Today’s joint JLF and J.W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy presentation by author Max Borders and panelists J. Peder Zane and John Hood raised a number of interesting and valid points. It has also generated much lively discussion, both during and here on the Locker Room and after the panelist’s session. I think both ‘sides’ raised valid points, sometimes engaging the opponents’ arguments, sometimes not.
J. Peder Zane’s objection to singling out the North Carolina School of the Arts as the poster child for Borders’ criticism is well taken, especially since, as Hood and others pointed out, every school in the UNC system duplicates to some degree the arts education offerings at NCSA. Why pick on them, and not science programs, engineering schools, or med schools also subsidized by taxpayer dollars? Indeed. If one is opposed to public funding of education, or at least to heavy public subsidies of higher education, NCSA may not be exceptional.
I think a a major focus of Max’s arguments about spending taxpayer dollars to support NCSA rests on some implications of the pull-quote found on page 7 of the paper: “When considered on a per-student basis, UNCSA is by far the most expensive publicly funded university in the state.” True enough, and statistics support this claim. While Peder takes this as a reason we should and must support arts education publicly, Max takes it as an indictment of the principle of effective use of taxpayer dollars, and opposes that approach per se (in principle itself), as I understand him. Some thoughts on this dispute between the two: I think it is a mistake to expect that arts education and business school education, or other education (science, etc.) should be or can be delivered at strictly comparable per-student costs. Even if they could be, though, so what? That fact wouldn’t necessarily argue for delivering either of them at significant taxpayer expense.
As regards the extraordinarily-high per pupil expense of arts ed? All arts education programs, everywhere, have relatively, even very high per-student costs, and relatively low student-teacher ratios as compared to most other university disciplines of study. NCSA is in no way unusual or unique in this regard. As an undergraduate in a private music conservatory program during my undergraduate years, I was very much aware (even as a student) that the Music school in particular, along with the Art school, was constantly criticized by the rest of the University because per-pupil expenditures were astronomical, compared to undergraduate programs in non-arts disciplines. It’s the nature of the beast, and technology can only take you so far, and on some few margins, in reducing that cost. One-on-one or few-on-one pedagogy is simply required in some parts of the primary curriculum.
So in terms of Max’s paper, one might want to note that what he suggests about NCSA’a per-pupil costs, compared to other UNC system schools, are expected and typical for arts education programs, everywhere. I agree with him though that, typical or not, this is a reason for NC to get out of the arts education business, not further into it.
A private-pay arts education approach has many advantages, not the least of which are the degree to which personal liberty for taxpayers is preserved (taking fewer taxpayer dollars) and opportunities, an incentive to make better decisions about the potential costs and benefits of pursuing arts study at the University level, and the ability of artist-hopefuls to more realistically assess the market for their talents (supposing that many would actually prefer to work in the arts and not just enjoy personal enrichment).
A second point, and more significant than arguing about which schools or which programs ought to be sacrosanct with respect to public funding, is this: many of the problems to which Max points in his study are a symptom of a larger problem about which George Leef has been writing and speaking for years. Too many American kids go to college. Period. Thus, no surprise, too many kids enter arts education programs in universities and colleges. This is less of a problem if one is risking one’s own investment of time and dollars. It’s a difficult, uncertain, and often low-remuneration career path, and therefore even more unconscionable for a public university system.
There are clearly already too many (for the career market) people trying to pursue careers in the arts. Musicians’ unions, Actor’s Equity and other professional credentialing barriers represent serious efforts to keep newcomers out, competition down, and returns up for those a) able to join these organizations–it’s not just a matter of signing up and paying one’s dues? and b) who can find employment once they are members of the requisite guilds. Producers and agents are well aware, also, of the degree to which these arrangements raise the cost of live performance and, perversely, discourage public attendance and tastes for these options. Think: wedding bands, dance bands, live actors (stage or screen)–they are disappearing for good reason, not for lack of talent or trained personnel.
In sum, it seems clear to me that the problem of arts education has been confounded by the mania for every child to attend college, and that overindulgence in arts education is just one consequence of that trend.
