manny_ramirez
09.09.05, 16:48
Porownanie poziomu amerykanskich i europejskich uczelni
Universities
How Europe fails its young
Sep 8th 2005
From The Economist print edition
The state of Europe's higher education is a long-term threat to its
competitiveness
THOSE Europeans who are tempted, in the light of the dismal scenes in New
Orleans this fortnight, to downgrade the American challenge should meditate
on one word: universities. Five years ago in Lisbon European officials
proclaimed their intention to become the world's premier “knowledge economy”
by 2010. The thinking behind this grand declaration made sense of a sort:
Europe's only chance of preserving its living standards lies in working
smarter than its competitors rather than harder or cheaper. But Europe's
failing higher-education system poses a lethal threat to this ambition.
Europe created the modern university. Scholars were gathering in Paris and
Bologna before America was on the map. Oxford and Cambridge invented the
residential university: the idea of a community of scholars living together
to pursue higher learning. Germany created the research university. A century
ago European universities were a magnet for scholars and a model for academic
administrators the world over.
But, as our survey of higher education explains, since the second world war
Europe has progressively surrendered its lead in higher education to the
United States. America boasts 17 of the world's top 20 universities,
according to a widely used global ranking by the Shanghai Jiao Tong
University. American universities currently employ 70% of the world's Nobel
prize-winners, 30% of the world's output of articles on science and
engineering, and 44% of the most frequently cited articles. No wonder
developing countries now look to America rather than Europe for a model for
higher education.
Why have European universities declined so precipitously in recent decades?
And what can be done to restore them to their former glory? The answer to the
first question lies in the role of the state. American universities get their
funding from a variety of different sources, not just government but also
philanthropists, businesses and, of course, the students themselves. European
ones are largely state-funded. The constraints on state funding mean that
European governments force universities to “process” more and more students
without giving them the necessary cash—and respond to the universities'
complaints by trying to micromanage them. Inevitably, quality has eroded.
Yet, as the American model shows, people are prepared to pay for good higher
education, because they know they will benefit from it: that's why America
spends twice as much of its GDP on higher education as Europe does.
The answer to the second question is to set universities free from the state.
Free universities to run their internal affairs: how can French universities,
for example, compete for talent with their American rivals when professors
are civil servants? And free them to charge fees for their services—
including, most importantly, student fees.
Asia's learning
The standard European retort is that if people have to pay for higher
education, it will become the monopoly of the rich. But spending on higher
education in Europe is highly regressive (more middle-class students go to
university than working-class ones). And higher education is hardly a
monopoly of the rich in America: a third of undergraduates come from racial
minorities, and about a quarter come from families with incomes below the
poverty line. The government certainly has a responsibility to help students
to borrow against their future incomes. But student fees offer the best
chance of pumping more resources into higher education. They also offer the
best chance of combining equity with excellence.
Europe still boasts some of the world's best universities, and there are some
signs that policymakers have realised that their system is failing. Britain,
the pacemaker in university reform in Europe, is raising fees. The Germans
are trying to create a Teutonic Ivy League. European universities are
aggressively wooing foreign students. Pan-European plans are encouraging
student mobility and forcing the more eccentric European countries (notably
Germany) to reform their degree structures. But the reforms have been too
tentative.
America is not the only competition Europe faces in the knowledge economy.
Emerging countries have cottoned on to the idea of working smarter as well as
harder. Singapore is determined to turn itself into a “knowledge island”.
India is sprucing up its institutes of technology. In the past decade China
has doubled the size of its student population while pouring vast resources
into elite universities. Forget about catching up with America; unless
Europeans reform their universities, they will soon be left in the dust by
Asia as well.
