Category: Education

Way back in February of 2015 Laura Kipnis’ essay “Sexual Paranoia Strikes Academe” was published in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Though controversial in content, it was a balanced consideration of campus codes governing relationships between students and professors. In response to this essay, Kipnis was subjected to what she rightly called a Title IX Inquisition. While the legal issues of such codes are interesting, my main concern as a philosopher is with their ethics.

I will begin by getting the easy stuff out of the way. As universities are obligated to provide a safe environment conducive to learning, they should have rules that protect students. Since universities are obligated to ensure grades are assigned on merit, they should have rules forbidding exchanging goods or services (including sexual services) for grades. Crimes such as sexual assault and rape should be handled by the police, though universities should also have rules governing the employment of professors who are convicted of such crimes.

It is also relatively easy to settle the issue of whether universities should forbid consenting relationships between professors and students when the professor has power over the student. This would include such things as the student being enrolled in the professor’s class or serving as their TA.  After all, if a student is involved with a professor, then the student might have an unfair advantage relative to other students. This is distinct from the explicit exchange of a grade for sexual favors. Rather, this is a matter of positive bias in favor of the student that can result in special treatment. For example, a professor might grade her boyfriend’s paper much easier than those of other students. 

While sexual relations can lead to bias, these are not the only relations that can have this effect. A professor who is friends with a student or related to a student can be biased in favor of that student. This is distinct from explicit nepotism in which grades are decided based on the relationship. So, if the principle is based on the potential for bias, then students who are friends, relatives or otherwise comparably connected to the professor would also need to be forbidden from being in such roles.

It can, obviously, be argued there is a relevant difference between sexual relations and non-sexual relations that would justify forbidding a professor from dating a student in, while still allowing them to have a friend or relative as a student. Alternatively, a university could have a general ban on professors having students with whom they have a potentially biasing relationship, be it sexual, platonic, or family relationship. As a general policy, this has considerable appeal on the grounds of fairness. It can, however, be countered on the grounds that a professional should be able to control bias in favor of friends and family. But this view opens the door to the claim that a professional should also be able to control bias in the case of a romantic relationship. However, most would certainly be skeptical about such a claim. I recall from my own graduate school days the comments students would make about students who were involved with their professor or TA. Put in polite terms, they expressed skepticism about the fairness of the grading.

My considered view is a conditional one: if a professor can maintain objectivity, then the unfairness argument would have no weight. However, it is reasonable to think that many professors could not maintain such objectivity, thus justifying a general rule forbidding relationship. After all, rule are not crafted with the best people in mind, but those that are less than the best.

The fairness argument could not, of course, be used to justify forbidding professors from dating students who are not and will not be in their classes (or otherwise under them in a professional capacity). So, for example, if an engineering professor were to date an English Literature major who will never take any of the classes she teaches, then there would be no concerns about fairness.

As harassment and coercive relationships should always be forbidden, there would thus seem to be no grounds for forbidding such a consensual relationship between two adults. However, there are good arguments in favor of this general forbiddance.

There are excellent practical reasons to forbid romantic or sexual relationships between students and professors even when there is no coercion, no harassment, and no unfairness. One practical reason is that relationships usually fail and often fail in dramatic ways, and it could be problematic for a university to have such drama play out on campus. Another practical reason is that such relationships can be a legal powder keg in terms of potential lawsuits against a university. As such, university administrators sensibly think that their money and brand should be protected by forbidding such relationships.

From a moral perspective, the concern is whether there are grounds for forbidding such relationships (other than, of course, a utilitarian argument about the potential for brand damage or lawsuits).

One standard argument is that there is always a power disparity between professors and students, and this entails that all such relationships are potentially coercive. Even if most professors would not consciously coerce a student, rules are not made for how the best people would act but for what those who are less than best are likely to do. As such, a blanket ban on relationships is necessary to prevent the possibility of coercive relationships between students and professors. It is thus morally justified.

It might be objected that a rule against coercive relationships would suffice and that if the professor has no professional relationship with the student, then they should be treated as consenting adults. After all, a professor in such a situation would seem to have no power over the student and coercion via professional position would not be possible. So, they should be free to have a relationship.

It could be countered that a professor always has power over a student in virtue of being a professor, even when the professor has no professional relationship with the student. While a professor might have some “power” in regard to being older (usually), having some status, having more income (usually), and so on, these do not seem to be distinct from the “power” one adult could have over another outside the academy and in the dating world.

One could argue that there seems to be nothing specific to being a professor that would give a professor power over the student that would make the relationship automatically coercive. As such, there would seem to be no grounds for forbidding the relationship.

It could be objected that students are especially vulnerable to the power of professors and lack the autonomy needed to resist this power. As such, the university must act in a paternalistic way and forbid all relationships—to protect naïve and powerless students from the cunning, powerful predatorial professors. This would be analogous to laws that protect minors from adults because minors cannot give informed consent. If college students are analogous to (but not legally) minors, then the same reasoning would apply. But this approach seems insulting to the students and would suggest that changes to the age of consent would be warranted. So casting adult students as analogous to children is probably not a good idea.

A reasonable approach is to point out that there is no guarantee that a professor might not end up being in a position of relative power and it would be unreasonable to depend on some sort of informal honor system in which students and professors promise to never be in such a situation. Hence, a blanket ban on such relationships would seem warranted. This is analogous to how a professional should never date co-workers or clients of their business, even if they currently have no professional interaction. Since they could have such interaction someday, they should not risk having a relationship.

There are also other moral grounds for forbidding such relationships that are not based on concerns about power disparities. For example, a case can be made that a professor being involved with a student would simply be unprofessional and hence unethical.

From a legal, practical and moral standpoint, the best policy would seem to be for professors and students to not have romantic relationships.

One of the many problems with American higher education is that the cost of a four-year degree is higher than ever, even when adjusting for inflation. The causes of this increase are well known and well understood and there is no mystery here. One contributing factor is that universities spend on facilities that are not connected to education. Critics like to, for example, point out that some universities spend millions on luxurious fitness facilities to attract students.

A major factor contributing to costs is the ever-expanding administrative class at universities. This expansion occurs in both individual salaries and overall numbers. From 2000 to 2010 the median salary for the top public university administrators increased by 39%. The top administrators, the university presidents, enjoyed a 75% increase. In stark contrast, the salaries for full-time professors increased by only 19%.

The money for these salary increases must come from somewhere and an obvious source is students. My alma mater Ohio State University is leading the way. Between 2010 and 2012 Gordon Gee, the president of OSU, was paid almost $6 million. At the same time, OSU raised tuition and fees to a degree that resulted in student debt increasing 23% more than the national average.

While some might be tempted to attribute bloated salaries as the result of the alleged wastefulness and growth of the public sector, private colleges and universities topped their public counterparts. From 2000 to 2010 private schools saw salary increases of about 97% for their top administrators and their presidents enjoyed a 171% increase. Full time professors also partook of the increases as their salaries increased by 50%.

What is even more striking than salary increases are the increases in the number of positions and their nature. From 1978 to 2014 administrative positions skyrocketed 369%. This time also marked a major shift in the nature of faculty. The number of part-time faculty increased by 286%. The use of adjuncts has been justified on the grounds that doing so saves money. While adjunct salaries vary, the typical adjunct makes $20,000-25,000 per year. While this might sound decent for “part-time” work, most adjuncts work “part-time” at multiple schools and are thus better seen as full-time workers.

However, the money saved by hiring adjuncts does not translate to a lower cost of education. Rather, it “saves” money from going to faculty so that it can go to administrators. Since the average salary of a university president is $478,896 and the number of presidents making $1 million or more a year is increasing, it should be obvious what is helping to drive up the cost of college. Hint: it is not adjunct pay.

There has also been a push to reduce (and eliminate) tenured positions which resulted in an increase in full time, non-tenure earning positions by 259%. Full time tenure and tenure-track positions increased by only 23%. Ohio State University provides an excellent (or awful) example of this strategy: the majority of those hired by OSU were Adjuncts and Administrators. To be specific, OSU hired 498 adjunct instructors and 670 administrators. 45 full-time, permanent faculty were hired.

The Republicans who run many state legislatures rail against wasteful spending, impose micromanagement and inflict draconian measures on state universities yet never seem to address the real causes of tuition increase and the problems in the education system. Someone more cynical than I might note that the university seems to no longer have education as its primary function. Rather, it is crafted to funnel money from the “customer” and the taxpayer (in the form of federal student aid) to the top while minimizing pay for those who do the actual work.

Tenure has been a target in recent years because tenure provides faculty with protection against being fired without cause. The idea that some non-rich might enjoy a degree of financial security clearly vexes the ruling class.  This is regarded by some as a problem for a variety of reasons. One is that tenured faculty cannot be let go simply to replace them with lower paid adjuncts. This, obviously enough, means less money flowing from students and the state to administrators. Another is that the protection provided by tenure allows a faculty member to criticize what is happening to the university system without being fired.

While I am critical of the approach to administration, we are on the same side in terms of how public education is suffering from disinvestment. While the cost of facilities and excessive administrative overhead are factors, the greatest harm to American education has been the decision to destroy it.

A Philosopher’s Blog 2025 brings together a year of sharp, accessible, and often provocative reflections on the moral, political, cultural, and technological challenges of contemporary life. Written by philosopher Michael LaBossiere, these essays move fluidly from the ethics of AI to the culture wars, from conspiracy theories to Dungeons & Dragons, from public policy to personal agency — always with clarity, humor, and a commitment to critical thinking.

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  • Ethics in everyday life — guns, healthcare, charity, masculinity, inheritance, and the moral puzzles hidden in ordinary choices
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Interestingly, the free 2-year college movement began with Republican Governor Bill Haslam of Tennessee. Other states followed his lead but the Trumpian war on education raises questions about the fate of free college. But is offering free 2-year college a good idea?   Having some experience in education, I will endeavor to assess this question.

First, there is no such thing as a free college education (in this context). Rather, free education for a student means the cost is shifted to others. After all, staff, faculty and administrators cannot work for free. The facilities of the schools need to be constructed and maintained. And so on, for all the costs of education.

One proposed way to make education free for students is to shift the cost to “the rich”, a group that is easy to target but somewhat harder to define. As might be suspected, I think this is a good idea. One reason is that I believe that education is one of the best investments a person and society can make. This is why I am fine with paying property taxes that go to K-12 education, although I have no children of my own. In addition to my moral commitment to education, I also look at it pragmatically: money spent on education means spending less on prisons and social safety nets. Of course, there is still the question of why the cost should be shifted to “the rich.”

One obvious answer is that they, unlike the poor and the tattered remnants of the middle class, have an overabundance of money. As economists have noted, an ongoing trend is wages staying stagnant while capital is doing well. This is illustrated by the stock market rebounding from the last crash while workers are doing worse than before that crash.

There is also the need to address income inequality. While many might reject arguments grounded in compassion or fairness, there are purely practical reasons to shift the cost. One is that the rich need the rest of us to keep the wealth, goods and services flowing to them (they need us far more than we need them, since we do not need them at all). Another is social stability. Maintaining a stable state requires the citizens to believe that they are better off with the status quo then they would be if they revolted. While deceit and force can keep citizens in line, these have limits to their effectiveness. It is in the pragmatic interest of the rich to help restore the faith of the middle class. One alternative is being put against the wall after the revolution. But in 2024 they seem to have decided to gamble on force and deceit to keep their wealth safe.

Second, the reality of education has changed over the years. In the not-so-distant past, a high-school education was sufficient for a decent job. I am from a small town in Maine and remember that people could get decent jobs at the paper mill with just a high school degree (or even without one). While there are still some decent jobs like that, they are increasingly rare.

While it might be a slight exaggeration, the two-year college degree seems somewhat equivalent to the old high school degree. That is, it is roughly the minimum education needed to have a good shot at a decent job. As such, the reasons that justify free (for students) public K-12 education would now justify free (for students) K-14 public education. And, of course, arguments against free (for the student) K-12 education would also apply. As a side note, I also support free trade schools, and these offer a good chance of getting a decent job.

Some might claim that the reason the two-year degree seems to be the new high school degree is because education has been declining. But there is also the fact that the world has changed. While I grew up during the decline of the manufacturing economy, we are now in the information economy (even manufacturing is high tech now) and more education is needed to operate in this economy.

It could, of course, be argued that a better solution would be to improve K-12 education so that a high school degree would once again suffice for a decent job in the information economy. This would, obviously enough, lessen the need to have free two-year college. This is certainly an option worth considering.

Third, the cost of college has grown absurdly since I was a student in the 1980s. Rest assured, though, that this has not been because of increased pay for professors. This has been partially addressed by a complicated and bewildering system of financial aid and loans. However, free two-year college would certainly address this problem in a simpler way.

That said, there is a concern that this would not reduce the cost of college. As noted above, it would merely shift the cost. A case can be made that this would increase the cost of college for those who are paying for it. One can argue that schools would have less incentive to keep costs down if the state was paying the bill.

It can be argued that it would be better to focus on reducing the cost of public education in a rational way that focuses on the core mission of colleges, namely education. One reason for the increase in college tuition is the massive administrative overhead that exceeds what is needed to run a school. Unfortunately, since the administrators are the ones who make financial choices, it is unlikely that they will thin their own numbers or reduce their salaries. While state legislatures increasingly apply magnifying glasses to the academic aspects of schools, administrators seem to get less attention. Perhaps because of some interesting connections between the state legislatures and upper-level school administrators. One obvious exception is the dismantling of the administrative apparatus and jobs in what the current regime defines as DEI.

Fourth, while conservative politicians have been critical of the state “giving away free stuff” to people who are not rich, liberals have also been critical of free two-year college. While liberals tend to favor the idea of the state giving people free stuff, some have taken issue with free stuff being given to everyone. After all, the usual proposal is not to make two-year college free for those who cannot afford it, but to make it free for everyone.

It is tempting to criticize free two-year college for everyone. While it makes sense to assist those in need, it can be argued that it is unreasonable to expend resources on people who can afford college. That money could be used to, for example, help people in need pay for four-year colleges. It can also be argued that the well-off would exploit the system.

One easy and obvious reply is that the same could be said of free (for the student) K-12 education. As such, the reasons that exist for free public K-12 education (even for the well-off) would apply to a free two-year college plan.

In regard to the well-off, they can already elect to go to lower cost state schools. However, the wealthy tend to pick the more expensive schools and usually opt for four-year colleges. The right-wing elites that bash colleges tend to be graduates of elite colleges and tend to send their children to such school. As such, I suspect that there would not be an influx of rich students into two-year programs trying to “game the system.” Rather, they would tend to continue to go to the most prestigious four year schools their money can buy.

Finally, a proposal for the rich to bear the cost of “free” college, should be looked at as an investment. The rich “job creators” will benefit from having educated “job fillers.” But the rich prefer that someone else pay the cost for them, such as how companies like Wal Mart rely on the state to provide food stamps and Medicaid to keep their underpaid workers alive

It can also be argued that because the college educated tend to get better jobs which will grow the economy. Most of this growth will go to the rich.  There would also be an increase in tax-revenues and although the rich are loath to pay taxes, they rely on the rest of us doing so. As such, the rich might find that an involuntary investment in education would provide an excellent return.

Overall, “free” two-year college seems to be a good idea, although one that will require proper implementation. Free four-year college funded by an “investment” by the rich is also a good idea, for the same reasons.

While college students have been completing student evaluations of faculty since the 1960s, the importance of these evaluations has increased. There are various reasons for this. One is a conceptual shift towards the idea that a college is a business and students are customers. On this model, student evaluations of faculty are part of the customer satisfaction survey process. Second is an ideological shift in education. Education is seen more as a private good and in need of quantification. This is also tied to the notion that the education system is, like a forest, worker, or oilfield, a resource to be exploited for profit. Student evaluations provide a cheap method of assessing the value provided by faculty and, best of all, provide numbers.

Obviously, I agree with the need to assess performance. As a gamer and runner, I am obsessed with measuring my athletic and gaming performances and I am comfortable with letting that obsession spread into my professional life. I want to know if my teaching is effective, what works, what does not, and what impact I am having. Of course, I want to be sure the assessment methods are useful. Having been in education for decades, I do have concerns about the usefulness of student evaluations of faculty.

The first and most obvious concern is that students are, almost by definition, not experts in assessing education. While they obviously take classes and observe faculty, they usually lack any training in assessment. Having students evaluate faculty could be seen as on par with having sports fans assessing coaching. While fans and students can have strong opinions, this does not qualify them to provide meaningful professional assessment.

Using the sports analogy, this can be countered by pointing out that while a fan might not be a professional at assessing coaching, they usually know good or bad coaching when they see it. Likewise, a student who is not an expert at education can still recognize good or bad teaching.

A second concern is the self-selection problem. While students have access to the evaluation forms and can easily go to Rate My Professor, those who take the time to complete the evaluation will usually have stronger feelings about the professor. These feelings can distort the results so that they are more positive or more negative than they should be. The counter to this is that the creation of such strong feelings is relevant to the assessment of the professor. A practical way to counter the bias is to ensure that most (if not all) students in a course complete the evaluations.

Third, people often base their assessments on irrelevant factors. These include such things as age, gender, appearance, and personality. The concern is that these factors makes evaluations a popularity contest: professors that are liked will be evaluated as better than professors who are not as well liked. There is also the concern that students tend to give younger professors and female professors worse evaluations than older professors and male professors and these sorts of gender and age biases lower the credibility of evaluations.

A stock reply to this is that these factors do not influence students as strongly as critics might claim. So, for example, a professor might be well-liked yet still get poor evaluations in regards to certain aspects of the course. There are also those who question the impact of alleged age and gender bias.

Fourth, people often base assessments on irrelevant factors about the course, such as how easy it is, their grade, or whether they like the subject. Not surprisingly, it is commonly held that students give better evaluations to professors who they regard as easy and downgrade those they see as hard.

Given that people often base assessments on irrelevant factors (a standard problem in critical thinking), this is a real concern. Anecdotally, my own experience indicates that student assessment varies based on irrelevant factors they explicitly mention. I have a 4.0 on Rate my Professors, but there are inconsistencies between evaluations. Some students claim that my classes are incredibly easy (“he is so easy”), while others claim they are incredibly hard (“the hardest class I have ever taken”). I am also described as being both very boring and very interesting, both helpful and unhelpful and so on. This sort of inconsistency in evaluations is common and raises concerns about the usefulness of such evaluations.

But it can be claimed that the information is still useful. Another counter is that the appropriate methods of statistical analysis can be used to address this concern. Those who defend evaluations point out that students tend to be generally consistent in their assessments. Of course, consistency in evaluations does not entail accuracy.

To close, there are two final general concerns about evaluations of faculty. One is the concern about values. That is, what is it that makes a good educator? This is a matter of determining what it is that we are supposed to assess and to use as the standard of assessment. The second is the concern about how well the method of assessment works.

In the case of student evaluations of faculty, we do not seem to be very clear about what we are trying to assess nor do we seem to be entirely clear about what counts as being a good educator. In the case of the efficacy of the evaluations, to know whether they measure well we would need to have some other means of determining whether a professor is good or not. But, if there were such a method, then student evaluations would seem unnecessary because we could just use those methods. To use an analogy, when it comes to football, we do not need to have the fans fill out evaluation forms to determine who is a good or bad athlete: there are clear, objective standards in regards to performance.

Over the years I have criticized for-profit schools. As I have emphasized before, I have nothing against the idea of a for-profit school. As such, my criticisms have not been that such schools make money. After all, I buy the food I need to survive with the money I make from being a professor. Rather, my criticisms have focused on the performance of these schools as schools, with their often-predatory practices, and the fact that they rely so heavily on federal funding for their profits. This article is, shockingly enough, also critical of these schools.

Assessment in and of higher education is standard practice now. Some assessment standards are set by the federal government, some by states and others by schools. At the federal level, one standard is in the Higher Education Act and states that career education programs “must prepare students for gainful employment in a recognized occupation.” If a school fails to meet this standard, it can lose out on federal funds such as Pell Grants and federal loans. Since schools are fond of federal dollars, they endeavor to meet this standard.

One way to qualify is to ensure students are suitably prepared. Another approach, one taken primarily by the for-profit schools (which rely heavily on federal money for their profits) has been to lobby to get the standard set to their liking.  As it now stands, schools are ranked in three categories: passing, probationary, and failing. A passing program is such that its graduates’ annual loan payments are below 8% of their total earnings or below 20% of their discretionary incomes. A program is put on probation when the loan payments are in the 8-12% range of their total earnings or 20-30% of discretionary incomes. A program is failing when the loan payments are more than 12% of their total income or over 30% of their discretionary incomes. Students who do not graduate, which happens more often at for-profit schools than at private and public schools, are not counted in this calculation.

 A program is disqualified from receiving federal funds if it fails two out of any three consecutive years or gets a ranking less than passing for four years in a row. This went into effect back in the 2015-2016 academic year.

As a matter of ideology and not fact, it is often claimed that the for-profit, private sector is inherently superior to the public sector. As with many ideologies, this does not match reality. Public higher education, which is under constant attack from the right, has been amazingly successful: 99.72% of the programs were rated as passing, 0.18% were rated as being on probation and 0.09% were ranked as failing. Private nonprofit schools also performed admirably with 95.65% of their programs passing, 3.16% being ranked as being on probation and 1.19% rated as failing. So, “A” level work for these schools. In stark contrast, for-profit schools had 65.87% of their programs ranked as passing, 21.89 ranked as being on probation and 12.23% evaluated as failing. So, these schools would have a grade of “D” if they were students. It is certainly worth keeping in mind that the standards used are the ones that the private, for-profit schools pushed for and it seems likely they would do even worse if the more comprehensive standards favored by the AFT were used.

This data indicates the for-profit schools are not as good a choice for students and for federal funding as the public and non-profit private schools. After all, using the pragmatic measure of student income relative to debt incurred for education, the public and private non-profits are the clear winners. One easy and obvious explanation for this is, of course, that the for-profit schools make a profit. As such, they typically charge much more than comparable public and non-profit private schools. Another explanation is that for-profit schools generally do a worse job preparing students for careers and with placing students in jobs. So, a higher cost combined with inferior ability to get students into jobs translates into that “D” grade. So much for the alleged inherent superiority of the for-profit private sector.

It might be objected that there are other factors that explain the poor performance of the for-profit schools that make them look better. For example, perhaps students who enroll in them differ significantly from students in public and non-profit private schools and this helps explain the difference in a way that partially absolves them. As another example, perhaps the for-profit schools just suffered from ongoing bad luck in terms of the programs they offered. Maybe salaries were unusually bad in these jobs or hiring was very weak. These and other factors are worth considering. After all, failing to consider alternative explanations would be poor reasoning indeed. I am, after all, a philosopher and not a politician or pundit. If the for-profits can explain away their poor performance in legitimate ways, then perhaps the standards would need to be adjusted to take into account these factors.

It is also worth considering that schools, public and private, do not have control over the economy. Given that short-term (1-4 year) vagaries of the market could result in programs falling into probation or failure by these standards when such programs are “good” in the longer term, it would seem that some additional considerations should be brought into play. Naturally, it can be countered that 3-4 years of probation or failure would not really be short term (especially for folks who think in terms of immediate profit) and that such programs would fully merit their rating.

That said, the last economic meltdown was somewhat long term and the next one (our bubble based economy makes it almost inevitable) could be even worse. As such, it would seem sensible to consider the broader economy when holding programs accountable. After all, even a great program cannot make companies hire nor compel them to pay better wages.

While most attention about the cost of a college education is focused on tuition, there is also concern about the ever-increasing prices of textbooks. While textbooks are something of a niche product, their prices are usually much higher than other niche books.

There are numerous reasons textbooks have high prices. There is the fact that textbook sales tend to be low, so the price needs to be higher to make a profit. There is also the fact that behind each textbook is typically a small army of people ranging from the lowly author to the exalted corporate CEO and everyone needs their slice of the pie. And, of course, there is the fact that the customers are something of captive market. Students are expected to buy what professors select and are often stuck with only that option. In any case, textbooks are now rather expensive and  can match or exceed the cost of a low-end computer.

While students have long been inclined to neither read nor buy texts, the rising prices serve as an ever-growing disincentive for buying books. This lowers the chances that a student will read the book, and this can have a detrimental impact on the student’s education.

Several years ago, my students complained about the high costs of books (and these were not very high), so I took steps to address this concern. While they are lagging behind me, some state legislatures have started pushing for schools to address the high cost of textbooks. On the one hand, they seem to be taking the wrong sort of approach: publishers and sellers control textbook prices, faculty do not. This would be analogous to putting the burden of lowering the cost of prescription drugs on doctors rather than the pharmaceutical companies and pharmacies. The state legislatures could, if they think that the high cost of texts is a cruel burden on students, legislate price restrictions on these books or address the matter directly in other ways.

On the other hand, professors can take steps to address the costs that students must pay in regard to the required material for their classes. As such, there is a legitimate role here for faculty.

While I support the goal of making the costs of texts less burdensome, the focus on textbooks by state legislatures smells a bit like a red herring. After all, one main factor driving the increased cost of a state college education is the systematic disinvestment in higher education by these very same legislatures. Students would, I think, be far better served by these legislatures restoring the investments in higher education, something that will aid the students and pay for itself in returns many times over.  But since legislatures are reluctant to invest in the future of America’s youth and eager to invest in the future of the wealthy, I now turn to addressing how faculty can lower the costs that students have to pay for texts.

There are, of course, some easy and obvious solutions. One is for the professor to shop around when picking a text.  Textbooks vary in price and some companies, such as Oxford University Press, make a point of keeping prices in a more reasonable range. The challenge is, of course, to ensure that the lower cost book is of suitable quality; but this is generally not a problem if a professor sticks with reputable publishers.

Another option is for professors to use older editions of books that are still available from resellers such as Amazon and whatever used bookstores remain in business. These books can be much cheaper than the new editions. The main concern is that older editions can become out of date. This can range from the relatively minor issue of having examples that are no longer current to the serious issue of a book containing information that has been proven to be in error. Concerns about the age of the text tend to be relative to the field. To illustrate, a class on ancient philosophy can easily use an ancient book while a class on contemporary moral issues would need a contemporary book. There are also public domain books readily available for free in electronic format, including versions available through such sources as Amazon.

Professors can also keep costs low by ensuring that they only require books that are really needed in the course. Some professors, perhaps to get free desk copies, require many books for their courses that end up either being underused (such as reading one article from an anthology) or not being used at all.

There are also other established solutions such as using a custom course pack of readings (often assembled and sold by a local copy business) and having the course material put on reserve at the library. Professors can also locate free online resources, such as educational videos, that can be used in place of or in addition to traditional books. 

Professors can also aid students by doing the students’ research for them, looking up textbook prices online and informing students of the best deals at that time. Some states have been requiring professors to turn in textbook orders months before the start of the semester; the theory is that students will use that time to hunt down the best textbook deals. This does require a means of informing students about the books, something that presumably would be listed online with the class.  Sometimes professors must turn in their book orders before they even know what they will be teaching, but this can be addressed by setting schedules early enough. In cases involving adjuncts (who are sometimes hired days before school starts) or new hires, books will no doubt be assigned by some other faculty member on the grounds that the alleged savings of being able to shop around early will outweigh any concerns about academic freedom or faculty decision making in regard to course content.

There are also solutions that require more effort on the part of professors. When my students began complaining about the high cost of books, I addressed the problem by assembling texts out of public domain works. While these “books” began as text files, the advent of PDF enabled me to create robust digital books. The students can download these books for free from my Canvas course, which saves them money. This approach does have limitations; the main one is that the works need to either be in the public domain or permission to use them for free must be granted. There are also creative commons works, but these are not terribly common in academics. Because of this, most of the works that can be included will be older, out of copyright works. For some classes, this is no problem. For example, my Modern philosophy class covers long dead philosophers, such as Descartes and Locke, whose works are in the public domain. For classes that require up to date content, such as science classes or classes devoted to contemporary content, this approach would not be viable.

Professors can, and often do, write their own texts for use in classes. If the professor goes through the usual publishing companies, they might have some ability to keep the price low. But, since author royalties are usually but a small fraction of the cost of a textbook, even if a professor were to forgo this royalty, the impact on the price would be minimal. As such, this is not a great option in terms of price control.

 Thanks to on-demand publishing services (such as CreateSpace) and eBook publishing (such as Amazon’s Kindle) a professor can also publish their books with almost complete control over the price. For example, an author can set a Kindle eBook to sell for as low as 99 cents. On the positive side, this option allows a professor to provide printed and electronic books for very low prices.

On the minus side, self-published books are not subject to the review usually required by academic publishers and thus quality can be a serious concern. There are also some ethical concerns about a professor requiring students to buy their books, although a low relative cost can offset this worry. Although I have written numerous philosophy books, such as my books on fallacies, I have not used them in my classes because of this concern. They have, however, been adopted by faculty at other universities.

While professors are now expected to keep the costs of texts down, there are ways students can save themselves money. The classic approach is, of course, not to buy the book (or only buy some of the books). While this does save money, it can impact negatively on class performance and learning. Another approach is to split the cost of the text and share the book, although this runs into the usual problems of sharing.

Textbooks can sometimes also be checked out from libraries, although there is the obvious problem of limited availability. Students who are more frugal than scrupulous can also acquire free books by other means as almost anything can be acquired through the web.

Students who are willing to buy a text can save money by shopping around online and at used bookstores for used or discounted copies of the text. Previous editions of books can also be found, often at lower prices. The downside is that publishers make special efforts to make it harder to use previous editions. One tactic is to move around homework questions, so the numbers are different between editions. On the positive side, content changes between editions tend to be otherwise minor.

Publishers also offer textbook rentals that offer savings relative to the sales price; given that the money students get for selling their books back is very little, this can be a good approach for people who would otherwise just sell their books back.  Some books are also available at a slightly lower price as eBooks (although there is concern about being able to sell them back).

A student can also make an appeal to the professor; they might have a copy they can lend, or they might be able to suggest some lower cost options. While many professors are aware of the cost of texts and take steps to keep costs down, some professors are unaware, but might be willing to address this if asked by students.

To close, while state legislatures should be focused on the main cost factors of higher education (such as their own disinvestment choices) they are correct in pointing out that textbook costs do need to be addressed. While this should be handled by those who set the prices of the texts, professors and students can use the above approaches to help keep costs down.

The student loan crisis occasionally gets attention in the media, but the coverage is often quick and shallow. Back in 2016 James B. Steele and Lance Williams of Reveal from the The Center for Investigative Reporting presented a more in-depth examination of the student loan industry. As a former student and current professor, I am concerned about student loans.

The original intention of student loans, broadly construed, was to provide lower income students with an affordable means of paying for college. Like most students, I had to take out loans to pay for school. This was back in the 1980s, when college costs were more reasonable and just as student loans were being transformed into a massive for-profit industry. As such, my loans were modest (about $8,000) and I was able to pay them off even on the pitiful salary I was earning as an adjunct professor. Times have, however, changed for the worse. And it just keeps getting worse under Republican rule for the rich, by the rich and against the poor.

Making a long story short, the federal government enabled banks and private equity companies to monetize the federal student loan program, allowing them to profit from the loans and fees. Because many state governments embraced an ideology of selfishness and opposition to the public good, they significantly cut their support for state colleges and universities, thus increasing the cost of tuition. At the same time, university administrations were growing both in terms of number of administrators and the size of salaries, thus increasing costs as well. There was also an increase in infrastructure costs due to new technology as well as a desire to market campuses as having amenities such as rock-climbing gyms. The result was $1.3 trillion in debt for 42 million Americans and this just keeps increasing. On the “positive” side, the government makes about 20% on its 2013 loans and the industry was humming along at $140 billion a year.

While the government held about 93% of the total debt, the debt collection was contracted to private companies and these were scooped up by the likes of JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup. As expected, these contractors make large profits (about $2 billion per year back in 2016). The collection process is often very aggressive, and the industry has used its control over congress to ensure favorable laws. For example, student loan debt is one of the very few debts that are not discharged by bankruptcy.

While student loans were originally intended to benefit students, they now benefit the government and the private contractors to the detriment of students. As such, there is a moral concern here in addition to the practical concerns about loans.

If the primary purpose of student loans is to address economic inequality by assisting lower income students attend college, then its current state goes against this purpose. This is because the system is creates massive debt for students while creating massive profits for the state and private contractors. That is, students are being exploited by both the state and the private sector. The collusion of the state makes seeking redress rather difficult. After all, the people need to turn to the state for redress, yet the state is an interested party and under the influence of industry. This problem is, of course, not unique to student loans and it is one more example of how privatization is great for the private sector rich but often awful for citizens.

It could be argued that the proper function of the state is to serve the interest of the financial elites at the expense of the citizens. If so, then the student loan program should continue as it is; it is great for the state and the financial class while crushing citizens under mountains of debt. If, however, the state should serve the good of the citizens in general, then the status quo is a disaster. My view is, not surprisingly, that of John Locke: the state is to serve the good of the people. As such,  the student loan industry needs to be changed.

One change that would help is for states to return to supporting public higher education. While there are legitimate concerns about budgets, education is a great investment in both the private good of the students and the public good. After all, civilization needs educated people to function and people with college degrees end up with higher incomes and thus pay more taxes (paying back the investment many times over). While there are professed ideological reasons for opposing this, there are also financial motivations: dismantling public education would push more students into the awful for-profit schools that devour money and excrete un(der)employed people burdened by massive debt. While this is great for the owners of these schools, it is awful for the students and society.

Another change, which has been proposed by others, is to change or end the privatized aspects of the system. While there is the myth that the private sector is vastly superior to the inefficient and incompetent state, the fact is that the efficiency of the private sector seems to mostly lie in making a profit for itself rather than running the student loan system in accord with its intended purpose. This is not to say that the state must be great in what it does, just that cutting out the large profits of the collection agencies would reduce the burden on students. This is, of course, a moral question about whether it is right or not to profit on the backs of students.

There has also been talk about reducing the interest rates of student loans and even proposals for free college. I do favor lower interest rates; if the purpose of the loans is to assist students rather than make money, then lower interest rates would be the right thing to do. As far as free college goes, there is the obvious problem that “free” college must be paid for by someone and it is a matter of shifting the burden from students to someone else. The ethics of such a shift depends on who is picking up the tab.

As a closing point, there is also the matter of student responsibility. My loans went entirely to paying education expenses, which is one reason my debt was low even for the time. While many students do use loans wisely, my experiences as a student and a professor have shown that some students use loan money unwisely and put themselves into debt for things that have no connection to education. For example, faculty sometimes joke that while administrators drive the most expensive cars, students drive the second most expensive and most faculty drive the worst. Students that overburden themselves with loans they use irresponsibly have only themselves to blame. However, the fact that a few students do this does not invalidate the claim that much of the debt burden inflicted on students is unjust.  We should, as always, be wary of attempts to demonize people based on anecdotal evidence and straw person attacks.

 

While a concealed weapon permit allows a person to carry a gun in many places, the campuses of public universities have generally been gun-free areas. The Republican rulers of my adopted state of Florida regularly debate whether to allow concealed carry on campus, while other states have already passed such laws.

Before Texas passed such a law, the faculty of the University of Houston met to discuss this issue and express concern about its impact. A slide from a faculty meeting about the law suggests that faculty “be careful in discussing sensitive topics”, “drop certain topics from your curriculum”, “not ‘go there’ if you sense anger”, “limit student access off hours, go to appointment-only office hours , and only meet ‘that student’ in controlled circumstances.”

What was striking about the slide is that the first three suggestions are identical to limits imposed by what detractors call “political correctness” and there are also similarities to recommendations about trigger warnings. This provides the grounds for the discussion to follow in which I consider limits of free speech and academic freedom.

One way to justify limiting academic freedom and free speech is to argue that students are entitled to a non-hostile learning environment in which diversity and difference are not only tolerated but respected. That is, students have a right to expect limits on the academic freedom and free speech of professors. This is often supported by a moral argument that appeals to the harms that would be suffered by the students if the freedoms of the professors were not suitable limited for their protection. For the good of the sensitive students, professors are supposed to accept such restrictions.

This sort of reasoning assumes that students would be harmed without such restrictions and that their right not to be harmed exceeds the imposition on the rights of the professors (and other students who might gain value from such subjects and discussions).

A similar sort of argument can be made in the case of concealed weapons. The reasoning is, presumably, that an armed student might be provoked to violence by what happens in class and thus hurt other students. As such, for the safety of students, restrictions should be accepted.

This reasoning assumes that armed students pose a threat and are easily provoked to violence, a factual matter that will be discussed later. It also assumes that the risk of harm to the students by a fellow student outweighs the rights of free expression and academic freedom (on the part of both professors and students).

Somewhat ironically, the attitude expressed in the slides suggests that there will be a hostile environment for gun owners which is something I have experienced. Being from rural Maine, I learned to shoot as soon as I could hold a gun and spent much of my youth hunting and fishing. While many colleagues do not take issue with this, I have run into some hostility towards guns and hunting over the years. I have had fellow professors say, “you are not stupid, so how can you like guns?” and “you seem like such a decent person, how could you have ever gone hunting” (sometimes said between bites of a burger). While being a gun owner is a matter of owning a gun, there are also cultures that include gun such as the one I grew up in. Hostility towards people because they belong to such a culture seems comparable to hostility towards other aspects of culture, like being hostile towards Muslims or towards men who elect to wear traditional female clothing.

It might be replied that gun culture is not worthy of the same tolerance as other cultures, which is, of course, what people who hate those other cultures say about them. It might also be argued that the intent is not to be intolerant towards people who have guns as part of their culture, but to protect students from the dangers presented by such irrational and violence prone people.

Another way to justify limiting academic freedom and free speech is on practical or pragmatic grounds. In the case of political sensitivity, professors might decide that it is not worth the hassle, the risk of lawsuits, the risk of trouble with administrators and the risk of becoming a news item. As such, the judgment to voluntarily restrict one’s freedom would be an assessment of the practical gains and harms, with the evaluation being that the pragmatic choice is to run a safe class. This, of course, assumes that the practical harm outweighs the practical benefits, an assessment that will certainly vary greatly depending on the circumstances.

The same justification can be used in the case of armed students. The idea is that professors might decide on purely pragmatic grounds that risking provoking an armed student is not worth it. This would not be a moral assessment, simply a pragmatic decision aimed at having a bullet free day in the classroom.  This, of course, assumes that a pragmatic assessment of the risk shows that the best practical choice is to focus on safety.

A final way to justify restricting academic freedom and freedom of expression is a moral argument that is based on potential harm to the professor. In the case of political sensitivity, there is concern about the damage that a professor can suffer if she is not careful to restrict her freedom. While such fear might be unfounded, it is real and certainly provides a moral foundation for self-censoring: the professor must restrict her freedom to avoid doing moral harm to herself. As with any such assessment, the risk of harm and the extent of the harm need to be considered.

In the case of guns, the worry is that a professor could cause herself harm by provoking gun violence on the part of a student. The moral foundation for self-censorship is the same as above: the professor must restrict her freedom to avoid doing moral harm to herself.

As is the case with career damage, a professor would need to consider the risk of provoking a student to gun violence and perhaps the moral choice would be to choose safety over the risk. This leads to the factual matter of the extent of the risk.

The fear expressed by some about concealed carry on campus seems to assume that it presents a significant risk to professors. However, it is not clear that this is the case. First, such laws only allow guns on campus. Threatening or shooting people remain illegal. If someone is willing to break the law regarding threatening or murder, presumably they would also be willing to break a law forbidding guns on campus. As such, there does not seem to be a significant increase in risk because of allowing concealed carry on campus.

 Second, campuses do not (in general) have security checks for guns. It would be one thing if the law disbanded existing security screening to enter campus as this would increase the risk of guns on campus. This law just allows law-abiding citizens to legally bring a gun on campus and has no effect on how easy or hard it is for someone to bring a gun on campus with the intent to commit violence. As such, campuses would be about as safe as ever.

It might be objected that a person will legally bring a gun to class or the professor’s office, be provoked to violence and act on this provocation only because she has a gun (and would not use her hands, a knife or a chair). Thus, the danger is great enough to warrant professors to self-censor.

One reply to this is to note that violence by students against professors is rare and allowing guns on campus would not seem to increase the violent tendencies of students. It could, of course, happen. But a student could also decide to run over a professor with a car and this possibility does not justify banning cars from campus. The fear that a student carrying a weapon legally will murder a professor after being provoked in class or in the office seems analogous to the fear that Muslim refugees will commit terrorists in the United States. While it could happen, the fear is overblown and does not seem to justify imposing restrictions. As such, while free expression combined with legal campus carry does entail a non-zero risk, the risk is so low that self-censorship seems unwarranted.

 

As a philosopher, one of the greatest challenges I face is reducing the number of problems I must deal with in my classes. Addressing this task requires a diverse approach to the problems. In some cases, I must craft policies and rules to attempt to head off troubles. As you might suspect, based on the iron law of bureaucracy (bureaucracy always increases) my syllabus has bloated over the decades. When I first started teaching, my syllabus was about two pages featuring a list of the readings, the grade scale and similar relevant items. But it is now the length of an academic paper, jammed with policies and rules that I am required to include and policies I crafted over the years in response to each new problem. Back when I was in graduate school, a professor joked about naming his rules after the students who made them a necessity and in some cases they did just that. While I do not name my new rules in this manner, each one has a story behind it.

I have found that every semester introduces a new problem that the existing rules and policies do not cover, and thus the syllabus must grow like a monster that feasts on trouble. I do not, of course, think that the policies and rules will ensure that the same problems will not arise again. They will. Rather, they exist so I can paste the policy into emails in response to some problem or issue. Also, since I am a lawfully aligned creature, I do like having a procedure flowchart to follow so I can deal with each problem consistently and fairly in each manifestation.

In other cases, it is a matter of recording yet another video or creating another page in Canvas explaining how some aspects of the course, such as grading, work. While technological advances have required that I add explanations of things that did not exist when I started teaching, the explainers are as likely to be about some ancient aspects of teaching, such as late policies, extra credit policies and such. Based on the five views these have gotten over the years, I know that people are generally not looking at them. As such, while they are intended to inform, they realistically have two practical functions. One is that they make me feel that I have done my job in informing the students so that I feel no guilt or discomfort when students profess not to know something that was thus explained in multiple medias. The second is that they give me something I can link to in emails in response to the questions that were, of course, answered in the syllabus and in class. Mostly, it is just a matter of saving time.

While I do strive to create a class that is free of problems, this is an impossible task. As Plato and other philosophers have argued, this is an imperfect world rife with evils of various sorts. My hypothesis is that baked into the universe is the Ineliminable Problem Problem. The gist of this problem is that no matter what one does, one can never eliminate all problems. I also like to put it this way: For every Problem P that I solve, a Student S will create at least one new Problem X. The IPP applies broadly to all aspects of reality; you can test it yourself.