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The Cambridge English Dictionary defines education as the process of teaching or learning in school or the knowledge that one obtains out of this process. Higher education, on the other hand, is defined by Brittanica as any of various types of post-secondary education whose objective is the preparation of students for entry into various fields of specialization. Overtime, the proliferation of higher education institutions has spawned an unprecedented competition for survival and relevance. This has seen higher education advertising become conventional, so much that one wonders, is higher education for sale?

Access to higher education can be quite competitive depending on a wide range of factors including reputation of institution, level of specialization, field of study, affirmative action and funding amongst others. Higher education institutions go to great lengths to build a reputation for themselves. The media is awash with adverts touting such and such an institution as being the best around the world.

Advertising makes great economic sense for the institutions’ survival; a good reputation is directly proportional to the numbers of student applications for admission and with the numbers comes the money. Nonetheless, is it ethical to advertise higher education? Does it not inhibit focus on the essence of the institutions’ existence?

When higher education institutions claim that they are the best, the credibility of such claims becomes questionable. It remains unclear whether such claims are made objectively within the context of other institutions, or, they are just arbitrary claims amounting to deceptive advertising. Perhaps instead of focussing such great attention towards advertising, the institutions must better redirect their efforts towards the primary aspect of their existence, education. The quality of their education must be allowed to speak for itself.

Higher education institutions need to tone down on advertising. Higher education is not for sale.

I stumbled across an article today published on Inside Higher Ed titled, Cursing in Class and in said article, the authors explain, in short, that a professor in New Jersey is under investigation for cursing at a student in response to something the student said. While this article addresses an entirely different issue than what I thought the title suggested, it pressed me to consider all aspects of cursing in the classroom- especially since I am not only a student, but also because I am a TA.

As a TA, I personally do not “allow” cursing in my class- this is in quotations because while I do not specifically address the use of foul language, when I hear it I am quick to ask students to watch their profanity. My reasons behind disallowing cursing in my classroom is simple; for what reason, in a public speaking course, would anyone need to curse? Perhaps more importantly, many of our speeches are centered around professional development, thus I attempt to steer clear of language that might come across as unprofessional. 

However, I have also been in both undergraduate and graduate courses where teachers and professors allow profanity and even encourage it as a form of expression. Although I often refrain from engaging in this form of expression (my mom would lose her mind if she knew I used profanity in a classroom), I can completely understand the benefits of cursing and the outlet that it can provide for students. 

As a TA, my views are pretty dead-set on avoiding profanity in the classroom, but as a student, I see the potential rewards of its usage. This begs the question, how do I handle disallowing it as a TA, but also being okay with it when I am the student in the class?

Perhaps it has to do with the fact that I am a graduate student now and classes are smaller and more close-knight or perhaps its because I am now in charge of 80 students and I intend to leave a good impression on them. Regardless, I am delighted to hear how you all feel about profanity in the classroom- as a TA do you have different rules and expectations than you do as a student? Does cursing in the classroom bother you either way?

The Hostile Audience: The Effect of Access to Broadband Internet on Partisan Affect by Lelkes, Sood, and Iyengar.

The data behind this research covers from 2004 to 2008. But there are recent changes stemming from the government and ISP laws could be coming due to the recent attacks on Net Neutrality. These changes could quickly overshadow or render useless many of the findings and conclusions made in this paper. Measuring polarization due to Internet access becomes much more convoluted when considering that Internet traffic can manipulated and treated so differently depending on the household as to constitute censorship. And there would be no way to defend the claim that ISPs can be unbiased providers of news, information, and communications.

These kinds of issues makes me conflicted over whether governments, laws, and societies should change rapidly or slowly. A ‘fast’ government would have such a short-term outlook on solving issues that progress would interfere with ongoing research while also making previous research inapplicable. But a ‘slow’ government would restrict the application of research findings be laborious enough to not be reactive or effective. Perhaps it is research methodology that should change instead, allowing studies that are faster and less thorough to be admissible as strong conclusive evidence. This could change the public outlook on reported scientific evidence as a quicker and more useful source of information, while losing a (hopefully) small amount of trustworthiness.

I also doubt that the cost of building Internet infrastructure be the single factor to determine broadband accessibility.  There are many other factors that can interfere with this assumption. There are many known instances where broadband access is only provided by a single ISP in an area, allowing them complete control over Internet pricing. This makes all households on either extreme of financial stability be misrepresented or wrongly categorized in studies that assume Internet infrastructure costs are driving factor of Internet access. I am glad they address this in future sections in the publication, talking about the other factors behind broadband demand and references Larcinese and Miner’s previous work when determining a proxy for broadband uptake.

The word “university” is derived from the Latin universitas magistrorum et scholarium, which means “community of teachers and scholars.” This description seems to be modified with the advent of technology and has changed the way knowledge is delivered with many other aspects of university changing around the world as well. The future universities will have a much more influence of technology and globalization. Imaging a future university is interesting but at the same time challenging as most of us, students would like to change so many things about it.

A few things which strike me that should be considered while developing new courses or strategizing university’s advancement, include: a) monitoring the supply and demand of the employment market, and adjusting programs and enrollment as necessary, b) looking for sustainable funding mechanism so that burden on students could be lowered, and c) increase in the transparency of administration and allowing students access to decision-making tools.

Education has evolved over many centuries and it continues to do so. From learning the only skills required for survival in the stone age to more concentrated and focused classroom-based lesson for overall development, we have come a long way. Life was simpler in older times when the only thing our species used to do was hunting to find food. They would learn the skills for that and live a content life. They understood the importance and need of that lesson. Over the period of time, life has developed and become more complex. Now we spend nearly quarter of our life learning different concepts and facts about our world and the universe. However, the purpose of the learning is often not known or understood. Our generation learns because we are told that it is necessary to get jobs later. Jobs are required to earn money which in turn can get us food. So, the main idea is still to be able to find (and buy) food but with all the extra processes added in between. It is the trait of us human beings that first we make the process complicated and then try to simplify things. If we don’t create the mess in the first place (in the name of advancement), maybe we won’t have to start cleaning it up later. Many will argue against this point as without advancement the lives won’t have been this comfortable and satisfactory (is it though??). I understand some inventions have really helped progress our race. But I also think that upgrading iPhone 8 to iPhone X (sorry Apple) was not really the kind of comfort we lose so many precious hours of efforts for.

The point here is we are not aware of the reason of all of our education. And it becomes a major issue later. We just follow the norms of the society (which are set by us only) of finishing a degree, getting a good, decent paying job and settle in life. All this without giving a due consideration to the reason we are doing this. If gathering food is the only purpose, we can go back to the hunting times and live a simpler life (though the entire animal population will be depleted sooner than we realize). It is crucial to impart the importance of the education to everyone. It needs to start from the school itself and should not stop there, rather should be more and more emphasized as people move forward in the direction of higher education. No one should become Computer Science engineer just because it has a higher pay (again, sorry for picking on Computer Science major). It should be because the person has skills in that field and can contribute significantly. If the aim of the education is clear, the students will be able to take a well-informed decision. This decision will have serious implications (positive) in the society. In fact, a well-educated society will be able to change the norms already set in favor of more rational ones. If we can’t do that, if we can’t understand the reason why we learn what we learn and more importantly why should we learn, then there is not really a reason to learn. We can just hunt (Animals, and then? Humans?).

Future of the University

One thing I believe should change in higher education…

I believe higher education in the United States should be not-for-profit. I say this, even after reviewing the rather short list of “for profit” colleges and universities in the United States, provided by Wikipedia. The reality is that just because schools are non-profit doesn’t mean that some individuals aren’t earning large sums of money while making higher education less affordable. For example, in-state tuition at Virginia Tech increased $378 to $13,230 annually for the 2017-2018 school year. This increase was attributed to an increase in health insurance costs and faculty and staff salaries. For reference, the average employee salary at Virginia Tech is just under $70,000. The university was proud of this small tuition increase of 2.9%. Meanwhile, Virginia Tech’s vice president for advancement and chief fundraiser, Charles Phlegar, earned $661,700 in 2017, a 4.2% pay increase from his 2016 salary of $635,000. If we do the math, Mr. Phlegar’s pay raise is equal to the cost of tuition for two in-state Virginia Tech students and his salary is covered by enrolling 50 new undergraduate students! No wonder enrollment at Virginia Tech increased by 1,402 students between 2016 and 2017.

Of course, faculty and staff need to be paid to do their jobs but there needs to be greater focus on education, graduation, and job placement. Why should schools be in the business of making money? We shouldn’t put a price on educating our future employees and employers.