A group assembled at my college last night to discuss the topic "Should students have more power?" To my surprise, many in the group took that to me power over the administration of the school as an institution. I suppose in retrospect it shouldn't have come as that much of a surprise, since several people present are highly active in the college community, and consistently interact with college administration. It is not hard to believe that such experiences could influence a person's interpretation of the discussion prompt.
But since we're on the mountain, let's approach the topic from a different angle. I interpretted the question to ask whether students should have more control over their education. This isn't a new question, and the last few years have seen several disciplines and government initiatives consider carefully how we ought to educate our children.
I remember last year asking this question in an economics class. The professor claimed that one way to measure the cost and benefit of education is to consider how much the education costs compared to how much the education benefits the person getting the education. Assuming a rational person, one would expect that the person would value the education the receive greater than or equal to the cost they pay to procure it. Makes sense, yeah? If a movie ticket is worth 8 dollars to me, I'll pay the entry fee to see the film. A film that looks bad might be worth less, and as a result I won't pay $8 to see it. Say I value my 4-year college education at $180,000. Because I value it that much or more, I was willing to pay that much to receive it.
I don't know about you, but $180,000 is a lot of money for me, and as valuable as I feel that education has been, I can't help but wonder if the cost I and my family bore was worth the benefit received. Many students ask this question as well. Doing so sometimes prompt the point, "Well, if I'm paying so much for this education, perhaps I should have more of a say in what constitutes it. After all, I'm the consumer, and I know or have some idea of what I want to use the education for. Knowing the value of what I want, should I not be allowed to tailor my education to match or exceed the cost of things I want to use the education to acquire?"
Unfortunately, it's been a while since I read the report, but a program employing such logic started in Great Britain within the last few years. From what I remember, it seemed to assume that students know what they want from an education, and should therefore have greater control in making choices to further their aspirations. It all sounded very rational, very neat, and reasonable to the extent that if colleges expect students to pay a fortune to attend, perhaps they ought to have a greater say in how they earn it back.
But the program missed some things, I believe. One particular aspect is one my economics professor talked about during the same lesson. He claimed that education is one of those things that benefits not only the individual, but also society as a whole, what economists call "positive externalities." Externalities are interesting because they suggest ways in which markets fail to achieve optimum welfare. Negative externalities occur when a market produces too much of a given good because the true cost of that good is distorted. For example, a factory making paper on a river pays a certain amount for the material, labor, and machines that go into making paper. The problem that arises is that the factory also produces pollution, which enters the river and renders the water downstream undrinkable without expensive water-treatment facilities. Without intervention, the paper factory will keep producing paper without bearing in mind the cost that it incurs to the community downstream. In this way, the cost of making paper is artificially low compared to what it would cost if the company had to also pay for the damage it did downstream. The market ends up producing more paper than is socially optimal because circumstances created distortion in the paper company's perception of the cost of making paper.
Whew, long paragraph. Stay with me now. The thing about education is that it is a positive externality; markets tend to produce too little of something because the price is artificially high. As a rule, a more educated population tends to commit fewer crimes, have a better standard of living, and a better-quality democratic process than one that is less educated. Some might suggest that greater education tends to increase a communities tolerance of minorities and others who deviate unharmfully from the social norm. Societies with free public education address this problem by making it a community venture to educate local children. Doing so benefits the whole community.
But what about college? One could argue that more college graduates benefits society, perhaps not as much as a basic education as provided by public education, but nonetheless college graduates probably add a good deal to the communities in which they live. Many professional fields, for example, involve and/or require a college education. So it stands to reason that a community attains some benefit from having its memebers go to college. The thing is, unlike public education, a college education is often paid for by the individual, at least in the United States. Depending on the institution, the cost of a college education can range from expensive to astronomical. Simply put, higher education requires a high price, scholarships, grants, and loans aside. We college students pay a lot in terms of money, time, and effort.
And in doing so, we accrue benefits not only for ourselves, but also for our communities. Going to college is like doing a type of community service, even if that isn't the idea. Plenty will argue against that, especially if they live in a college town and suffer from the business of drunken hooligans, but given that, our country would be far worse off were it not for a college education.
Much to think about here obviously.
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