Too much input? Part 2: An encroaching market

The following is an excerpt from the book The Costs of Living: How Market Freedom erodes the best things in Life (1994), by Swarthmore Psychology Professor Barry Schwartz.

"As this economic imperialism continues to occur, each of these domains of activity [i.e. professions such as lawyer, doctor and professional athlete] is eroded as a distinct practice; its goods are replaced by economic goods.

"Another example of this process...is education. The goal of education is to impart knowledge and develop in people the ability to think critically. Education at its best creates well-informed, responsible, concerned citizens. Education at its best is essential both for the well-being of our economy and for the well-being of our democracy. What happens to the practice of education as increasing competition among member of society for material resources leads to increasing competition for good (that is, high-paying) jobs? In response to this competition, employers keep creating new educational hurdles that must be jumped before job entry in possible. These hurdles have a profound effect on the way people view education. With education closely tied to job entry, job training, and material success, it becomes an 'investment' (literally, not metaphorically) in your future. The money spent on school is expected to be returned, with interest, later on. You start putting a dollar value on a college degree by surveying the salaries paid on the jobs to which it gives access.

"It is easy to imagine deciding whether or where to go to college by engaging in the following kind of calculations: A degree from the state university will cost $40,000. If you took that money and invested it, and entered the job market four years earlier than you otherwise would, would the interest on the investment coupled with the four extra years of earning power compensate for the higher-paying jobs forgone? If the answer to this question is yes, you don't go to college. Or perhaps the calculations might go like this: Harvard will cost $100,000, while the state university will cost $40,000. Will the job opportunities provided by a Harvard degree pay back the extra $60,000 invested? If the answer to this question is no, then you might go to college, but you won't go to Harvard.

"Once people start thinking about education in these terms--as an economic investment--it affects what they want out of education, and thus how they evaluate what they get. Suppose people stop valuing knowledge as an end to itself, or as an essential ingredient in the making of mature, responsible citizens, and start valuing it only as a means to material ends. If enough people assess their education in this way, what actually goes on in the college classroom will change. Colleges and universities will have to be sensitive to market demand; they will have to provide what students want, or the students will go elsewhere. The goal of education will shift from creating well-informed, responsible citizens to creating skilled, high-income workers. And in pursuit of that goal, the institution will change what it does. The very practice of education defined as are all practices, byt he goals that direct it, will lose its disticitiveness. It will simply become a part of the economy, an input, a cost to be factored in when the economic consequences of various possible life decisions are evaluated. To the extent that this 'economization' of education occurs (and it already has at many if not most of our universities--even the 'elite' ones), the practice of education will cease to be a counterforce to the pursuit of self-interest that governs behavior int he marketplace."

I feel this excerpt dictates what we will lose if education becomes a means to an end; if education is simply about getting a job. To take it furter--if a job is a means to an end; a job is simply about getting paid in order to by things, what are we really after in our society. It seems all our actions are a means to achieve money and the ability to buy things. Is that what we want? Are the best things in lufe those you can purchase?

Think about what you value most in life and if it can be purchased? For me things education is about the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake and we must appreciate learning for learning not just because it's going to buy is things we think we need.

Further this passage relates to the case of Annemarie Bean discussed last week. Whereas she may have contributed to the overall culture and character of her college, some students were not getting what they thought they should be getting so she was let go. Colleges and universities must be careful especially in this consumer culture, where we (mslef included) often tend to believe that we can have everything. It's not true and we must understand that our preconceived notions of what a college or a particular class is supposed to be like may not be correct. And instead of finding fault with the institution we must take a look at ourselves and ask what we are really trying to get out of college: Is it a path towards more money? Or is it about the experience of learning in an institution with others who are also there to learn and grow intellectually.

I understand that change is part of the process and colleges must change as knowledge changes but we must fully assess ourselves and the goals of our institution before we mold our higher education system as a mirror of the economic system.