Chapter 11 Five major disadvantages facing American universities

The United States is a good model for reforming Chinese education.However, when we are envious of the success of the United States, we must also see clearly the shortcomings of today's American universities. Today's American universities have the following five major drawbacks: (1) The "tenure track" system makes professors not enterprising; (2) The imbalance of tuition and funds leads to the proliferation of "university marketing competition" and "profit-making universities"; (3) The rich and poor of departments (4) The value of research professors has skyrocketed, and the jobs of outstanding teachers are not guaranteed; (5) The monopoly pattern of first-class universities is becoming increasingly rigid.

(1) "Tenure-track" system causes professors to be unwilling to make progress The "tenure track" system is correct to use a higher threshold to select professors, but "tenure track" also has side effects on American education: after getting "tenured track", some professors can sit back and relax and stop working hard.Some professors occupy their positions, but they are actually semi-retired, or they start their own businesses outside.This is because professors are no longer bound after they get "tenured employment", and the system cannot force them to do their best to fulfill their obligations and responsibilities to the school and students.If you are in a company, no matter how high your position is, if you do not do well, you will still be cut, demoted, or even fired.In contrast, universities should also refer to the way of business management in order to establish a convincing level of competition.

(2) The imbalance of tuition funds leads to the proliferation of "university marketing competition" and "profitable universities" The book "Shakespeare, Einstein, and the Bottom Line" by David Kirp, a professor at Berkeley University, criticized the skyrocketing tuition fees of American universities due to government funding cuts in recent years.In order to survive, many schools use marketing methods to promote themselves.Marketing itself is not a bad thing. In the case of unavoidable tuition and funding problems, it is necessary to properly integrate marketing methods.However, some universities adopt exaggerated and false marketing methods, and do not hesitate to speculate or even cheat to improve their rankings and enhance their university brands.

In addition, many universities ignore basic subjects because they cannot get funding.Many universities ignore academic and management capabilities when hiring presidents and vice presidents, but mainly look at their marketing capabilities.This has become a major hidden danger in the American education system. Just when mainstream universities encountered funding problems, a group of profit-making universities took advantage of the situation.These schools (such as Devry University, Phoenix University, Jones International University, etc.) assumed the name of "university" at the technical secondary level, and they were crowded with hundreds of thousands of students in no time.It is not difficult to see the clues when analyzing the fortunes of these schools: if they cannot obtain international accreditation, they can get state or municipal accreditation, and they can still receive government subsidies; If they cannot attract outstanding students, they lower the entry barriers; in order to increase profits, they teach online at the lowest cost, with the least amount of classes and the least number of professional teachers... These profit-making universities take advantage of the crisis of mainstream universities. A windfall. The holding company for Devry University is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, has a market capitalization of $1.5 billion, and the president earns $1.8 million a year.However, seeing the depreciation of college diplomas and education becoming a cash cow for businessmen to plunder taxpayers, especially poor students, people can't help but ask: Where is justice and conscience?What is the price of education?

(3) There is a huge disparity between the rich and the poor in the faculties and departments, and the power of the school is left behind In order to increase the enthusiasm of various departments to fight for funds, many American universities have lowered the "commission" of the school, reduced the power of the school, and delegated power to the departments.This has resulted in a situation where unpopular colleges and departments are stretched out, while popular colleges and departments are making money.For example, the University of Berkeley began to do closed research for large research funding.The University of Southern California implements a management system of "decentralization of resource management", requiring each college to be responsible for its own financial profit and loss, resulting in deterioration of courses and a decline in the quality of inter-college public facilities. Virginia's business school was dissatisfied with the school's "commission" too much, so they simply stood on their own and tried to break away from their alma mater.As far as the trend is concerned, the various departments of the university have almost become profit-making companies.

In addition, the independence of the departments has also led to the devolution of the president's power.Today, it is difficult for us to see educators who combine social ideals and courage like President Eliot of Harvard, President Gilman of Johns Hopkins, and President Harper of the University of Chicago. (4) The value of research professors has skyrocketed, and the jobs of outstanding teachers are not guaranteed Another book, "The Uses of the University," by University of California President Clark Kerr, analyzes the profound crisis of neglected teaching in American universities.As university funding is increasingly dependent on research funding, universities that place equal emphasis on research and teaching have become more research-oriented than teaching.At present, the brand of a university or department depends on whether it has first-class research professors, which makes universities pay sky-high prices to poach research-oriented star professors.The star professors of law and philosophy dug up by New York University within 5 years made it jump from the original non-listing to the top three in two departments.However, the biggest problem with big-name star professors is that they are unwilling to teach.As a result, New York University had to hire a large number of "teachers" to meet the needs of teaching.The annual salary of big-name star professors can be as high as 200,000 U.S. dollars a year, while a "teacher" can only teach a class at 3,000 U.S. dollars, and they are not counted as regular school employees.If the course taught by the "teacher" is unpopular next year, he will be completely unemployed.

Many students in prestigious American universities think that professors only care about research and don't care about students' learning.In the end, it is the students, especially undergraduates, who suffer the most. (5) The monopoly pattern of first-class universities is becoming increasingly rigid If the above-mentioned four disadvantages appeared in the United States 50 or 100 years ago, they would probably be improved by a philanthropist or educator by creating or renovating a university.But today, such an opportunity for change no longer exists, because the market for "first-class private universities" has been monopolized.

This kind of monopoly depends not only on the brand, teachers, and research of private universities, but also an important treasure of the town, which is their endowment.Universities such as Harvard and Stanford have funds exceeding tens of billions of dollars.The interest of this fund alone has exceeded the funding of many schools for many years.Using only interest, schools can hire the best teachers, make up shortfalls, or expand.In fact, they don't even need to use this "old capital" at all. These private universities can get astronomical research funding with their brand and strength, and the funds will only snowball year after year. .

It is impossible for second-rate schools to compete with these first-rate institutions that monopolize the market, and there will no longer be philanthropists who dare to take money to compete with them (who is willing to invest tens of billions, and after decades of poor management, they can only reach "quasi-first-rate" What’s more, philanthropists from prestigious schools are very loyal to their alma mater).Therefore, the history of Johns Hopkins, Chicago, Stanford challenging Harvard will not repeat itself.Gone are the days when ideal educators and philanthropists joined forces to make history.Now, the style and policies of top universities have long been fixed, and it is difficult for any reforms to occur without challenges.

China is becoming a world economic power, and the advantages and disadvantages of American universities are of great reference significance for China.As far as China's development goals are concerned, China must have its own world-class universities-no matter how difficult this goal is, this is a task that must be completed. Faced with this long-term goal, some people boasted that it should be achieved by 2020; others sneered, denouncing it as unrealistic than surpassing Britain and catching up with the United States.Personally, I think this is a great and practical goal that is extremely difficult, but absolutely achievable.As a scientist and engineer, I firmly believe that any great and practical goal should not be built behind closed doors, but should be developed under the test of practical problems and based on the experience and lessons learned from others.

At present, Chinese universities are far from world-class universities in terms of teachers, institutions, and management systems.If you want to enter the first class, judging from the experience and lessons of the United States, I think China must follow the thinking of "seeking stability through progress", increase investment in scientific research, innovate the university management system, change teaching methods, and pay equal attention to research and teaching. Promote the combination of production, education and research, avoid excessive industrialization, crack down on the behavior of profiteering from education, encourage healthy competition between distinctive universities, and encourage the establishment of first-class private universities.If these measures can really be implemented, we can look forward to the golden autumn season when the moon is shining like water and the osmanthus is fragrant.