Long before he was a vampire hunter, Abraham Lincoln pushed hard for higher education. While the latter subject isn’t a hit movie, there’s some actual evidence for this. But 150 years after Lincoln’s heavy promotion of collegiate learning, how do we feel the role of higher education. Is it a right, or a privilege? A Carnegie Corporation poll shows that people feel it is a right, even during the war on terrorism and fears about big budgets.
There seems to be a connection between the connection between higher education promotion and conflict. During the Civil War, President Lincoln signed into law the Morrill Act in 1862. This bill, named for its primary advocate (a Vermont Congressman), was instrumental in making collegiate education a national goal. It helped with the founding of M.I.T., the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Cornell University, and nearly 70 other schools.
We don’t know if Lincoln had a hand in ferrying silver via the Underground Railroad to Northern troops to gun down Confederate vampires (as seen in the film “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”. But we do know that during that time, he was creating the National Academy of Sciences. It is probably because Lincoln realized the importance of science not only in elections, but also in battlefield technology, something that gave his forces the edge over the better military officers the South had.
Few pieces of legislation have as much bipartisan support in our nation’s history (then and now) as the G. I. Bill that sent so many veterans to college after World War II. It was renewed and boosted after 9/11, though for-profit colleges are the prime beneficiaries.
But in more recent years, with budget pressures on national, state and local budgets, the appetite for continued funding of college education appears to wane for many legislators and chief executives in politics. Is that attitude shared by members of the public?
A Carnegie Corporation poll showed that 76 percent of Americans feel higher education is a right, with about half of those surveyed supporting this view intensely. Given the overwhelming evidence showing how higher education graduates outperform their counterparts with some or no college in earnings over a lifetime, it’s no surprise.
But should it be a “right?” Even college professors are split on the subject. “Some students in my classes aren’t ready for higher education,” a professor in the sciences told me. “At the same time, I know some people who aren’t in college who should be. They just couldn’t afford it.”
Sure enough, that same Carnegie Corporation survey showed two-thirds listed education funding as the biggest barrier to higher education.
Few would want to admit that they aren’t ready for college, but even at our private institution we have students who clearly aren’t ready for higher education. Colleagues at state institutions report that it’s even worse.
We have students who have been prepped for standardized multiple choice tests, and little else. They’re not ready for the writing papers, taking tests with essay components, word problems for math, and giving class presentations that resemble the professional presentations of the business world.
But, to use a metaphor from today’s war on terrorism, “you don’t fight with the army you want; you fight with the army you have.” Those words from George W. Bush’s Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, illustrate the challenges we have in higher education.
Fix “No Child Left Behind Act” and bring back the kind of learning students will need in the real world (instead of easily manipulated bubble-in the answer multiple choice tests) and hold the line on higher education funding in these tough economic times, if you can. We’ll do our part to prepare these students for the global challenges of today and tomorrow.
