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Title: The mass production of credentials: subsidies and the rise of the higher education industry
Citation Type: Journal Article
Publication Year: 2011
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Abstract: In January 2010, President Obama proposed a budget that would transform Poll Grants into entitlements, on the model of Medicare or Social Security. This change would extend the college funds that Poll Grants provide to an additional one million students. This proposed entitlement is based on the idea that everyone with the desire to go to college should be able to do so (Parsons 2010). This idea has reshaped higher education in the United States in a very short historical period, turning what was a guildlike activity into an industry for mass-producing credentials. In this article, I make the case for an alternative to the conventional view expressed in the president's proposal. My examination of the evidence and my own experiences in higher education have led me to conclude that massive federal subsidies have changed the higher-education industry and have produced a number of negative consequences. I describe these changes and lay out their consequences. This article, then, provides a response to the position taken by policy analysts and economists such as Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz (2008) that a race between education and technology requires extensive federal investment in higher education as well as a response to the popular view that putting more individuals through college is necessarily a good thing.
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Authors: Bankston, Carl L.
Periodical (Full): Independent Review
Issue: 3
Volume: 15
Pages: 325-349
Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Education
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