I just finished reading the biography of my Great Grandfather E.G. Peterson, president of Utah State University from 1916 – 1945. Unfortunately I brought it home for Thanksgiving and gave it to my brother, so I can’t quote directly from it, but one of his projects as president was to greatly expand the institution. When he became president of Utah State it was known as “Utah Agriculture College,” its primary purpose was to research and teach new methods to increase crop yields. When War I came it was converted to a military training school. To complete the conversion the military was going to come in and build temporary barracks to house the recruits, but E.G. convinced the state to provide extra money to make the new buildings permanent, so that after the war, UAC could use the new facilities to expand into forestry, and (yes you guessed it) the liberal arts. When googling around for more info on his tenure, I found this quote, written by the historian Joel E. Ricks in 1938, on the occasion of the semi-centennial, describing what made UAC so great:

 

This corps of loyal and devoted instructors sought … to give the students the mental stimulus that … would encourage them to face life unafraid.

The alumni and community chose to honor not the very useful agriculture and forestry skills that were taught, but the mental stimulus that came with the instruction. For any college program, the value to the student is so much more than the mere trades learned. The critical thinking skills gained by studying anything with a university-level approach lead to a fuller, deeper, richer, and ultimately more meaningful life. This is what Ricks so eloquently called the ability to “face life unafraid.” Much like the development of agriculture enabled humans to improve their lives by building permanent dwellings instead of hunting/gathering al the time the development of higher learning enables humans to improve their lives by being deeper and better thinkers.

Fine, you might say, a noble cause, but is it really good for society? In these modern times, it is imperative, absolutely imperative; to have a well educated populace. William Tyndale, an early translator of the bible once said:

“I defy the Pope and all his laws. . . . If God spare my life ere many years, I will cause a boy that driveth the plow, shall know more of the Scripture than thou dost.”

Tyndale wanted to make the bible accessible even to the poor farmer boy, so that the church would not have a monopoly on ideas. Likewise, it is very important now that all Joe the plumbers have a solid understanding of sophisticated social concepts and have the capacity to competently evaluate ideas when presented to them. Their votes are the ultimate check on corruption and concentrated power, and if they are easily manipulated, we can kiss competent government goodbye. Chavez, Mugabe, etc. are the kinds of leaders that can stay in power in democracies when most of the population does not have access to higher learning.

I am going to post one of my favorite pictures here:

 

It is a poster from a protest in Hamburg while I was there. They were going to raise tuition by 500 euro a semester, so the students laid down in front of the street car tracks and brought the city to a halt. Their slogan: BILDUNG IST KEINE WARE! (Education is not a commodity).

 

I could go on about how a college education enables even administrative assistants to do a better job, be more efficiently, and then ultimately move up to a better life.

 

Instead of blaming the government for trying to make education more accessible, and holding the universities blameless for the skyrocketing tuitions, we should blame universities everywhere for mismanaging their funds. I recommend reading Chapter 4 of “beating the college bubble” which you can download as a free e-book on the right side of this page. It’s rather obnoxiously written but it raises several good points. Colleges choose to spend lots of money on things they don’t need to because they feel like they need to attract more students. Wasteful spending includes:

-       Lavish building projects
-       Academic Conferences
-       Executive Compensation

 

These expenses are common in corporate America. Is it unreasonable to expect Universities to behave differently than large corporations? Ultimately the board directing the university isn’t trying to maximize their profits, but what exactly are they doing?