Bringing Colleges Under Fire

By Ezra Bowen

A federal panel charges that quality and focus are slipping

Last year the nation's schools were hit by a devastating report from U.S. Secretary of Education Terrel Bell calling for a spectrum of reforms to turn what was described as education's "tide of mediocrity." Now America's 3,300 universities and colleges are getting their turn under fire. The National Institute of Education, Bell's research arm, has issued a 99-page sequel every bit as rough as the blast leveled at the schools.

The strongest indictment: colleges do not involve new students in the learning process and keep them involved. "Only half of those who enter college with the intention of receiving a bachelor's degree actually attain this goal," says the report. Furthermore, standards have been allowed to slide: "Student performance on eleven of 15 major Subject Area Tests of the Graduate Record Examinations declined between 1964 and 1982." Finally, the colleges have no consistent, reliable ways of assessing what students are learning.

The NIE document, drawn up by a panel of seven scholars chaired by Kenneth Mortimer, Penn State professor of higher education, has little patience with colleges that would blame their shortcomings on the failure of high schools to prepare entering students. "Part of the problem," insists the report, "is what happens to students after they matriculate in college." Freshmen are herded into rote lecture courses that turn them off. Some 41% of faculty members teach only part time. The report adds that colleges "cannot condone a professor's shortchanging the students ... in favor of outside activities and expect students to focus their primary commitments on learning."

Worse yet, the universities allow students to make a poor selection of courses. "The college curriculum has become excessively vocational in its orientation," says the document, noting that "the proportion of bachelor's degrees awarded in arts and sciences (as opposed to professional and vocational programs) fell from 49% in 1971 to 36% in 1982." The impetus for the imbalance has come from parents and students who "believe that the best insurance in a technological society is a highly specialized education that will lead to a specific job."

Along with its criticisms, the study offers some blunt solutions. Among them:

> "Reallocate faculty" so that the "finest instructors" are assigned to freshmen.

> "Consolidate as many part-time teaching lines" as possible to full time.

> "All bachelor's degree recipients should have at least two full years of liberal education. In most professional fields, this will require extending undergraduate programs beyond the usual four years."

In addition, the report calls for proficiency exams to supplement the present grade and credit systems "as a condition of awarding degrees." It also recommends raising faculty pay and giving greater weight to teaching (vs. research) in hiring, salary and tenure. It is, in all, a challenging document, designed to generate the same kind of debate and groundswell of reform that has followed the earlier study on schools. Chairman Mortimer, for one, is confident the reforms will come. "This is the year the spotlight gets thrust on higher education," he says. "It's almost a window of opportunity." --By Ezra Bowen.

Reported by Carolyn Lesh/Washington

With reporting by Carolyn Lesh/Washington