The sorting of students into colleges and the marketing of colleges to prospective applicants sometimes seems a corrupt business, a marketplace in which prestige is sold to the highest bidder. It’s a domain of glitzy advertising, coaches and test-prep services, rankings, scouts, and networking. At least none of this is completely new. In 1506, the principal of an Oxford college called Staple Hall allegedly promised six shillings and eight pence (6s 8d) to a man who would introduce him to the Bishop of LLandaff so that he might persuade said Bishop to send a boy of his household to Staple Hall. A ward of a bishop was a good prospect to donate money after graduating. The principal allegedly failed to pay the promised 6s 8d, leading to a suit whose outcome I don’t know, but whose proceedings would probably seem perfectly familiar half a millennium later.

(Perhaps justice caught up with the principal of Staple Hall, for not long afterwards, his institution lay in “ruynes.” Around 1570, William Lambarde wrote about the halls of Oxford: “I have hearde that theare hathe been dyvers others of this kinde, and it seemeth true by the ruynes that yet appear in syghte. I redd in a case that theare was some tyme a house of learninge called Staple Hall; but where it stoade, I have not hytherto learned.”)

Sources: W.A. Pantin, Oxford Life in Oxford Archives, 1972, p. 6; John Alan Giles, History of Witney, 1852, p. 46.

This is part of a largely abandoned section of my home town of Syracuse, NY. It’s very close to downtown and there are some lovely Victorian houses in the neighborhood, mostly boarded up today. A lot of it consists of empty parking lots where once there were factories. I’m surprised that this aerial shot makes it look so green. Most of the green areas must be overgrown but abandoned lots.

Imagine if a government or private donor had the resources to found a new college or university. Such an institution could be designed to create a vibrant new urban neighborhood in a place like this–enriched by students and faculty but not reserved for them alone. To create such a community, planners should harness and direct market energies, and thereby magnify the impact of their investment.

Here’s one way to do this: Obtain most or all of the property, perhaps with some use of eminent domain. Select some non-contiguous blocks in which to build campus buildings. Each block could be designed by a different architect in order to promote variety. At the same time, each block would share some common features. They would all provide a mix of student residences, some apartments for faculty and staff, spaces for eating and studying, and classrooms. I like to imagine all these blocks being built around central courts, and each one might have a tower to create a dramatic skyline.

Then the remaining blocks could be sold or leased to developers. The college or university could use its market leverage to select proposals that contributed variety and quality of design. It could even impose unusual zoning rules, such as requiring developers to build a public inner courtyard in each block. If every courtyard opened to the street in the middle of every block, pedestrians could cross the neighborhood from court to court while traffic passed on the streets.

I’d keep the traditional street plan and retain any historic buildings and major trees. If new streets had to be laid out, I would make them narrow in order to concentrate foot traffic, slow cars, and generate a feeling of energy.

I suppose there are two basic models for universities, with various hybrids and exceptions. One is a park-like campus with the buildings set on lawns and connected by paths or private roads. The other is an urban neighborhood with academic buildings and student residences scattered throughout–the standard European model, which we also see at Boston University, the New School, and some other American institutions. I do not prefer the European model overall; both can be nice. I do think that integrating a new university into an urban neighborhood would be a powerful way to spur economic development and turn abandoned property into valuable real estate.

My sister, Caroline Levine, has an essay in Inside Higher Education about the responsibilities of peer reviewers to the authors they evaluate. She begins:

When I was a struggling junior faculty member, every publication mattered so much that rejection letters felt like physical blows. And it wasn’t only the brute fact of the rejections that caused pain: Readers’ reports on my manuscripts were often written in a tone of sharp annoyance. Touchy and ill-tempered, they seemed to see only the flaws. It was as if I’d somehow insulted these readers, breaking rules that I didn’t know existed. There’s no question that I’ve had much to learn about framing, pursuing, and clinching an argument. But I’ve certainly never had any intention of irritating my readers.

Caroline doesn’t argue that reviewers should be lenient or nice to would-be authors, but she makes the case for an ethic of respect.

Today, CIRCLE releases a major report based on 47 focus groups, with a total of 386 student participants, conducted on 12 four-year college and university campuses. The report contains many interesting findings and documents a hunger for open-ended, civil conversations.

Although this is not our main finding, I am personally struck by the tremendous disparities among colleges. The “Millennial Generation” or “Generation Y”–those are abstractions. Individuals of the same age differ dramatically from one another depending on the institutions they attend.

Predominantly White students at a northeastern urban public university have extremely negative views of politics and government, seen as manipulative and controlling. They see both the college and the government as wasteful of their money and unresponsive. To the extent that they can list political acts that they have taken, these acts have often proved discouraging (even frightening, in one case). They believe that if you get involved in politics, you will pay a very heavy price. At first, they cannot think of any policies that affect them, but then they say that they are victims of the government, as welfare recipients and as immigrants. They believe that government would have a better reputation if it helped anyone effectively. Their volunteer activities appear episodic and not very educational, although one person was involved in local politics. Their efficacy is low.

In a historically black private college in the South, the students have deep distrust for the institution, the media, and the national government. They refer to powerful people in the government and the college as an undifferentiated “they” that wastes their money and treats them unfairly. The students use words like “evil” in relation to the government and fear surveillance and manipulation. They mention few political acts that they have taken. One man says that politics is a game that’s already been decided: “So it’s like why play the game[?]” Some take positions that might be identified with the right, such as a belief in self-help and a strong opposition to welfare and foreign aid. (These are pervasive themes.) Several believe that the curriculum is too focused on slavery and Black history in general.

They can mention very few opportunities for civic learning in high school or college and are pessimistic about all approaches to social change except (perhaps) organizing on the model of the Civil Rights Movement. However, they like the discussion in the focus group itself, seeing it as “political” (in a good sense). “And it’s not necessarily the gift card or the food that got me here. I just wanted to come and express my opinions so somebody else will know.”

In contrast, students at two highly selective private institutions have learned a lot about politics in college–not only from classes, but also from political speakers, events, the campus newspaper, lengthy, organized travel, and fairly intense informal discussions, including political conversations with faculty. These students are aware of their own privilege. Their complaints about the government and politics are analytical rather than passionate. They criticize the government for mistreating other people, not themselves. One Ivy student says that she wanted to be “in politics” (as a career) since high school; most are already “in politics” (as an activity) in college. One says that politics is “fun.”

They are quite sophisticated; for example, one or two students in each of the three groups recognizes a candidate (Senator Snowe) among the photos they are supposed to use as prompts for conversation. They have had civic and political opportunities from early on–an Ivy student whose father is a prominent elected official is only an extreme example. They almost all provide direct voluntary service, but often their work has a direct policy link as well. For example, one student has lobbied in Congress. Several have conducted elaborate research projects on social issues. Most of the students from both schools are liberals and equate the words “liberal,” “activist,” and “political”–basically seen as positive adjectives. The lone conservative student in the one of the groups complains about liberal bias but says he has moved toward the center in college.

In short, these undergraduates seem to have chosen campuses that are activist and predominantly liberal and have then received deliberate civic opportunities that have cemented their political identities.

(On an airplane between Denver and Charlotte): I’m sure people learn something in college, but the evidence is not strong that, on average, they learn very much. Students perform better on assessments of knowledge and critical thinking at the end of college than at the beginning. But the gains are fairly consistent regardless of the type, size, and mission of the institution.* This finding suggests to me that students aren’t much affected by the educational opportunities that colleges offer. And that doesn’t surprise me, because their main opportunity is the chance to sit in a large lecture-hall listening to a distant figure who might as well be on TV.

If students don’t learn all that much in college, why do they (or their families) pay tuition? And why do students struggle away on schoolwork for four years? One answer is: sorting. Students with good grades from fancy institutions get better jobs than students with poor grades from easy-to-enter colleges, who get better jobs than people with no degrees at all. This is because employers use admission, graduation, and grades as measures of how desirable students are. The fanciest colleges, being the hardest to get into, can pick the applicants who are on course to being the most desirable employees. Merely by admitting a kid, they raise his lifelong income, especially if he performs as well or better than his peers.

In order to attain a privileged position in the market, colleges need not actually educate students. Instead, they need need a reputation for being difficult to get into. To attract applicants, it also helps to provide very comfortable facilities and lots of services outside the classroom; and to appear in the newspaper often for excellent research or athletics. Harvard, for example, employs 5,102 “administrative and professional” staff (excluding clerical and technical workers and those in “service and trades”). Harvard has 112 full-time professional and administrative workers in its athletics department alone. This compares to 911 tenured faculty (or 2,163 total faculty).

I exaggerate this picture, of course. But I fear there is truth in it.

If you wanted to start completely over, you could imagine a college like this:

No frills. Minimal student services, no intercollegiate athletics, but virtually all the tuition money goes to faculty, who are required to teach.

The admissions office looks for students who are likely to benefit from the education, not for students who have beaten the competition in high school. Those most likely to benefit will be motivated and will have baseline skills; but they will not all be at the top of their classes in prep schools and suburban megaschools.

All courses are seminars or labs, with lots of assignments that require collaboration on lengthy projects. Working with others is a crucial skill that should be learned in college. Besides, such collaboration would compensate for a lack of extramural sports and other expensive extracurriculars

Residences for students, classrooms, professors’ offices, and apartments for some of the faculty are combined in the same buildings. All these buildings are constructed simply and cheaply, with techniques to reduce energy use, and are designed to be decorated over time by the students. All arts, architecture, design, and landscape architecture courses are devoted to beautifying the campus.

The faculty is selected for excellence of teaching and research, but with no attention to their fame either within their own disciplines or in the media. Criteria for excellence are set by the institution itself; external offers, peer-reviews, and other measures of market value are proudly ignored.

A system of assessment or evaluation involves graded group projects at the beginning and end of each academic year. The college discloses changes in the students’ scores on these projects over time and claims any positive changes as evidence of its actual impact. When the impact is weak or negative, the college changes its curriculum.

*Ernest T. Pascarella and Patrick T. Terenzini, How College Affects Students: Vol. 2, A Third Decade of Research (Jossey-Bass, 2005).