{"id":1530,"date":"2018-02-26T15:21:00","date_gmt":"2018-02-26T15:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/2018\/02\/26\/universities-football-academies-and\/"},"modified":"2019-02-10T09:26:18","modified_gmt":"2019-02-10T09:26:18","slug":"universities-football-academies-and","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/?p=1530","title":{"rendered":"Universities, football academies, and Shakespeare: a further comment on Ware"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Alan Ware\u2019s latest defence <\/a>of his views on higher education, \u201ca tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing\u201d (Macbeth), he claims that I have not addressed the heart of his argument \u2013 that a large minority of students do not land graduate jobs and that a large minority of student loan money will not be repaid.<\/p>\n

In my initial comment on his views, I argued that jobs are changing so rapidly that an outdated classification of what constitutes a \u201cgraduate job\u201d is not an appropriate measure of the impact of higher education. A more appropriate measure is earnings of those with a degree compared to those without it. Ware initially rejected that such a premium existed for most graduates. He seems to have shifted his position to this is true only for \u201ca large minority\u201d, now arguing that the standard measure of the university premium is \u201cnow irrelevant\u201d.<\/p>\n

He proposes a comparison between the bottom 25-30 per cent of graduates and the best qualified of 18 year olds who did not attend university (a comparison that is only known ex post). Ware believes that only this comparison can answer the question \u201cis a substantial minority of graduates better or worse off in future years than contemporaries who did not go to university\u201d. The answer to this question is available from the standard premium calculation. Ware\u2019s rejection of decades of economic studies on the return to higher education is similar to Donald Trump calling anything he dislikes \u201cfake news\u201d. For Ware, it is \u201cjunk in, junk out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Estimates of the non-repayment of student loans depend on predictions of earnings over the next 30 years and so need to be handled with caution but certainly not rejected. But surely instead of decrying this as \u201csocial waste\u201d one could think of the current system as one in which students fund 60-70 per cent of their education and the public funds the remainder instead of a system where the public funded 100 per cent.<\/p>\n

Ware also displays an inconsistent attitude to the market: at times contempt, at other times admiration. For example, he says \u201cthe intellectual content of many masters courses is of little direct relevance to the employer.\u201d It would be interesting to know which courses, as it\u2019s unlikely that employers would pay for irrelevant skills.<\/p>\n

Ware states that \u201cthere are many skills being taught at British higher education institutions today that could be supplied less expensively and in less time.\u201d Again, it would be useful to know which these are, who could supply them, and on what evidence?<\/p>\n

Ware\u2019s statement that \u201cfirms\u2019 recruitment is no longer based on identifying those seemingly proficient in the skills required\u201d does not stand up against the fact that the Society for Human Resources Management estimates firms are spending between six and nine month\u2019s salary to replace a salaried employee.<\/p>\n

Ware embraces the market when he writes \u201cone aspect of progressive reform is to permit universities to charge whatever fees they like \u201cbecause low-prestige universities \u201cwould be bankrupt within a year\u201d. But higher education is not that efficient a market. The National Audit Office concluded that \u201ccompetition between providers to drive improvements in price and quality have yet to prove effective\u201d. Education is an \u201cexperience good\u201d that can only be fully evaluated years after \u201cconsumption\u201d. 80 per cent of students are unaware of information on universities, 60 per cent lack the skill to make complex financial decisions, and only two per cent of students switch institutions \u2013 hardly an efficient market. The entry of for-profit institutions in the U.S. has led to higher prices and more student debt; an odd result for greater competition.<\/p>\n

We do agree that \u201cthe financial value of a degree has become obscured\u201d. As I noted previously there is information to make returns less obscure but much remains to be done. In terms of how to proceed, Ware wants to start at the top of the education ladder and I support starting where disadvantage begins.<\/p>\n

What seems to drive Ware\u2019s view is a model of higher education where, like football academies, the goal is to impart a \u201crestricted range of human skills\u201d that are employer-relevant and need to be cheaply and quickly pumped into the student. He rejects what he disparages as \u201dUniversity Lite\u201d because it adds \u201csome form of theoretical or non-practical training\u201d. Perhaps he means the cognitive skills and the \u201csoft skills\u201d of problem solving, critical thinking, and communication that are much in demand in the labour market. While a restricted range of skills may be appropriate for a football academy, they are not appropriate for a university.<\/p>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Alan Ware\u2019s latest defence of his views on higher education, \u201ca tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing\u201d (Macbeth), he claims that I have not addressed the heart of his argument \u2013 that a large minority of students do not land graduate jobs and that a large minority of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93,"featured_media":2008,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1395,1401,1396],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1552],"class_list":["post-1530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-comment","category-education","category-uk"],"amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Universities-football-academies-and-Shakespeare-a-further-comment-on-Ware-alexis-brown-82988-unsplash-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/93"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1530"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/politicalquarterlyblog.preliveweb.site\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=1530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}