In my last Civic Issues post, I elaborated on a numerical breakdown of general education at Penn State, looking at both the necessary credit allotments as well as the cost per credit, the amount we pay for gen eds as students. The study, written by Associate Dean Doctor Chris Long, noted that students spend about 60% of our credits to fulfill gen eds requirements, which costs the school nearly $4,500 dollars. A pretty penny, no doubt, but because these courses often are not taught by professors, it’s in fact less expensive for the university than classes led by tenured professors.
For this post, I want to expand our study of general education, to include the European model of education, and highlight the merits and downfalls of each system.
First, let us highlight the European mode of learning. In an article by Betty Joyce Nash, the author writes that Germany and Switzerland (and other European countries), “educate roughly 53 percent and 66 percent of students, respectively, in a system that combines apprenticeships with classroom education — the dual system.” This streamlines students directly into the workforce, and, as a result, unemployment rates are not as high as they are in America (7.7% in 2011, compared to 17.3% in the United State that year).
Students choose a path — usually the humanities, natural sciences, engineering, or the social sciences — at a young age, often during high school. Once in this path, they take very few classes outside of their intended area of focus. In other words, gen eds are much less frequent. Also, once in the selected path, it’s very difficult to change from one path to another. Clearly, it’s a tradeoff — but it’s one awarded with a near guarantee to find a job upon graduation.
Another virtue of this system is the fact that most students combine their in-class learning with out of the classrooms internships, or “apprenticeships”. Nash writes, “at ages 15 to 16, in Switzerland, about two-thirds of every cohort enter apprenticeships…in fields from health care to hairdressing to engineering attend vocational school at least one day a week for general education and theoretical grounding for roughly three years.”
I think it’s important to note that Nash uses the term “general education.” These internships effectively take the place of gen ed classes. Instead of science majors being required to take art classes — as they are in many schools in the United States — European students immerse themselves in their fields at any early age.
In America, as previously mentioned, there is no such concept as required, even encouraged, apprenticeships at an early age. Writes Nash, “in the United States, vocational education has been disparaged by some as a place for students perceived as unwilling or unable. ”
So, if all that Nash writes is true, we should jump the ship and switch to the European education model, right?
Not so fast, according to Stanford researchers Dirk Krueger and Krishna Kumar. In their paper “Skill-Specific rather than General Education: a Reason for Slow European Growth”, the authors assert that while, “general education is more costly to obtain, [it] reduces the lost of a worker’s task-specific productivity whenever a new technology is incorporated into production.” In other words, as the economy shifts — as it often does — those who have benefitted from an schooling based in general education are more prepared than those who study a skill-specific craft, as in Europe. In economics, this results in structural unemployment.
As a result, the authors speculate, that skill-specific education in Europe may have led to European countries falling behind the United States “in the information age of the 80s and 90s when new technologies emerged at a more rapid pace.” Clearly, Nash and Krueger & Kumar present two distinctly different theories. Nash suggests that the European model, based more off apprenticeship and less focused on gen eds, leads to less unemployment and greater job prospects. The Stanford researchers, conversely, argue that Europe has fallen behind America as a direct result of the differing educational systems.
There may be no correct answer, but what do you think on these differing theories regarding general education in America and abroad?
I agree with Steven on the fact that the American education system would need to change at a pre-college level for this to happen. Educators would need to start making these changes as early as elementary school. People just are not prepared to make these type of decisions. However, I do not think that the current system is sustainable. Too many people end up with such a poor ROI on their education that they practically become an economic burden. Increased specialization may help trim some fat off the current model, making it more cost effective over the course of the next 20 years. The United States would definitely not be able to jump over to this system and see good results in the immediate future.
You bring up great points. It’s less unemployment versus better adaption to the changing economy comparing our education system to Europe’s. Reading your blog reminded me of the online deliberation on general education we participated in. I believe general education has a purpose to inspire and open up new perspectives for individuals, but prior to the deliberation I thought our education should be more major specific, like the education model followed by Europe as you described.
As a STEM major it was always frustrating for me when I was required to take courses that I felt would do me no good for my specific major. This course we are in now, CAS 137H, is a great example. I was dreading this course when I found out it was required. Now that I am in it, I can honestly say I grew from it. I gained different views on multiple themes and a learned a lot about the value of perspectives. This shift in opinion is what also changed my view on general education.
I now support the American education system over Europe’s. I see value in the general education just as America does over Europe. But the situation you described still opposes some indifference for me. We pay all this money for our American education, so should we be graduating and getting jobs like the Europeans? We might be on top, but what about the individuals who can’t get a job after years of school?
Great blog, it really made me think!
It seems that the issue with European education is that it’s perfectly positioned to smoothly transition students into private sector jobs–assuming that private sector is sufficiently healthy to take them. While Krueger and Kumar’s study seems to blame the European economic slowdown in the 80s and 90s on this educational overspecialization, I believe that’s too simplistic an explanation. It’s worth noting that any economic slowdown over the past several years can fairly be blamed on the Great Recession and the EU’s sovereign-debt troubles, which were hardly the results of the European educational system. The issue is that such international-level issues can and do have massive consequences on the economy–and no amount of educational specialization is going to make up for a lack of companies or money to sustain hiring.
That said, I do believe that this general specialization is a good thing, but that it may not work in America simply because we don’t train students and teens to be thinking about their future at the ages necessary for the European model to work. It seems to me that American youth culture places far too much emphasis on instant gratification and living in the moment for this European model to work–excepting the motivated students (who would know what they were doing anyway), I don’t believe the vast majority of students entering American high school students are seriously competent enough to make decisions about their future. This isn’t a criticism of them, so much as a criticism of a system that fails to teach them to think forward like this.
I think that this is really interesting to compare these two systems. My initial perception of these two is to favor the European model for the job specificity. However, the counterpoint you end on with the report/study by someone from Stanford raises an interesting point about the balance of a system. I think the compromise between the systems lies in the determination of what actually makes general education credits helpful in the adaptation of technologies. There is no way you can say that because I take a history of rock and roll class to fill a general education requirement that I will be readily able to adapt to using a new complex technology such as the Internet of Things, which is currently being developed by CISCO. There needs to be an element of adaptation in the specialization of education.
Furthermore, graduate education almost pigeon-hole’s people into a very very specfic subset of knowledge. This is probably even worse than the European system in terms of limiting the scope of knowledge of employees.There is definitely a benefit to general education if it helps someone adapt to a potential market shift. I just think that there is a way out there to shape gen eds into a skill specific, problem solving, or adaptation oriented process that would better serve students.
When I think of “university” education, I definitely think of a FULL, well-rounded education. Without the gen eds, or some version thereof, we become a professional school, not a university in the sense we’ve defined over the years. Perhaps we need to rethink what our values are for this changing world where costs and job markets play a role in a much different way than they once did.
I think that both of these systems go too far to the extreme. Whereas the US relies too heavily on general education, I’m not convinced that the European system allows for enough time on generalized education. Those specialized tracks are great in theory, however, it results in a knowledge deficit in areas outside your specialty. On the other hand, the system that we know prolongs our education by adding additional requirements. Frankly, with tuition prices the way they are, the earlier students can manage to graduate the better.
I actually have a few cousins who live over seas and i can tell you that education in Europe is way different than it is here, but I think that is a good thing. From a young age students choose what they want to do with their lives and which focus they want to go into but it is not impossible to change especially when it is time to go to college and then university.Also i feel like the hands on experience that European students get is priceless and very useful, when making choices on what they want to do in their future careers. In my personal opinion I feel as though the U.S. should try more to encourage students to go out into the work force and get hands on experience, because to me i think it is very important.