jtaylor@tcnj.edu

    Without seeking to criticize middle-class prof's substantive points, I don't think that Oxford dons are especially pampered!

    https://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/finance/epp/payroll/scales/academicsalaryscales/

    Reply
  4. Christopher Morris

    Popular support for higher education in the US has been remarkably strong given that American political culture is quite anti-intellectual. I've always thought that the popularity of football and basketball teams contributed; certainly that seems to be the main way much of the population learns about universities.

    There may not be much that can be done about the long-term secular trend regarding decreasing state funding of universities. The constraints on state budgets, esp. the increasing proportions of "non-discretionary" expenditures (e.g., Medicare, pensions), mean that this trend will continue. But it would help if more voters knew that professors work more than six or so hours a week and don't take the summer off. To most people a salary of $50-90,000 for nine months work of a few hours a week sounds like a very good deal, though perhaps not one worth supporting. And when voters find out about the increasing proportion of teaching done by adjuncts they won't be pleased. There was an excellent post about this on Crooked Timber some time ago, but I can't find the link. We're quite vulnerable politically I fear. At the margin more community involvement will help, but this won't go very far. Winning sports teams may be our best bet.

    Reply
  5. Yet Another Anon Grad Student

    Or we can just point out that America is losing its competitive edge and is quickly becoming the laughing-stock of the world. Or that the attack on higher education is funded by treasonous corporate assholes who want to sacrifice American education so they can pay lower taxes while shipping all of our jobs overseas, and who demand that we cut back on the "luxury" of a classical education and just focus on being good little worker-bees while they hoard 50% of the nation's wealth in off-shore bank accounts.

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  6. kurt

    It would be interesting to see a study—perhaps one has been done already—that indicates the relative value of the University of California system pre-Reagan and now, in adjusted dollars. My guess is that the losses are significant, and thus represent a genuine loss on investment to California taxpayers (as well as the potential decline of a world-class university system, no disrespect intended.

    I'm not sure if "so that they put the break on the politicians" is advocating violence, a typo, or an ironic statement on the quality of education. Presumably this should be "brake."

    Reply
  7. Daniel Kaufman (Missouri State)

    Yet Another Anon Grad Student:

    That is exactly the sort of approach that most definitely will *not* work.

    1. Americans don't care about whether they are a laughing stock amongst a bunch of foreigners, for whom they have contempt anyway. As for our competitive edge, given the basket case economy that is much of Europe, that's going to be a hard sell. (Even if true.)

    2. Americans are much more pro business than pro Academy, so railing against business isn't going to work either.

    3. Americans are not particularly moved by class resentment. They don't want to tear the rich down, they want to become rich themselves.

    Any strategy that will actually have a chance in hell of working will require first undoing a lot of erroneous and toxic beliefs that many, if not most Americans have about universities and especially, about professors. This includes everything from the idea that we don't work very much and are thus, overpaid — something that is constantly referenced — to the notion that we are a bunch of atheist Marxists who want to de-Christianize the country.

    I am not optimistic about our capacity to overcome these ideas, however.

    Reply
  8. Yet Another Anon Grad Student

    Dan,

    (1) I think it's going to be especially difficult to get rid of the Marxist stereotype when we keep throwing millionaires and small business owners under the bus alongside the Koch brothers. Americans like small businesses but–aside from those who have drunk the Tea Party Kool Aid–they are not fans of mega-corporations and Wall Street.

    (2) I wasn't referencing Europe but China. People are definitely concerned with China. They appear to be hiring a lot of American-trained PhDs as well. It's pretty clear that they think they can in part bury us with a superior system of higher education. They're behind now, but it's only a matter of time until the surpass us.

    (3) As far as convincing people that universities are not full of ultra-liberal anti-Christian ideology goes, there is one small problem. Universities ARE full of ultra-loberl anti-Christian ideology. The fact that this ideology is not universal is probably not going to be of much consolation. "See, only 6/10 of your child's humanities professors are going to think your religion and value system is total nonsense!" I don't anticipate those sorts of factoids changing a lot of hearts and minds.

    (4) In general, I find your claim–that fear-mongering and appeals to resentment won't work while cold sophisticated arguments based on evidence will–exceedingly odd. On what sociological evidence are you basing this claim?

    Reply
  9. Yet Another Anon Grad Student

    I'd also point out that one hardly needs to be driven by class-resentment in order to say that it is bad for half of the nation's wealth to pool at the top. First of all, a lot of that wealth simply doesn't re-enter the economy at all. Second, even if it were true that this wealth trickled down to improve the conditions of the lower and middle-class (which it decidedly isn't), it wouldn't change the fact that this wealth would be re-entering the economy primarily through speculation rather than through the middle-class purchasing goods. As we have already seen, this sort of speculation-based economy is much more inherently unstable than a trade-based economy. Even if the short-term gains in GDP are larger than if we had redistributive taxation and a larger public sector (which is by no means clear), you will have to weigh this against the recessions that will inevitably occur when some bubble bursts and the unstable system collapses like a house of cards. I think it should be pretty damn clear to everyone by now that this trade-off isn't worth it. Any capitalist worth his or her salt should be deeply opposed to our current wild-west system of bloated banks, competition-stifling monopolies, bureaucratic patronage, and no-strings-attached bailouts.

    Reply
  10. Michel X.

    A while ago I read a book called "Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future". It wasn't great, but it tackled basically the same issue (on behalf of science), and I think it had the right idea: the best option is public outreach, and making the university indispensable to ordinary American life. The more present academics are on TV, the radio, the newspapers, etc., the better. It won't solve the problem, but could go some way toward easing it. It's easier to justify cuts when the people affected are invisible, or seem untouched by them.

    My own pet solution is for universities to divest themselves of their sports teams and infrastructure. That'll make people take notice, and it's hard to argue against taking serious cost-cutting measures to preserve an educational institution's core mission. It might not even be so hard to pressure the more beleaguered institutions into taking this kind of action individually.

    Reply
  11. Sam Rickless

    A campaign led by execs at various companies explaining how valuable their college educated, non vocationally trained, employees are. Meet Sandy, majored in Greek philosophy, now leading our team of experts doing Y. Meet Robert, majored in African history, now in charge of Z. And so on. You want voters to connect personally with the impact of a college education.

    Reply
  12. Daniel Kaufman (Missouri State)

    Yet Another Anon Grad Student:

    Did you read the last sentence of my post? If you did, I can't possibly understand why you would say what you say in (4).

    By all means, go ahead with your strategy. Let us know how you do.

    Reply
  13. Mike Z

    I think it can be easy to read too much significance into events in WI. As has already been said in a previous thread, what is even more worrying than the removal of tenure protections from state law (which actually won't significantly change the administration of tenure protections) are the huge budget cuts. And the vast majority of public in WI disproved of those cuts (I think something like 75% in a recent poll). However, the budget situation in WI forced the Republicans to do something that was bound to make many unhappy. In the last budget cycle WI Republicans cut taxes, which led to very large deficits this cycle. Given that WI has been making cuts in many areas for the past decade, this created a truly dire budget situation. So Republicans faced the choice of making large cuts to road construction, K-12 education, or higher education (they of course thought raising taxes was out of the question); when those are the choices it is pretty easy to see why they might make the biggest cuts to the university system. The public in WI does seems to support the university system, but WI Republicans judged that they would get more grief by cutting in other ares. And that seems like a reasonable prediction.

    On a related note, as an (under)graduate of UW-Madison from the mid 2000s I'm actually quite appalled at the current trend of dramatically increasing amenities on campus, seemingly without regard for affordability. Many of the construction projects from the early 2010s have given the place the feel of a flush corporate campus rather than a frugal public university. And these are student areas, like the student union and dinning halls, not just research buildings. I understand that this is meant to draw the best students, but it gives the impression that the university has plenty of money to spare. There is something really strange about the university projecting wealth to attract students and then claiming poverty when budget negotiations begin. The public picks up on that.

    Reply
  14. harry b

    Here's the crooked timber post Christopher Morris refers to above:
    http://crookedtimber.org/2015/06/08/professors-do-far-less-teaching-than-the-public-imagines/

    Reply
  15. Laura Grams

    I'm no longer surprised any political candidate would ridicule study of the humanities, but I'm amused that the particular example chosen implies study of the foundations of our democratic values and system is of little importance. If he tires of suggesting that Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle are a waste of time, maybe he can devise a few one-liners about the frivolity of reading Locke or the Federalist papers next? The way he words the comment is interesting, as if the main purpose of university study of ancient Greek philosophy is to produce "Greek philosophers". Clearly, I've been doing it all wrong – my classes have been churning out way too many human resources managers and lawyers! I thought Sen. Rubio was an attorney but he probably learned to think and write in more useful courses?

    I agree with Dan Kaufman (perhaps because like him I'm located in the middle of the country?) insofar as many people I know seem to vote on the assumption that they will someday be rich or that whatever policies benefit their bank will ultimately benefit them too, for reasons that remain obscure. I run across many people who think professors are overpaid to do little and have values incompatible with their own. I don't have any grand strategy for changing this besides by talking to one person at a time, but it does help once people understand what we actually do in our courses and with our time. Not everyone sees the value in a philosophy major even if they see the value of individual philosophy classes, but at least the latter is easy to recognize once people know more about it. We've been doing great at generating bad publicity for the profession; if only we could do as much for championing the awesomeness of what we do, especially for undergrads. When most college grads will have multiple jobs throughout their careers and will need to handle very different kinds of responsibilities and challenges, philosophy is uniquely suited to training flexible, critical thinkers who can solve problems and communicate clearly. In that way it seems more important now than ever.

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