I also often disagree violently with the politics of the Anonymous Economist (AE) especially when it comes to Iraq. Yesterday, as we are wont to do, we had a vigorous online debate about British higher education. This is not surprising since we both currently have a professional interest in the subject. At the end of that electronic correspondence the AE found him/herself in the awkward position of having found common ground with me (PG).
AE:
“…frankly I think they should invest their money first and foremost in hiring better staff (which requires better salaries).PG
…which requires the government to free the universities from the HEFCE “we-fund-your-teaching-on-the-basis-of-your-research” model and/or needs academics in the good universities to have the balls to go private. I couldn’t agree more with you about salaries, but they can’t be raised properly because even the premier league institutions are too addicted to their state handouts to make the move to true academic freedom that would allow them to afford to compete for talent properly.Instead of paying their way by charging rich Brit brats what their lifestyle accessory degrees really cost, they supplement their income by ripping off foreign students. They’d rather be mediocre and dependent than join the global elite. Why? Because real competition scares them out of their talentless wits. Now that *is* very “British”. But, if you look at Premier League football you can see what a massive improvement is possible from liberating one of this country’s famous old institutions and paying the talent according to how it delivers to the customers.
AE:
I hate agreeing with you.
I hate it.PG:
Not as much as I hate agreeing with George Bush.AE:
that sooooooooooooooooo cheered me up.
ROFL. Congratulations D! Savor your victory. AE’s selective memory kicks in when he/she might — horrors — actually be wrong.
OTOH, Arsenal didn’t win on Saturday…
“Savor your victory.”
No victory, just a huge coincidence. When the AE agrees with me about something it’s like planets aligning.
More like worlds colliding.
Your hypothesis has two interesting points.
First, you say that a dependence on state funding has kept British universities “mediocre” and out of the “global elite.” This is not true. The THES survey of November last year found two British universities in the top ten (Oxford fifth and Cambridge sixth) and six others in the top fifty (UCL, ICL, Manchester, Edinburgh, LSE and SOAS). If there is a global elite, then British universities are in it.
Second, your hypothesis implies that private universities should do rather well because they can charge what they want. But more than half the list is made up of state universities. I can’t see any British private universities close to the top of the list. Any comments on this?
Also, I rather doubt the strength of an argument that goes like this:
1. It would be to the financial advantage of British universities to go private because they would then be free from government fee caps and could charge what the market would bear.
2. It would also be to their academic advantage because the universities could then make more money and use it to raise salaries to attract better lecturers.
3. It would also be good for incumbent lecturers and staff because they would also see their salaries raised.
4. But they are not doing it.
5. Why not?
6. Because British people have an inherent inability to act to their own advantage. This makes them a) utterly economically irrational and b) unlike anyone else in the world.
No, c) it makes them selfish individually. Or alternatively they have little trouble trading prosperity for security. It’s a universally human temptation, but not one to be proud of or stand in defence for. Unfortunately, quite a few in Europe seem to think it’s worth defending, and have yet to figurew out that state-administered socialist policies are utter and abject failures. That British universities still rank highly is I think more a tribute to the British culture than to anything that ever came out of Parlaiment, but here I’m getting into territory I really know little about.
Here’s something I dug up though:
http://www.calpatriot.org/article.php?articleID=199
“…There is a huge disparity between the criteria used in various college rankings. While the THES places heavy consideration on the number of academic citations per faculty member and the percentage of international students and faculty, U.S. News & World Report emphasizes a school’s selectivity and its graduation and retention rates. When using such different standards to compare schools, it is not surprising to see the same school ranked high on one list and low on the other….Take the statistic about international students in the THES survey; prospective college students would most likely be interested in this statistic if they are interested in attending a school with a diverse student body. However, the THES uses this statistic to measure a school’s ability to attract students, supposedly revealing the school’s prestige. Although the THES claims to set criteria that are valued around the world, it is difficult to see how its published rankings help students distinguish the relative merits of one institution over another.”
Whatever. Top-ten lists are just that, somebody’s best guess, based on their own subjective criteria. Graduation and retention rates are also meaningless without context. I think a better way to judge would be the way most engineering schools go about it: how many patents have faculty procured/theories proved/devices invented/genomes mapped? In other words, what have you done for me lately?
Presumably in the ‘security’ area you are implying that privatisation would involve the ability to fire underperforming staff. Well, maybe it would and maybe it wouldn’t – but that really doesn’t affect any of my points at all. PG didn’t actually mention firing underperforming staff. His whole argument is based on a) being able to charge higher fees and as a result b) being able to hire better staff. You could give every professor lifetime tenure and PG’s argument would not really be affected.
1. British universities are present in the ‘global elite’ by any sensible definition (I concede that our baseball teams are probably abysmal…) contra what PG said in the original article. I’m not saying why they are; I’m just saying they are. If you want to contend that (say) Cambridge is not in the ‘global elite’ then I will be interested to see your reasoning. I used the THES because it’s one of the most widely used surveys on the subject. It’s important to realise that a university is not just there to produce theories but also students, contra your suggestion.
2. Private universities in Britain are not noted for excellence in any way. By any criteria, the best universities in Britain are state-funded. This is contra PG as well, because he said that privatisation would allow universities to join the global elite, and so far no private university in Britain has.
I am not going to get into the ‘socialism is an abysmal failure’ argument right now, but you also failed to address my point: that if universities are going to put up salaries to attract new staff, they will also be raising the salaries of their incumbent staff, which should appeal to the c) individual selfishness you mentioned.
I would never imply that the Brit schools as a group are NOT in the elite. They certainly trounce anywhere else in Europe (as a group). I said that they are in the elite IN SPITE OF being on the public dole, which has a decided tendency to foster the opposite reputation, and that it was something to be rather proud of.
As to security, it most definitely does affect your point. The “academic advantage” of universities would not merely be to attract oustanding talent, but also to weed out the less desirable; they can’t take the fee eqto infinity or they’ll lose too many good students.
Damn, slip of the keyboard. Here it goes again:
I would never imply that the Brit schools as a group are NOT in the elite. They certainly trounce anywhere else in Europe (as a group). I said that they are in the elite IN SPITE OF being on the public dole, which has a decided tendency to foster the opposite reputation, and that it was something to be rather proud of.
As to security, it most definitely does affect your point. The “academic advantage” of universities would not merely be to attract oustanding talent, but also to weed out the less desirable; they can’t take the fee equation to a limit approaching infinity or they’ll lose too many good students, even the “aristocratic Tory brats” or whatever.
The selfishness I mentioned is more in the line of potential students. You want to have a top-flight education, and have it cheap? You want the State to pay for the major portion of it? Well, who wouldn’t? But don’t tell me that asking forcing someone to pay for someone else’s education isn’t selfish. Of course it is. It’s legal theft.
Look, I don’t know the history of British higher learning institutions, or when they were appropriated by the State. But I’m rather sure that the public schools you mentioned are also the ones that have the longest history (Oxford, Cambridge, Endinburgh), dating to medieval times. They have a ton of history and prestige to offer in lieu of cold cash. It’s an admirable form of compensation to pursue, and can be rather lucrative in itself as well (i.e. Stephen Hawking).
Almost all the top-flight schools on this side of the pond are private. The public schools are decent, and overall a much better bang for your buck (I went to one myself), but they simply won’t get you many things that schools with prestige will. I think the fact that the Brit schools are still near the top of the pile has far more to do with an excellent administration record of wielding historical prestige, than any benefit of funding from Parlaiment. Well, I should say in spite of funding from Parlaiment. In the end, the prestige will only remain so long as the institution is creating new history for itself. As in “what have you done for me lately?”
But again, I’m an outsider looking in. I don’t know the details over there.