Commercialization of Education: What Role Should Higher Education Play in Our Culture?

Commercialization of Academia

The study of the humanities is of absolute importance; it has greater importance than any means-to-an-end, such as software engineering, or law, or even medicine. The study of the humanities is in a separate category from any means to an end, because it is the human act of self-observation and self-reflection. The humanities represent human experience and accomplishment. But should the purpose of education be to encourage such reflection, or should it be something more practical? I think it will inevitably be practical, because colleges need to offer students a strong return on their investments. For educators who want to promote the humanities it will be necessary to integrate the study of humanities with the study of other, more practical topics.

College education is an expensive commodity. Menand was challenged to justify the return on an investment in college education, and this notion of education-as-investment suddenly seemed blasphemous or irreverent of the concept of higher education. It is not supposed to be viewed as an investment, but of course it must be viewed that way when students find themselves hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt with student loans. We can see a fascinating example of the way competitive capitalism leads to the degradation of humanity when we look at the way we are ignoring study of the humanities and focusing instead on subjects that make us more competitive in our professional fields.

In this increasingly competitive society, students and educators see a trend in which some subjects must be neglected in favor of those which can increase students' ability to get a job, have job security, and earn money. That means we are learning about business and Internet Technology and neglecting things like the humanities. It is natural and necessary for students to neglect subjects that do not help them make their resumes more competitive. In addition to the fact that employers may favor an applicant who studied IT over one who studied humanities, it is also true that the high cost of tuition forces students to choose more carefully when investing in classes. Everything is about cash.

This trend of higher education being approached as an investment rather than as an enlightenment experience is not consistent with the classical ideals of education as a way of transmitting culture and awakening the mind. It is also inconsistent with educational philosophies from theorists in more recent decades, such as Stanton, who thought educators could prepare students to be intelligent citizens by encouraging them to be involved with public service, use critical thinking, and participate in active learning. Compare what actually is happening to the education industry with what he envisioned, and you see that things cannot be so simple. Increased competition leaves people without enough time for the luxury of doing community service and using critical thinking. There is no profit in that.

Colleges cannot be expected to use Stanton's idealistic process for creating upright citizens, because they are alongside the students trying to keep up with the competition. As the price of tuition continues to increase, colleges need to become increasingly efficient in the way they market the product they sell. Research by Urciuloi shows that colleges cannot easily market their liberal arts programs because the benefits of studying liberal arts cannot easily be quantified as easily as studying other subjects.

Inspired educators should create curricula that integrate the study of humanities with the study of more practical, more appealing, and more monetarily 'valuable' subjects. It is not necessary for colleges to market their liberal arts/humanities programs more aggressively. The purpose of higher education should include both job preparation and culture preservation, so it is appropriate to incorporate the study of the humanities with the various curricula for specialized programs in business, computer science, hospitality, nursing, and so forth. We cannot say there is any single purpose of education, and it is not appropriate or necessary to choose one purpose that is most important. Instead we can acknowledge multiple purposes: teaching people to think, preserving culture, preparing them for their jobs, and so forth. Now it is easy to observe what is actually happening and find a way to integrate the humanities into every kind of curriculum.

References

Menand, L. Live and learn. The New Yorker.

Stanton, T.K. Liberals arts, experiential learning and public service: Necessary ingredients for socially responsible undergraduate education. Annual Conference of the National. ERIC Database.

Urciuloi, B. Excellence, leadership, skills, diversity: marketing liberal arts education. Language and Communication, 23(3-4), 385-408.