Higher Ed & Healthcare

Two issues that I've become increasingly interested in and vocal about are the state of higher education in America and the state of healthcare in America.

As a 7th-year student of higher ed (through two bachelors programs and smack dab in the middle of my second masters program), I feel I'm an expert on the student side of things. And as an administrative worker at a large public university, I feel like I'm reasonably well-informed on the other side of the fence too (I probably know more about the tenure process than some current faculty do). Speaking from my somewhat narrow experience at this one large public university I've attended and worked at, it seems that I can reasonably generalize that at every level of higher education there are some severe problems that will likely lead to a significant downward spiral in terms of the quality, affordability, and sustainability of higher education in America. (Some are saying the spiral is already happening and that there's no quick fix available.)

I recently read the following Nation article, which presents a number of the problems that higher ed has been having and also gives a good summary of recent (shocking) news of the budget cuts and the extreme measures that some universities have been taking.

Faulty Towers: The Crisis in Higher Education
By: William Deresiewicz

The article was actually emailed out to the department I work in by a fairly prestigious tenured professor, who, by simply sending out the piece, was doing his part to increase awareness of the problems that graduate students and professors face (especially those in the humanities). It is a long read, but well worth the effort (even though it only marginally addresses student loan debt, which is a major issue that can essentially debilitate students who cannot find proper employment, and even many of those who can find proper employment).

Secondly (and not entirely unrelated; both problems are directly related to the upper echelons of society screwing over the lower classes), today a friend of a friend on Facebook posted an excellent essay he wrote on the state of healthcare in America:

Fire, Feces, and Healthcare
By: Reg Darling

I think everyone in America should read this. It artfully presents a view I've formed of American healthcare: How can we reasonably enjoy life and liberty and pursue happiness in America if at any moment all of our financial security could be swept away by one unpredictable disease? I've had enough personal experiences and I've read enough of other people's personal experiences to know that American healthcare can completely debilitate people. For rich politicians to insinuate that universal healthcare is socialism or that it is tantamount to enslaving physicians makes me really concerned that American capitalism, which in many respects has enriched humanity, has ultimately left Americans as greedy opportunists who feel no empathy for their compatriots.

I personally would jump at the chance to pay higher taxes so that anyone in a medical emergency or anyone with a disease whose treatments or medications are now not financially feasible could receive healthcare free of charge. A friend of mine complains that it's not fair if he (as a healthy person who takes care of himself) would have to pay taxes into universal healthcare so that his fellow cheeseburger-loving, pack-a-day smoking Americans, could reap all the benefits of his (my friend's) hard work. I say (like the link above) that it's simply the cost of living in a civilized society. And the healthier the people around you, the healthier you are. It's something that's been scientifically proven in various arenas. (Sorry that I do not have the proper citations here. If you're interested, maybe start with this: Happiness Is 'Infectious'.)

It's all too easy to ignore these problems when they're not directly affecting us. But, in a way, by affecting our fellow Americans on a daily basis, these issues are indirectly affecting us on a daily basis. Food for thought.

Academically Adrift

Commenting on links in Facebook can be invigorating, but can then feel like a wasted effort that will soon fade away into the wave after wave of information posted there... So I'll post it here!

A Lack of Rigor Leaves Students 'Adrift' In College

It's clear to me, after 7 years of higher ed, three of which involved working full time administratively assisting graduate students, that college is not for everyone. Graduate school is not for everyone.

But America doesn't understand this. Parents don't understand this.

College is so many things all at once — as much as it's a classroom education, it's (usually) moving out of your parents' house, moving out of your hometown, setting your own schedules, buying and making your own meals, making new friends, exposing yourself to new activities. If the drive to learn how to think, how to process information, how to manipulate information, and how to see through information manipulation — if that drive is weaker in a person than the drive to alter physical states with drugs and alcohol, to try out new foods, music, clothes, parties, attitudes, images, etc., etc., then college is nothing more than a four-year or longer postponement of entering the 9-to-5 grind.

There are so many other factors involved — sense of entitlement, sordid state of financial practices (predatory student loans! healthcare!), sordid state of payment for graduate students (overworked! underpaid!) — that I'd be very, very surprised if more than half the student population DID learn how to think, reason, and write. (I'd venture to say that every instructor I've had took for granted that every student in the class could write properly. Wasn't a problem for me. Was for others.)

Grades.

General Psychology test scores:

QUIZ 1 40/40
QUIZ 2 41/46
QUIZ 3 49/48
QUIZ 4 37/40
QUIZ 5 31/34
QUIZ 6 25/25
Final exam 2/60

Heh, heh. My graduate student instructor for Psychology thought he would give us a break on the cumulitive final exam, so that it couldn't hurt your grade at all- only help it (if it turned out to be a higher grade than your second lowest Quiz, it would replace the grade). Realizing I already had an A, I thought I didn't have to go to the exam. Then he said we must go to the exam. I was pretty sure I didn't want to study, and if I didn't study for the final, I probably wouldn't get a higher grade than my second lowest quiz grade, so I decided to bomb it. If he wanted to make the final exam completely useless, I was going to have fun with it. (I also considered marking all "c"s just to see how many points it would get me, but instead I counted the number of C's that I thought were correct=> 13/60, or 21.66%.) I am suspicious of the grade though, as I was pretty confident that I marked all of them wrong (perhaps he added in some extra credit, or a curve). Bummer.

So, in the end, I got an A overall, while managing a 3.33% on the cumulitive final exam for General Psychology.

If I were an instructor...

If I were an instructor, I would allow students to reverse "shoot the moon" (updated: 5/4/2015) on my mutiple choice tests- if they got every single question wrong, then I would give them 100% (but if they got even one right, I would give them 5% or whatever).

I think about this every time I take a multiple choice test.

(*Update: 5/4/2015 - My final for my General Psychology class was like this. My instructor (a grad student) said that if we had an A in the class by the time the final came around, the test would not negatively affect our grade. So it would only bump you up, not take you down. Still, we had to show up. So I sat for the test and deliberately tried to get every question wrong. It was a lot of fun. I don't remember the grade I collected on the final, but I think it was under 10%.)