A College Degree and Free Floor Mats

The wholesale sell-out of higher education

The American system of higher education is becoming more and more like competing automobile dealerships.  A New York Times article this week pulled the curtain back on the intentionally opaque world of so-called merit award strategies used by a rapidly increasing number of colleges and universities.   

In order to get butts in beds and burnish U.S. News and World Report rankings, schools offer merit awards (discounts), usually based on grade point average (GPA). The higher the GPA, the greater the discount.   In some cases the scale is publicized.   At Indiana’s Wabash College,  “ . . . a 3.0 to 3.24 grade point average plus an ACT score of 20 to 22 yields a $17,000 discount each year off the rack rate of $60,000 or so for tuition, room and board. But the 3.9-or-above student who scores 29 or higher gets $32,000 per year. That’s $128,000 over four years!”

Of course no one pays the “rack rate,” perhaps better termed the “racket rate.”   The Times article reports, “It’s so alluring that plenty of schools give merit aid to everyone. Some, like Guilford College in North Carolina, have even taken to reminding college counselors of it in their emails: ‘100 percent of the fall 2017 class received a merit scholarship!’ read a 2018 missive.”

Like car ads.  “Everyone gets the employee discount!”  “$5,000 cash back and 0% financing!”  “Total savings of $5,750 from the sticker price if you come in today!”  No one pays the sticker price or, better stated, no one but suckers pay sticker price.  Car dealers set the sticker price so that the discounted sale is still profitable.  And buyers will be thrilled  at the great deals they got. 

The same psychology accompanies the college game, except it’s worse.  Parents and students are so proud of and grateful for the award that the net tuition isn’t really the primary criterion in decision-making.  Many will select a college because it gave a bigger award even if the actual cost was lower at an equally good school.  (Whatever “good” school means, a topic for another post.)  Flattery will make people do the  damnedest things.

Aside from turning college admissions into used car sales, this game exacerbates the toxic effect the college process has on students, families and learning.  

As a school head I often ranted about the way the competitive system leads to chronic stress, an epidemic of depression, elevated rates of suicide and extinguishing of curiosity.  

A delightful student at my school was accepted at Princeton without having sold her soul or lost her mind.  Upon return for Thanksgiving break, she stopped by my office to say hello.  Laughing, she said words to this effect:  “You know how you always said that stress and striving for perfect grades creates students who just want to game the system?”  Yes, I replied.  “And students just want to take courses and give answers that please the teacher?”  Yep, that’s me.  

“Well, in a small freshman class this fall the professor asked us to write an essay - a thousand words or so just to get a sense of who we are and our writing ability.   Immediate anxiety erupted.  One student asked, ‘what should we write about?’  ‘Anything you want to write about,’ he replied.  Anxiety rose and a student asked, ‘Well, what kinds of things?’ 

Another chimed in with, ‘I mean, what are you looking for?’  The professor, now growing impatient, said, ‘Just write about something you’re interested in!’  With a bewildered expression and clear frustration, another student said, ‘What are we supposed to be interested in?”

All humans are motivated by intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Extrinsic motivation, especially in education, is embodied in systems of rewards grades; gold stars and, ultimately in a merit award from a college.    

Intrinsic motivation is driven by factors that emanate from within: Self-satisfaction, desire for mastery, curiosity, fulfillment, pleasure, self-realization, desire for independence, ethical needs, etc. Intrinsic motivation is a powerful innate characteristic of all humans, across cultures and societies. Anyone with children or working with children observes the natural intrinsic motivation of young children - a nearly insatiable curiosity, drive to explore, and desire for mastery. 

A considerable body of research confirms that intrinsic motivation is more powerful, long lasting and important. But intrinsic motivation steadily declines from 3rd grade until 8th or 9th grade as extrinsic structures dramatically increase. The stakes get higher. Tests increase in frequency and duration. Expectations around college and achievement ratchet up. Grade point averages, honor roles, valedictorians, salutatorians, class ranks, honor societies . . . all of these forms of extrinsic motivation are ubiquitous. 

Distinguished American cognitive psychologist Jerome Bruner adds another element to explain the decline of intrinsic motivation as children grow older. Bruner and other education theorists describe the importance of learning in context. Bruner, particularly, defined social relationships and context as a critical variable in language development. John Dewey and countless others argued for the connection between education and real experience, both as a matter of philosophical conviction and pedagogical wisdom. But, as Bruner points out, learning becomes steadily de-contextualized as children move from grade to grade. As school becomes more controlled, more about instruction than exploration, more about abstraction than experience, children’s natural intrinsic motivation declines. The learning is unrelated to their lives. Why would they care? Or, in the words of a burned out Princeton freshman, what would they be interested in?

Even those learning activities that were initially driven by intrinsic motivation will weaken after they have been exposed to extrinsic structures. Let’s say a student loves reading for intrinsic reasons - curiosity, self-fulfillment and enjoyment. Then the reading activity is incentivized - a treat for reading a book, a gold star on a list in the classroom. Thereafter, the intrinsic motivation for reading grows weaker. This is an extraordinarily important concept to understand in designing a school’s practices, but is apparently unknown to or ignored by too many educators. 

The competition for the brass ring has already leached joy and curiosity out of school.  The author of the Times article suggests that parents acquaint their kids with the whole wretched sham by 8th grade, so they can begin the cynical process of gaming the system.  It was bad enough already.   But now financially stressed parents are being  driven by the explicit promise of merit awards.  “Push your kid hard enough and you’ll save $128,000!”  

 It’s just a matter of time until colleges toss in free rustproofing.