Endangered: That Off-to-College Feeling

There's a chill in the air, and I'm reminded of an experience I never really had.

Like nearly every woman my age, I saw the 1970 film "Love Story," set in a place that, compared to my blue-collar suburb in Dallas, looked magical. Houses had two stories, a street ends at an ocean, leaves turned crimson, and snow covered everything. Plus, you could fall in love with a handsome man with a Roman numeral name. Oliver Barrett IV was Old Money. In my neighborhood, there was no Old Money. Or New Money either, for that matter.

The 1969 movie "The Sterile Cuckoo," filmed at Hamilton College in New York, was all green meadows and red bricks, old villages and leafy bus stops. For someone accustomed to strip malls and asphalt, it was a beautiful world.

The University of Arkansas in the mountain town of Fayetteville was as close as I was ever going to get to that world. Sometimes I find myself dreaming of that era, but of course I can't go back, either to my young adulthood or to what a college education once was.

The game-changing advances in technology have ravaged many a business, and education is no exception. The allure of college is waning. A student can go deeply into debt, and by the time she graduates, the job market she was counting on may be outsourced or made obsolete.

Since 1978, the cost of college has outstripped inflation by a factor of three. How is it being financed? Just like everything else in the last couple of decades: Credit.

Seared into my memory is The New York Times article, " 'Top Chef' Dreams Crushed by Student Loan Debt." The story was disheartening enough, but the 403 reader comments that followed revealed what a slot machine higher education had become.

The tales these beleaguered former students told were something out of nightmares. Debt that stands undiminished after bankruptcy. Collectors hounding people for the rest of their lives. What's next? The return of debtors' prison?

And here's the kicker: The story was published in May 2007, before the recession began and before jobs for college graduates had evaporated. If it was that bad three years ago, what's it like now?

Today student debt averages $23,200, but it can go up over $200,000. For a more current peek into this horror show, check out Majoring in Debt, a Huffington Post site featuring over 100 student stories.

Standing in stark contrast to the jobless, penniless students is their tenured professors, who seem quite comfortable in their gigs. That contrast has not been lost on students and parents.

A few days ago, The New York Times published "The End of Tenure," in which Christopher Shea reviewed two "feisty" new books: "Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids -- and What We Can Do About It," by Andrew Hacker and Claudia C. Dreifus, and "Crisis on Campus: A Bold Plan for Reforming Our Colleges and Universities," by Mark C. Taylor.

Shea writes: "Total student-loan debt, at nearly $830 billion, recently surpassed total national credit card debt. Meanwhile, university presidents, who can make upward of $1 million annually, gravely intone that the $50,000 price tag doesn't even cover the full cost of a year's education. (Consider the balance a gift!) Then your daughter reports that her history prof is a part-time adjunct, who might be making $1,500 for a semester's work."

This ground has been covered before -- just two months ago, in fact, in the "Times" feature, Room for Debate: "What if College Tenure Dies?"

In one corner we have Mr. Chips -- oh, I mean Mr. Cary Nelson, with "At Stake: Freedom and Learning." Mr. Nelson is the president of the American Association of University Professors, and once you know that, I guess you can figure out where he stands. But I'll spell it out anyway: "If you can be fired tomorrow, you do not really have academic freedom."

If you can be fired tomorrow. Gee, that phrase has such a familiar ring to it. Could it be because it's the daily life of me, my friends, my family and . . . oh, just about everyone I know?

In the other corner we have "Unsustainable and Indefensible" by Mark C. Taylor. Among his observations: "In today's fast changing world, it is impossible to know whether a person's research is going to be relevant in five years let alone 35 years."

The first reader comment gives a hint on who will win this fight: "The question is not if, but when American institutions of higher learning will abolish the tenure system."

A New York reader addresses the oft-cited defense of tenure -- preventing retribution against teachers who speak their minds -- with a personal observation: "In the last ten years can anyone name a single example of a professor (because he or she was not tenured) fired for 'speaking out against orthodoxy.'"

A reader from Maine commented that "too many teachers view tenure as early retirement -- absolving them of the need to keep up in their fields and to contribute to their disciplines."

Someone in Idaho complained of the hypocrisy of tenured professors with cushy gigs who'd grumble about the poor working conditions and low pay of adjuncts, but fail to fight to rectify the situation. "The number of tenured profs I've seen argue for better treatment of adjuncts? . . . NONE."

It seems there's a whole lotta frustration going on. The campus expansions in recent years are now colliding with reduced alumni giving and endowments that have dropped 30 percent in value. Universities can't keep raising tuition forever, and they're already seeing a pushback.

The Washington Monthly wrote that students no longer have to spend four years and a fortune to get a diploma. They can now buy "College for $99 a Month." (Ominous subhead: "The next generation of online education could be great for students -- and catastrophic for universities.")

One student of the online college StraighterLine completed four courses in two months. Cost: $200. "The same courses would have cost her over $2,700 at Northeastern Illinois, $4,200 at Kaplan University, $6,300 at the University of Phoenix, and roughly the gross domestic product of a small Central American nation at an elite private university," writes Kevin Carey in Washington Monthly.

In the future students might skip college altogether. Financial columnist James Altucher writes that instead of spending $200,000 on college, give kids $20,000 to start businesses. "Most businesses fail but that's OK. The education from the process lasts a lifetime."

A chef who was educated in Paris advised students to choose community college, or even skip college altogether. "If you have the money for culinary school, take the cash and move to a city that you really love. Next, spend a couple of G's eating out in the restaurants that attract you until you find one that really speaks to your personal aesthetic." Meet the chef, and keep going back till they hire you to peel potatoes. And learn. "Pretty soon you'll have a job, a real resume, industry contacts and you'll have eaten well and made money."

Almost like a gap year that never stops.

Musician Frank Zappa famously said, "If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library."

There is that -- the getting laid part of college. I'm not sure kids would be entirely happy with the suggestion of one parent who went on the record that he'd be just fine with his kids staying home for four years and reading books.

While Ivy League and small, well-run liberal arts colleges will always be with us (for networking and matchmaking, if nothing else), the fate of other schools is not so bright. What ever will we do with all those lovely stone buildings?

Perhaps it's time to embrace the aging of the baby boomers with Faux College. In our dotage we won't need expensive administrators or professors. We'll just babble at each other and call it a day.

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