U.S. Education Department and American Revolution

Understanding the evolution of higher education institutes of learning to that of an industry like a marketplace we must first look at its origins and how it changed overtime. Originally created as religious schools to educate the clergy they later became the available only to the privileged. The first universities were founded in Europe during the Medieval period and in Colonial America right before the American Revolution. By the 19th century there was a growing number of small colleges to help men transition from farm life to urban occupations.

Later, college was a direct route to upward mobility and civic leadership.

Today’s modern universities are very different from the early universities in that they offer more and cost more. Many of the universities today have wealth in endowments larger than some small nations. Yet as the years go by their tuition increases. The average annual increase in college tuition from 1980 to 2014 grew by 260% compared to 120% increase in consumer items. In 1980 the average cost of attending college for one year was $9,438 current average cost is $23, 872 (Fong, 2014).

With this increase in the cost of tuition, colleges are becoming out of reach of the average student because many cannot afford it. Higher education affects almost all of us – as students, parents, employees, employers, and citizens or as beneficiaries of scientific, medical, and technological research.

A college education is coming ever closer to being considered so basic that, like hospital care, it is too important to be left to the competitive forces of the marketplace (Weisbrod, B.

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A., Ballou, J. P., & Asch, E. D. 2008, p. 1). Over the years higher education has developed into an industry like any other business that are a part of the free-enterprise marketplace. It faces extreme competition, needs to be as efficient in that it is under pressure to trim the fat and be more responsive to the needs of the students who are in effect their customers.

The higher education industry is complex and diverse. It combines a dominant public sector of state universities and community colleges that educate a majority of all students; a varied private sector of nonprofit schools that encompass some of the world’s most elite research universities, such as Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford; elite liberal arts colleges, such as Swarthmore and Williams; and many hundred less-selective schools, many religiously oriented. Largely overlooked is the rapidly growing private enterprise for profit sector that includes the University of Phoenix, with more than 300,000 students, about a dozen other higher education firms that are traded on organized stock exchanges, and hundreds of other for-profit schools that are not publicly traded, such as those owned by the privately held Education Management Corporation, with approximately 75 campuses that include the 18-campus Argosy University and the 35 locations of The Art Institutes.

In addition, there are thousands of for-profit postsecondary schools, once called trade schools, that offer specialized vocational training but not associate’s or bachelor’s degrees (Weisbrod, B. A., Ballou, J. P., & Asch, E. D. 2008, p. 1-2). Higher education is a business, students are the customers, money is exchanged, debt is incurred, certificates/degrees are obtained. Academic programs are the products of higher education and students are beginning to see higher education as an investment.

Like most businesses higher education’s institutions are very important to the economic life of the cities in which they are located. They provide employment for many and customers for the businesses located in those cities. Should the university leave it will be detrimental to those cities creating ghost towns in what were once prosperous cities. In growing number of towns and cities throughout the United States, colleges have replaced manufacturer and other private businesses as the top company. In Rochester, New York, the University of Rochester is the largest employer, with 20,000 workers in a city that gave birth to several American business icons: Kodak, Xerox, and Bausch & Lomb. (Selingo, 2013 p. 4) This is astounding, a university that employs 20,000 people, when compared to another university such as the University of Central Florida which has about 58,000 students the University of Rochester is a smaller, one can only imagine how vital it is to the economic life of Orlando and the surrounding suburbs. Becoming the modern equivalent of the steel or auto plant has not been without costs.

As colleges have become more central to city and regional economies, they have lost focus on what had been and should be their primary mission – teaching students and researching the next big discoveries. More than ever, American colleges and universities seem be in every business but education. They are in the entertainment business, the housing business, the restaurant business, the recreation business, and, on some campuses, they operate what are essentially professional sports franchises. As colleges have grown more corporate in the past decade, they have started acting like Fortune 500 companies. Administrative salaries have ballooned, and members of boards of trustees are chosen for their corporate ties, not for their knowledge of higher education. Colleges now view students as customers and market their degree programs as products (Selingo 2013 p.5).

In the past the product of higher education was the graduates, and the institutions were cultivating mature human being who can be a functional part of society. American higher education today embraces three overarching social missions: teaching, research, and public service. The teaching of undergraduates has traditionally been, and continues to be, a primary goal of most schools in the United States, including two-year schools, four-year vocational and liberal arts colleges, and even research universities (Weisbrod, B. A., Ballou, J. P., & Asch, E. D. 2008, p. 3).

Attracting customers is more competitive to than it ever was, in addition to advertising higher education institutions are building extravagant campuses with all conveniences to attract prospective students. Colleges have adopted the selling techniques used in marketing toothpaste, movies, and cars. Universities have doled out big dollars in recent years to develop branding campaigns, pitching their wares to potential students. American University paid $675,000 in an effort to brand itself as Home of the American Wonk. When it became a university Loyola College of Maryland spent a million dollars on its marketing campaign. And Boston University invested some $500,000 to brand its image from a local and regional school to a world-class research university. (Selingo 2013 p. 6) Research universities as we know are wealthy universities with huge research budgets, of course the top research universities are the Ivy League colleges which attracts much larger endowments.

These very successful advertisement campaigns put forth by many higher education institutions combined with the boom in the number of college-age Americans and the competition for more credential on every level of higher education as a ticket out of a dead-end job has led to an outpouring in the number of students enrolled. Today, more than 18 million students attend two- and four-year colleges, and another 2.9 million are pursuing graduate degrees or are enrolled in law, medical, or business schools. In all, the number of students in higher education is up by more than a third since the late 1990s. ( Silingo 2013, p 7) This demand for degrees by people who are looking to start a second career and the millennials, have forced higher education to create new products in order to keep students. Colleges pounced on the demand by creating a bevy of new majors. In 2010, when the U.S. Education Department updated its list pf academic programs used in various higher-education surveys, more than three hundred majors were added to a list of 1,400 from a decade earlier (Selingo, 2013 p. 7)

To win more students universities and colleges are creating campuses that are geared to all the needs of the students. They are building better housing, libraries, recreational centers, dining hall and performing arts space. The University of Memphis pay $50 million for a 169,000-square-foot campus center that houses a theater, food court, and a twenty-four-hour computer lab. To show off these new attractions to prospective students and their parents, colleges remade the campus tour. Admissions officers have long called the tour the “golden mile” or the “million-dollar walk” because few things matter as much in where a student eventually ends up as the campus visit. (Selingo 2013 p. 32)

Higher education institutions are businesses where their customers are students who must kept fulfilled. This has led to a paradigm ship in the world of education this shift is a result of the rising prices of tuition, part-time professor whose return the next semester is dependent on good reviews from the students, a revolving door where students are moved quickly through the academic programs and last but not least the millennials who demand more because they are in the habit of putting their needs first. The classroom has become one giant game of favor exchanges between students, professors, and administrators. When they each pay their part, everyone comes out a winner. Students receive better grades, adjuncts keep their jobs year after year, dull-time professor win tenure or have to spend less time dealing with students complaining about bad grades, and administrators are rewarded with more money and higher ranking (Selingo 2013 p. 27.). This is not unlike the inner workings of a business because it reflects all the components of businesses and how they operate.

Over time we have witnessed a change in higher education, from monastery schools to an industry like a marketplace. There is tremendous competition for customers fueled by the return of many to college and the millennials who are college age. Higher education institutions to attract potential students conduct vigorous advertisement campaigns and many have redesigned their campuses investing large sums of money to create an environment that will meet all the needs of the students. Like businesses Higher education institutions wants to please their customers by offering them the grandest of experiences. Perhaps the ultimate sigh that higher education is now in the business of pleasing the customer can be seen simply by waking around any campus these days. (Selingo, 2013, p.32)

While all choices must be made in the light of God’s authority and control of the future, the Scriptures do offer us with some solid biblical values upon which we can make sound determinations. We must make sure we get all the facts. It is astonishing how many decisions are made without gathering all the relevant data. Facts give us physical means by which we can begin a knowledgeable decision-making procedure. However, facts alone are not sufficient. Once we have accumulated the evidence, we must use judgement to examine the information. This is where we look below the surface, examines, asks questions, and explore. “Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true” (Acts 17:11, New International Version). Pursue advice, look for the insightful guidance of well-informed associates or friends is also an important stage. Others understand plainly where our sight is clouded.

They can feel danger when we are unruffled “For lack of guidance a nation falls, but victory is won through many advisers” (Proverbs 11:14, NIV)) But, we must be careful not to surrender our own obligation at this point. The advice of others is to be considered but not replaced for our individual decision. While the counsel of others is expressive, the counsel of God is vital. Whatever selections we face—job interviews, job assessments, budget, individual guidance–are important to God because we were formed to elevate Him in all part of life, counting our life choices. Once we have asked Jesus Christ to control in our lives, we will depend on Him for wise guidance in business life as well as in our personal lives. The counsel of God is significant. That guidance comes through careful prayer and conformity to the values of Scripture. Prayer brings the matter before God’s throne, and His Word provides the rules within which we can make the correct decision. God wants to be part of our decision-making process. To leave Him out by ignoring prayer and the truths of Scripture denies us the pleasure of God’s viewpoint, which He is continuously eager to do.