>From Asian Age, March 4, 2004
American pie in the sky
- By Walter Ellis
New York: As British universities lurch from funding crisis to funding crisis, the
jealous eyes of the academic establishment focus obsessively on the United States as
the role model for future success. The assumption is that if UK universities charged
"realistic" fees, they would recreate themselves as "world class" -- or, at any rate,
superior -- institutions, like those in America.
But what is the truth about American universities? Are they really so much better than
those in Britain? Are US students in general better educated? Does the US profit from
the enormous sacrifice made each year by parents and students?
Some -- perhaps 20 or 30 -- American universities are better than all but a tiny
handful of their British equivalents. A few, such as Harvard, Princeton, Yale and
Stanford, but also MIT, Chicago and Berkeley, make up the global crÃme de la crÃme
of academia. Most US universities, however, are very ordinary places. The average US
college degree is a lowly thing, requiring the standard once achieved by most Brits by
the end of their first year. It is only at the post-graduate level that American
excellence truly kicks in. This is also where the big bucks go.
Much of the cash lavished on colleges is spent on comfy rooms, Internet access and
insanely competitive basketball and football teams. The high spending allows tenured
professors to have a second car, a lakeside summer home and no-quibble health
insurance. In no serious sense is it spent on education. That is why, as you drive
past a typical US college, it will announce not that it is number 34, or whatever, in
the national league of academic excellence, but that its womenâs basketball team
took top honours in 1988 or 1992.
Some American professors (and everybody is a professor) are superb; most are not.
"Celebrity" teachers, who are traded like baseball players, are the exception to the
rule. They may make the headlines; they do not set the standards. Ditto Nobel Prize
winners. It sounds impressive that most of the glittering prizes each year go to
academics in American institutions, but many of the recipients are foreign-born and
foreign-educated, and have little or no contact with undergraduates.
Students, meanwhile, unlike their high-school counterparts in Garrison Keillorâs
Lake Wobegon, are not all "above average." Far from it. US graduates are often
ill-educated know-nothings, for whom their four years (yes, four) at college are
mainly devoted to having a good time and making connections. Think American Pie here.
Maybe one in ten is truly gifted, and these are the ones who are force-fed through
grad schools, so that they can go on to run the country.
America is huge. The population will soon reach 300 million -- larger than the
combined populations of Germany, France, Italy and Britain. It would be surprising if
this fact did not translate into a preponderance of achievement, including top
graduates and Nobel Prize winners. If the comparison were to be between the US on the
one hand and Europeâs Big Four on the other, plus, say, the Netherlands and Denmark,
how would things look? Very different is the answer. No one disputes that the best
universities in America are first-rate. But the best of Europe is not that far behind,
and Europeâs standard in general is higher. Take a hundred American undergraduates
at random and put them up against a core sample from Britain, France and Germany, and
then say that the Americans are brighter and more accomplished. As they say in
California: Hello!
What is true is that the better American universities have more money available to
develop products for government and industry. This is almost entirely the result of
highly efficient corporate and alumni donations. More is spent on science facilities
and information technology than is the case in Europe, and this has traditionally fed
through to the US economy.
But Americaâs open-door education is not nearly so open as the myth suggests. Many
high-school graduates with real potential donât make it through the system for the
simple reason that they canât afford it and come from the wrong background. Good
intentions do not compensate for a lack of accumulated wealth and experience and, in
spite of a generation of positive discrimination, blacks and Hispanics remain
seriously under-represented. Foreign students, preponderantly Asian, take their
places, usually studying science or mathematics, while white middle-class US
applicants concentrate on law, media studies and business.
America, contrary to the myth, is a self-perpetuating elitist society, in which the
favoured few are handsomely rewarded and the rest are left to fend for themselves.
Those at the top, including politicians, scientists and leading journalists, but
mainly business executives and lawyers, have a fine old time. But elsewhere, in vital
areas, real talent is in short supply. And itâs getting worse, not better. That is
why Asians and Europeans, including Brits, now run so much of Silicon Valley.
Parents, meanwhile, have to budget for as much as $100,000 for each child they put
through college. Like pre-nups, college funds are part and parcel of married life. As
a result, almost all applications for college places are accompanied by a begging
letter, and most alumni "giving" is devoted to reducing the burden on the new
generation. You pay at the start of the process, and it never stops.
The trouble is that, even with scholarships, most people canât afford more than
second- or third-tier colleges. Anyone who lives in America, outside of New Yorkâs
Upper East Side or Beverly Hills or the smarter, gated communities of Florida, knows
that the standard of living of the average American family is no better than that of
its European counterpart, and often worse. Blue-collar families are woefully
under-represented at university level, especially at the better colleges.
President Bush says he will change all this and ensure that "no child is left behind."
Bush is a third-generation multi-millionaire who went to Yale (and almost flunked).
Senator John Kerry says he will change all this. Kerry is a Boston Brahmin, educated
at the finest schools and at Yale. He is married to a ketchup heiress worth some $500
million. Amusingly, General Wesley Clark, the former Nato commander, who recently
dropped out of the Democratic race, boasted that he did not go to Yale. Indeed not: he
went to West Point and Oxford.
Britainâs hard-pressed university teachers, desperate for bigger salaries and higher
status, should be aware that not everything is rosy in Americaâs academic groves.
Tenure is everything. The red carpet that often attracts new entrants can end up a
little threadbare for all but the highest achievers. For the most part, the
universities they teach in are struggling to keep up in a harsh, competitive world, or
else simply pootling along. As for typical American alumni, unless they make it to
grad school, most of them eat out at Wendyâs, live in homes with plastic siding,
call up porn on the Internet and put out signs in their yards saying, "Live Free or
Die!"
But India and China? Now thereâs the future!
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