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The Power of Wishful Thinking: Dispelling Higher-Education Myth

Paul R. Shelly

 

Trenton Times
March 23, 2006

 

Did you ever hear of Piltdown Man?  About a century ago, someone had the idea of attaching the jawbone of an ape to a human cranium with the hope of leading the world to believe that there was a new "missing link" in man's evolution.  The "discovery" was made around 1912, at an archaeological dig in Piltdown, England, hence the name.  Until the early 1950s, and even a while after the hoax was uncovered, Piltdown Man had a life of his own in textbooks and in plaster busts on dusty shelves of museums.

In New Jersey, the aura of the old Department of Higher Education is our very own Piltdown Man.  Illogically, this defunct department is viewed by some as the missing link to effective higher education policy.  A surprising number of well-informed individuals are transfixed by a belief about the department that strays as far from the truth as Piltdown Man himself did from the human evolutionary path.

Some pundits, who may be very well-meaning but unaware of key facts, assert that there is a cause-and-effect connection among:

the 1994 elimination of the state department of higher education with its cabinet-level chancellor;

the lack of state investment in higher education, which has resulted in larger tuition increases over the past decade and a half; and

the situation that has come to light at the University of Medicine and Dentistry (UMDNJ).

This is fallacious thinking.  It is time to put the myth to rest permanently.  For the record:

The underfunding of state colleges and universities, resulting in larger tuition increases and families paying a larger share of costs, began in 1990, not in the wake of restructuring.

In New Jersey and elsewhere, cabinet members work first and foremost for the administration that appointed them, and are not well-positioned to be advocates for constituencies or sectors they regulate.

No states have, and very few had, such a  large higher education bureaucracy as the one that existed here in the late 1980s and early 1990s.  Neither are any national experts on higher education finance calling for re-creation of such beasts in other states.

The chancellor and department, in the structure that existed prior to 1994, did not possess the authority that would have enabled them to foresee or prevent the faulty decision-making now troubling UMDNJ.

The underinvestment in higher education at the state level is part of a national phenomenon, not something unique to the Garden State.  It hit New Jersey harder for two major reasons: under-funding the salary mandates negotiated under labor contracts and the lack of regular state support for facilities renewal.  These things were true long before the department, an ineffective advocate, was dissolved.

In fact, restructuring helped facilitate subsequent, innovative steps by public colleges and universities to control costs such as collaborating on purchases and reaping the benefits of new energy technology.  As a result, when state appropriations were cut or funding commitments fell short, institutions didn't have to rely solely on tuition and fees to bridge the gap.  Without the benefits of cost control, tuition increases could have been double what they were.

More state regulation in years past would have also spelled trouble.  Just last month, in a report to the New Jersey Educational Facilities Authority, John Nelson of Moody's Investors Service said that with the national trend toward weaker state support of higher education, the fiscal health of public institutions of higher education in America will hinge on their ability to be very much unlike typical government agencies.  Instead, they must be market-savvy and nimble enough to seize opportunities, build on strengths and reprioritize resources to meet their goals (e.g., affordability, access, educational quality, public service).  To thrive in today's times, Mr. Nelson recommends less state regulation of public higher education and greater dependence on non-partisan, expert trustees, the very antithesis of a big-bureaucracy approach.

New Jersey needs to be on the road to smarter investment in the state colleges and universities.  Governor Corzine's higher education transition group, with wide representation from many sectors, did not recommend a return to a bureaucracy.  Instead, it called for appointment of a knowledgeable policy advisor who thoroughly understands higher education as well as the governor's overall agenda for the state.  The governor listened.  He recently appointed to his administration Jane Oates, Sen. Ted Kennedy's former education advisor.  Oates was named last month to head the New Jersey Commission on Higher Education, as well.  The governor is also committed to first-rate trustee appointments.

We also have scientific polls that show that, when it comes to important decisions about higher education investment, residents of New Jersey are four times more likely to say that they rely on college/university trustee boards to spend new funding wisely compared to reliance on state government.

The famous anthropology hoax of Piltdown Man was exposed only after four decades.  By then, it was unclear whether his discoverers were responsible for the hoax or only victims of a prankster.  Similarly, I wonder whether those who call for a return to a department are misinformed or mischievous.

According to authors Ashley Montagu and Stephen Jay Gould, the Piltdown affair is a cautionary tale for human truth seekers about the hazards of wishful thinking.

Wishing for an easy bureaucratic fix for complex trends in public higher education is all too human.  The reality: A return to old ways would be a huge setback.

 

 

 
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