Big Brother (AKA Uncle Sam) Strikes Again
By way of background, I teach at a relatively prestigious graduate school of management at a private university. I'm told that I'm not allowed to make public certain statistics, but suffice it to say that we have a large number of applicants for every "spot," and our offers of admission are accepted by "most" people to whom admission is offered. [Added after posting the first time: My picture seems to identify the institution. Oh, well. At least now I can boast about Peter Robinson as one of our most illustrious alumni.] We cultivate our reputation with prospective students and the larger business community. We depend on the very generous support of our alumni, support which is (generously) forthcoming. It would seem that this is a market in which privately ordered transactions are working well.
This morning, my colleagues and I received an email from one of the Senior Associate Deans proclaiming, among other things, that, henceforth, twice-weekly class sessions must last 105 minutes. The email went on with a lot more details about special cases of meeting times, lengths, and suchlike.
Why? Because (and here I quote) "Department of Education regulations issued in October 2010 require that one quarter unit of academic credit reasonably approximate not less than 'one hour of classroom or direct faculty instruction and a minimum of two hours of out-of-class student work for each week for ten to twelve weeks...or the equivalent amount of work over a different period of time.' " This regulation is, in turn, being enforced by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, our accreditation organization. And, accordingly, the university registrar has asked all schools and departments to "make necessary changes at this time."
I don't want to bore you with details, but let me stipulate: In a long career in this business (at this school), I have taught a variety of classes and, for some, complying with these regulations will lessen pedagogical quality. Different subjects, taught by different methods and at different levels, do not fit a "one size fits all" model of x hours in class per week, y hours at home.
Of course, government regulations, by their very nature, are often one-size-fits-all. I'm sure no one at Ricochet needs me to explain that this is among the reasons why, without a compelling public interest, it is best for the government to let private markets do their thing.
So....What is it about this particular private transaction that needs government regulation? What was in the mind of Congress when it passed a law (and which law?) that allowed this? (I assume there was a law, but that may be an unwarranted assumption.) Across the hall from me is a colleague who served on the Council of Economic Advisers in the Clinton Administration, and she is as mystified as am I. Anyone have a theory about how or why Big Brother thinks this is something else that needs regulation?
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Dec '11
Re: Big Brother (AKA Uncle Sam) Strikes Again
I guess the old saw is "Follow the Money" but, yeah, who could profit from something like this?
May '10
Re: Big Brother (AKA Uncle Sam) Strikes Again
What do you bet it is part of the war against for-profit and on-line education? Particularly on-line, where they will say that you can't enforce attendance.
Just like the way the ABA tries to eliminate alternate and lower cost law school approaches by mandating an expensive bricks-and-mortar library.
This in a world where no practicing attorney any longer uses an actual library, instead of the far preferred WestLaw or Lexis.
Sep '10
Re: Big Brother (AKA Uncle Sam) Strikes Again
It's not a bill passed by Congress--it's a Dept of Education regulation. And as Duane Oyen suspected, its primary aim is to regulate online schools.
Some of the smaller online schools are taking a lot of student loan money and giving PhDs to students who really aren't doing the work required at most institutions. So the DoE decided to crack down on them. Of course, the one-size-fits-all nature of government regulation means that every institution has to conform.
The accreditation organization for my region (in the Midwest) has been fighting this, because it will royally screw up schools like mine. We have a shorter semester but more teaching hours per week than most places. It's worked pretty well for the last 50 years or so. The DoE regulation would require us to change our entire structure from top to bottom. So far, our accrediting body has managed to postpone the implementation of the regulation, but time's running out.
This is what my liberal colleagues always fail to understand: when you accept government funding, you also accept government regulation and oversight which can be ham-handed and silly.
Edited on March 13, 2012 at 6:31pmRe: Big Brother (AKA Uncle Sam) Strikes Again
I'm an economist, not a political scientist. But doesn't there have to be some law authorizing a cabinet department to regulate a private transaction?
(BTW, at least as interpreted by the Stanford Registrar, one can have a shorter "semester" with more hours per week, hence the " '...or the equivalent amount of work over a different period of time.' " In the email I received, the inside quotes on this seem to attribute it to the Dept. of Education. Dogsbody: You make it seem like this is not so. I'd be interested to get more details on this point if you have them.)
Sep '10
Re: Big Brother (AKA Uncle Sam) Strikes Again
David Kreps
(BTW, at least as interpreted by the Stanford Registrar, one can have a shorter "semester" with more hours per week, hence the " '...or the equivalent amount of work over a different period of time.' " In the email I received, the inside quotes on this seem to attribute it to the Dept. of Education. Dogsbody: You make it seem like this is not so. I'd be interested to get more details on this point if you have them.)
My information comes from a conversation with my chairman, so I don't have the details at hand. I think that although the DoE says it allows "equivalent amount of work over a different period of time", the real issue is how one justifies a "non-standard" schedule and gets it through accreditation. The gist I got from my chairman is that the process is definitely biased in the direction of denying accreditation to anyone outside the lines. In other words, the risk-benefit calculation favors ripping up the entire curriculum rather than go through this process and have one's accreditation denied anyway.
Edited on March 13, 2012 at 6:50pmSep '10
Re: Big Brother (AKA Uncle Sam) Strikes Again
More details: my school has shorter fall and spring semesters, more hours per week, and also a January term. From my chairman's comments (and I'm fuzzy on the details here) it's pretty hard to show how this fits the DoE regulations. A lot of other schools here have similar "non-standard" arrangements.
Your Dean's letter essentially illustrates the idea: it's less trouble to smash up the school's traditional way of teaching than to justify going outside the lines the DoE has set.
Edited on March 13, 2012 at 6:56pmMay '10
Re: Big Brother (AKA Uncle Sam) Strikes Again
In the Higher Education Act, Congress strikes a difficult balance in which it grants the Department of Education the responsibility for ensuring the "integrity" of the Title IV financial aid program, while granting the role for policing "quality" to accreditors. Schools must be properly accredited to participate in the aid program, but (Hillsdale notwithstanding!) cannot properly survive without access to the federal aid program.
The bureaucrats in the Department of Education have long chafed at this distinction and with the arrival of the Obama administration were finally given more latititude. How long a student spends in class is an outmoded but concrete measure of at least some sort of engagement and sits right at the intersection between integrity and quality.
Truth be told the Obama administration would ideally like to federalize higher education completely and supplant the accreditors. One of the many, many scary implications of an unfettered administration in a second term would be to grant the government control over both integrity and quality and dictate exactly what does and does not count as higher education.
Edited on March 13, 2012 at 7:21pmRe: Big Brother (AKA Uncle Sam) Strikes Again
David Kreps
I'm an economist, not a political scientist. But doesn't there have to be some law authorizing a cabinet department to regulate a private transaction?
· 28 minutes ago
Oh, David, David, you sweet naif you. Between the constant metastasization of the U.S. Code and the endless capitulations of the courts for lo, these many decades, the short answer to your question is, no, there really doesn't have to be any specific authorization in law to enable a federal bureaucracy to issue regulations like this. Or rather--to put the matter a little more accurately--the burden of proof falls not the bureaucracy to show that it has due authorization but on...you to show that it doesn't.
In re which, good luck.
May '10
Re: Big Brother (AKA Uncle Sam) Strikes Again
David Kreps
I'm an economist, not a political scientist. But doesn't there have to be some law authorizing a cabinet department to regulate a private transaction?
The rule is a requirement of participation in Title IV which permits the school access to the federal student loan program. Hillsdale does not accept Title IV funds, which means it is free to make its classes as long as it wishes. But it also means that its students may not access Pell grants or Stafford, PLUS or Perkins loans to attend school.
Edited on March 13, 2012 at 7:28pmMay '11
Re: Big Brother (AKA Uncle Sam) Strikes Again
Yet another reason to get Uncle Sam out of the student loan/higher education business.
Jun '10
Re: Big Brother (AKA Uncle Sam) Strikes Again
The new regulation is circumstantial evidence that somebody was attempting -- dare I say it -- innovation. Regulation is at its most efficient when stifling innovation.
Edited on March 13, 2012 at 7:41pmNov '10
Re: Big Brother (AKA Uncle Sam) Strikes Again
Indeed. Are there schools other than Hillsdale that have opted out?
May '10
Re: Big Brother (AKA Uncle Sam) Strikes Again
Lucy Pevensie
Indeed. Are there schools other than Hillsdale that have opted out? · 0 minutes ago
There are many unaccredited schools that do not qualify, but Hillsdale is the highest caliber institution of which I am aware that eschews Federal dollars on principle.
Edited on March 13, 2012 at 7:45pmRe: Big Brother (AKA Uncle Sam) Strikes Again
Prof. Kreps, I know exactly why this law was passed. This law/regulation was passed for the same reason that many of these stealth regulations are passed. Some enlightened bureaucrat wakes up in the morning and has a bright idea, and that's exactly how it happens. The bigger question is: when did we get to the point when these unelected government officials receive the power to control every aspect of our lives.
And, just like decisions were bottlenecked through Moscow during their years under Stalin, so too are the decisions that affect us go through the sausage maker that is D.C.
May '10
Re: Big Brother (AKA Uncle Sam) Strikes Again
Lucy Pevensie
Indeed. Are there schools other than Hillsdale that have opted out? · 0 minutes ago
I know of one other - Grove City College. See http://www.gcc.edu/Benefits_of_Independence.php.
Nov '10
Re: Big Brother (AKA Uncle Sam) Strikes Again
BriarRose
Lucy Pevensie
Indeed. Are there schools other than Hillsdale that have opted out? · 0 minutes ago
I know of one other - Grove City College. See http://www.gcc.edu/Benefits_of_Independence.php. · 2 minutes ago
That's beautiful. I thought I faintly remembered that they had done so. What on earth was their Supreme Court battle about? Did they have to fight to keep students from taking out student loans?
Apr '11
Re: Big Brother (AKA Uncle Sam) Strikes Again
Peter Robinson
David Kreps
I'm an economist, not a political scientist. But doesn't there have to be some law authorizing a cabinet department to regulate a private transaction?
· 28 minutes ago
Oh, David, David, you sweet naif you. Between the constant metastasization of the U.S. Code and the endless capitulations of the courts for lo, these many decades, the short answer to your question is, no, there really doesn't have to be any specific authorization in law to enable a federal bureaucracy to issue regulations like this. Or rather--to put the matter a little more accurately--the burden of proof falls not the bureaucracy to show that it has due authorization but on...you to show that it doesn't.
In re which, good luck. · 35 minutes ago
Another way to put it is this is now a government of Czars.
Dec '10
Re: Big Brother (AKA Uncle Sam) Strikes Again
So this probably explains why my school (AMU, all online) changed the requirement from logging into each class during the first week to submitting an assignment of X length during the first week of each class. I cannot see a way forward for online education to comply with such regulations. Nothing they can do will appease the regulators if the regulators want to shut down the schools.
Aug '11
Re: Big Brother (AKA Uncle Sam) Strikes Again
"Oh, David, David, you sweet naif you. Between the constant metastasization of the U.S. Code and the endless capitulations of the courts for lo, these many decades, the short answer to your question is, no, there really doesn't have to be any specific authorization in law to enable a federal bureaucracy to issue regulations like this."
And then these administrative (not legislative decrees) create "rights." That's how it works these days. Constitutionally, Congress is not supposed to be able to delegate the making of laws but it has. Once a rule makes the 80,000 pages of regulation published each year, it creates de facto rights (like the right to free contraception).
May '10
Re: Big Brother (AKA Uncle Sam) Strikes Again
Lucy Pevensie
That's beautiful. I thought I faintly remembered that they had done so. What on earth was their Supreme Court battle about? Did they have to fight to keep students from taking out student loans? · 24 minutes ago
From www.lawhighereducation.com
Grove City College v. Bell (1984) stands out as a dispute in which the U.S. Supreme Court restricted the application of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 at a private college that accepted no direct federal funding on its own but had large number of students who received federally funded grants. Grove City created a firestorm of controversy, because the Court maintained that while the U.S. Department of Education (ED) could terminate funding, it could do so only for the grant program that was subjected to Title IX if college officials refused to sign a form indicting their compliance with the statute. In so ruling, the Court refused to allow the ED to sanction to the entire institution. Dissatisfied by the outcome in Grove City, Congress essentially superseded it three years later with the enactment of the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987, thereby interpreting Title IX more expansively.