There is no academic meritocracy?
March 17, 2010 4 Comments
In this article, intriguingly called, “The Big Lie About the Life of the Mind,” Chronicle for Higher Education columnist and English Professor William Pannapacker (who goes by the pen name Thomas H. Benton) urges people not to go to graduate school in the humanities. Although the economy is probably doing enough to discourage many people now, his words are certainly worthy bearing in mind. One thing that stuck out to me:
The ranks of new Ph.D.’s and adjuncts these days are mainly composed of people from below the upper-middle class: people who believe from infancy that more education equals more opportunity. They see the professions as a path to security and status.
Definitely this is how education has been viewed in recent decades, to the point where students have paid a premium for it. I think this ties into what I was getting all wound up about the other day–the possibility that our country is over-educated in certain areas.
Also, Pannapacker criticizes professors for luring students into academia by suggesting it unlike other professional venues prizes a meritocracy based around the “life of the mind” over politics, connections and money. He goes on to describe the scenario of a typical grad student who has been so steadily disillusioned by her education and its role in keeping her down that she considers suicide.
Scenarios like that are what irritate me about professors who still bleat on about “the life of mind.” They absolve themselves of responsibility for what happens to graduate students by saying, distantly, “there are no guarantees.”
Because I was complaining yesterday about journalism industry people failing to tell entry levelers like myself how things really are, I have to applaud Mr. Pannacker for doing otherwise related to his industry.
Well, to some of us the life of the mind is incredibly important.
Is grad school the best place to cultivate that life?
Speaking personally, I have had two experiences with grad school:
1. At the Ph.D. level at an Ivy League institution studying the humanities, where so much life was sucked out of the subject that I didn’t want to study it anymore;
2. At the Master’s level at a public institution in the Midwest studying social sciences, where I looked forward to class and interactions with my professors and fellow students every day. There were so many questions to ask, and plenty of people around eager to try to answer them.
So, in the end, I obtained a graduate degree that also provided a very satisfying intellectual experience. As for the humanities, they are terrific to study — at least at the undergraduate level, but it would be good to advertise clearly and up front what percentage of entrants into a particular Ph.D. program actually end up working in the field.
Yes, the humanities are terrific to study. Useful I guess is another question. They’re useful I think for spiritual life and for developing a thought process that goes beyond rote memorization. They’re less useful unfortunately for finding a job. When I was in college, I always thought they were somewhat marginalized, but I recently read that we can expect fewer humanities majors and professors in the future because of the economy. I didn’t realize at the time that I went to school when humanities was actually a popular subject.
Yeah, it is bleak for humanities people. I am actually finishing up an M.A. in Theology, and will probably not be able to get any job related to it. I have decided enough is enough, and will not go on for the doctorate. Honestly, schooling can be good, but there are few times when it is justified to go into any kind of debt. Also, it is the responsibility of students to look long and hard at these programs before they start, and decide if they want to take the risk. I was just reading today about students who graduate from college with $100,000 in debt, and little hope of paying it off. The blind faith in ‘education’ is a major myth. There is little you can learn in academia that you couldn’t get from books, as long as you have somebody to point you in the right direction now and then. That shouldn’t cost 100′s of 1000′s of dollars. It is just another industry trying to sell ya services ya don’t need, for the most part. A high school education should be plenty for most people, doctors excepted. All this credentialism is killing America.
Hey D., I agree with you that when it comes to the humanities, a lot of what one expects to learn through the university can be learned on one’s own time through books. It certainly helps to have the structure of the classroom, but things have become so formalized that the teaching of novels by English professors (to take an example) is so often divorced from what those works set out to do. For me as an adult who has been out of college for several years, literature has taken on a different purpose that is less academic and more personal, and in many ways more satisfying than when I studied English in a few college courses. I now use novels to recognize the human condition as it relates to my own life and to at the same time escape into someone else’s world, with little use for the sorts of literary analysis that takes place at universities.
I agree that students MUST be responsible for their debt — at the same time, I think there is a major poverty of consumer education in this regard, because, as you said, there is the overwhelming assumption that education can only help one better him/herself. Once students start opting for more affordable public schools instead of following U.S. News & World rankings religiously, there will be pressure on the more expensive public and private schools to lower costs, but I’m afraid that won’t happen anytime soon.