The value of education

Last Wednesday, London students rioted in response to the English government’s proposals to cut spending on education. A protest outside of the Conservative Party headquarters descended into chaos, and the steps of Parliament found themselves steeped in resistance as well. Over 50,000 citizens from all over the country gathered to show their distaste for the reforms, which would allow English universities to hike the price of tuition to between two- and four-fold its current cost.

Although inflation in the price of education is, for some reason, akin to a violation of rights in the minds of many, the actual numbers paint a different picture, especially when brought before an American audience. Tuition as it is now in England stands at an annual cap for each university of $5,264, and the proposed cut in subsidy would bring that cap as high as $14,400. And although the latter figure represents a gross increase relative to the former, it’s actually surprisingly close to the standard in the U.S., where in 2008 the average annual cost of tuition at state schools was $13,424, while the number for private institutions was over twice as high.

In order to grasp the sense of injustice at the center of the English reaction to the proposed policies, it’s worth taking a look at the differences between their system and ours, with a special focus on the tension between public and private education (it’s also helpful to note that the meanings of these terms are, for historical reasons, inverted in England). The numbers in primary and secondary schooling are not drastically dissimilar between the island and its former colony, as 7 percent of English students pay to attend privately-run institutions, with about 11 percent of American students choosing to do the same. As far as higher education goes, English students are not afforded the same choices. All English universities, save for the unique example of the University of Buckingham, which receives no direct state funding, are financed by the government.

This, of course, comes into direct contrast with the largely autonomous (and globally rare) system from which we benefit here in the U.S. and at Duke, as made possible by the Tenth Amendment. The debate rages on—as one can rest assured that it most likely always will—both here and abroad as to the relative benefits of a privatized system of education. However, the recent developments in the U.K. have to suggest at least a sense of relief that arises from the choice that comes from a system such as ours. To take things a step further, the argument for the complete privatization of the school system, which is in no way novel and has been made many, many times before, also brings some interesting reflections to light. But it seems to generally suffer from a premature maligning by social apologists that keeps its benefits, as well as its actual disadvantages, from being taken into serious consideration in any sort of legitimate setting, thus depriving the public of an investigation into a potential solution to one of its biggest issues. Sometimes it seems that, unlike the English, we’d prefer to continue to throw money at a defunct system in hopes of resolving its problems by drowning them with paper.

That is, however, a bigger topic than can be dealt with in a single discussion, and so perhaps it’s best to maintain instead our focus on methods of higher education, where there is one alternative that we have yet to consider.

What if, instead of attending an English university or an American university or a public university or a private university, you had selected a plan in which you were given four years, as well as room and board, in order to achieve your own education? Semi-annual payments to the tune of what you would have paid in tuition would be yours to allocate as you saw fit, and whatever you saved in exorbitant dining and housing fees could be put toward the eventual conception of your career.

It’s a grand idea and, were it viable, would rival in the mind that of attending a university. Free from distraction, its efficiency would be unparalleled and, for those capable of the sort of discipline it would require, it could yield impressive personal and financial returns. Unfortunately, it amounts to little more than a fairy tale, because without faculty interaction, constructive feedback, access to expensive equipment and the ever-important name recognition and networking, not to mention the education in social interaction, it’s tough to buy that such a set-up would actually prepare a student for the real world. Then again, that’s a harsh reality that gets at the intersection of personal preparation and the attainment of knowledge, and where our definition of education actually lies.

At the moment, there doesn’t really seem to be an answer to any of this. The relative values of education are conglomerations of national policies and personal preference, of political talking points and theoretical philosophies. But that tells us that we’ve yet to discover the true standard and, until we do, it’s worth breaking away from and reframing our paradigms so as to better assess the nature of education and the ways in which we can improve our varied approaches to it.