Charles J. Sykes - Fail U.: The False Promise of Higher Education

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To my father, Professor Jay G. Sykes,
who got it all started

I owe a considerable debt to those who have gone before me as well as to the many individuals, inside and outside of academe, who once again offered me their counsel and insightsas they did twenty-eight years ago when I first published ProfScam.

In particular, Richard Vedder, the director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, was kind enough to review an early version of this manuscript and gave me valuable feedback and encouragement. I have also relied on the excellent work done by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, Glenn Reynolds, who chronicled the higher education bubble while it was inflating, and Heather Mac Donald who reported on the rise of microaggressions before the deluge. I am also indebted to the scholarship of Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, James Rosenbaum, Andrew Hacker, Claudia Dreifus, Charles Murray, Mark Bauerlein, Emily Yoffe, and Nathan Harden, as well as the many whistleblowers of the academy.

Once again, this book would not be possible without the efforts of my agent Glen Hartley and the vision of my longtime editor George Witte, who saw potential in my return to the scene of academia.

ON A BEAUTIFUL LATE spring day in Washington, DC, at a graduation ceremony at one of the nations better universities, a middle-aged couple sits in folding chairs on the lawn and watches the ceremony. The scene on campus is idyllic (especially if one avoids student housing), and more than one onlooker has the wistful feeling that all of this is perhaps wasted on the young.

The father turns to his wife (or significant other) and says, We did good. It is a sentiment repeated hundreds, perhaps thousands of times at similar ceremonies around the country, capturing our attitude toward college, or at least the attitude of parents. Getting a child through college is one of the sacraments of parenthood, a milestone of achievement and success at least as important to parents as to the holder of the degree. And indeed, that degree for many has offered entre into the respectable middle class, exemption from work that involves getting dirty, and access to attractive members of the opposite sex.

Books on higher education, such as this one, often assume that colleges are primarily or even largely about academics, but the reality is far more complex. The four-year or longer sojourn in the groves of academe is a kaleidoscopic experience of classrooms, frats, lectures, keg parties, all-nighters, political correctness, hookups, alcohol, athletic spectacle, and the occasional intellectual insight.

At some point in their college experience, students are thankful that their parents have only the vaguest idea what they have been paying for on campusnot just the extracurricular bacchanals but also the bizarre cultural intolerances, the obsessive rituals of conformity, the absentee faculty, teaching assistants unable to speak English, the hair-trigger racial, cultural, gender, and political sensitivities, and the junk courses with their effort-free As. Even some of the professorselaborately begowned for the commencement ceremonyrecognize that much of what happens on campus is silly and that their pretensions are a target-rich environment for satire and ridicule. Perhaps that explains the higher education complexs chronically thin skin and its shrill defensiveness in the face of occasional criticism.

But the degree has covered a multitude of sins.

We did good, and the financial burden behind those words, had little to do with their childs curriculum or the quality of the interaction with faculty; it didnt matter whether the proud graduate had ever read Shakespeare or even whether he or she could pass a test in basic critical thinking. I have never heard a single parent speculate about what value might be added by those four undergraduate years, novelist Tom Wolfe wrote, other than the bachelors degree itself, which is an essential punch on the ticket for starting off in any upscale career.

We did good was simply the essential, required rite of passage: obtaining the degree. What that degree actually signified beyond the validation of social and economic standing was almost an afterthought. At least until recently.

THE BUBBLE BEGINS TO BURST

In March 2015, Virginias Sweet Briar College announced that, despite having an $84 million endowment, it was closing its doors after the spring semester. The liberal arts all-womens school, with one of the most idyllic campuses in the country, was basically out of money. It was closing, officials said, because it faced insurmountable financial challenges, including a steadily declining enrollment. However, after an alumni revolt, Sweet Briar was able to win a reprieve that allowed it to keep its doors openat least temporarily.

But Sweet Briar was not alone. Moodys Investors Service has been downgrading the financial outlook of dozens of schools in recent years, and the number of private four-year institutions that have shut down or been acquired doubled from 2010 to 2013. What were concerned about is the death spiralthis continuing downward momentum for some institutions, Moodys Susan Fitzgerald told Bloomberg in the wake of Sweet Briars closing. We will see more closures than in the past.

Allowing for its unique circumstances, Sweet Briars story was a familiar one among colleges. Like other schools, it had spent generously on amenities to attract students. It boasted the countrys largest indoor equestrian arena, which included an enclosed lunging ring, seven teaching fields, and miles of trails. For tuition and fees of $47,095 a year, Sweet Briar also provided its students with a bistro, four libraries, and a Fitness and Athletic Center that included a three-lane elevated track, a newly remodeled gym, and squash and racquetball courts. The colleges Prothro Natatorium featured a six-lane competitive pool, deck space for home swim meets, and a balcony overlooking the pool for spectators.

The school also offered what a sympathetic account in the Atlantic called a prolific academic program. Despite having only 532 students, Sweet Briar offered no fewer than forty-six majors, minors, and certificate programs. Its administration remained fully staffed and it retained a faculty of 110, including 80 full-time professors. Classes were small, some with only a single student.

Needless to say, the Atlantic deadpanned, these features are very expensive to maintain.

HAVE WE SEEN THIS before? Rapidly escalating costs, irrational exuberance, and massive debt confronted by collapsing values? Political posturing, easy money, extravagant spending, and exaggerated claims of future benefits?

With striking parallels to the housing bubble of the last decade, the cost of a college degree has soared by 1,125 percent since 1978four times the rate of inflationeven as the value of that degree is increasingly questionable. A generation of graduates is emerging from higher education carrying a crushing debt burden, but without the skills or job prospects that once had been taken for granted.