“The vast majority of the so-called research turned out in US universities is essentially worthless”, says Page Smith, a history professor at the University of California. “It does not result in any measurable benefit to anything or anybody…….It is busywork on a vast, almost incomprehensible scale”.
The number of journal articles published has climbed from 13,000 50 years ago to 72,000 today, as overall readership has declined. 98% of all articles published in the arts are never cited by another researcher. In the social sciences the figure is 75%, and in the “hard” sciences 25%. Where there are citations the average number is between 1 and 2 (thanks, mate! I’ll buy you a pint). And yet faculty members are evaluated, and offered tenure, on the basis of their research. The research reputation of a university is paramount. It didn’t used to be like this – in the old days the customers (who now have to put themselves into debt to be there) were kings.
Students are getting short-changed, fobbed off with teaching assistants or with adjunct professors, who are paid peanuts per course but do it for pocket money, prestige or the love of knowledge. They are probably good teachers but they are only there part-time.
All this degrades the undergraduate experience. Students leave university thinking they have had a first class education. But how much time do they individually get in front of a professor who challenges them, raises their sights and makes them think for themselves? It’s a giant scam, where students pay for the teachers to do useless research, while being short- changed, but offered good grades to keep them quiet. This is not education; it is a cynical business. And I haven’t even got to the fancy sports facilities!
(Oh, by the way, academia should be delighted with this blog. Every week I am quoting the results of one piece of academic research or other. If it were not for blogs like this the number of research citations would be even fewer).
Here is an example of serious research, taken from a piece in the New Scientist:
“Pigs do have personality – and they’re vocal about it. A study of 72 juveniles has found that the more outgoing a pig is – measured by their curiosity about new objects – the more they grunt (Open Science, DOI: 10.1098/rsos.160178)”
I wonder how long it took to reach this ground- breaking conclusion, and what it cost?
Excellent post and, yes, thank heavens for the blogosphere where truth can be told on many reliable sites . . .you just have to search out the truth-tellers.
There are now political movements such as “New Faculty Majority,” which organize adjuncts most of whom need to cobble together jobs to make a living. “Willing adjuncts,” those who can afford to teach for peanuts, are another matter.
As you say, education has become a “cynical business.” I prefer “racket” to describe the corruption.
Kudos for the fine work on this blog.