RETHINKING HIGHER EDUCATION. Arnold Kling is not happy with the current state of affairs.

One politically popular idea is to try to send more young adults to college. This may seem appealing, but in reality we already have too many students in college who lack sufficient basic skills.

In November, after grading a batch of papers, I posted the following notice to the web site for an economics course that I teach at George Mason University:

Many students did poorly with writing quality. If it were up to me, a lot of you would be taking remedial English classes. I would advise everyone to think twice about using the word "on." For example, it is wrong to say, "The book discusses on economic growth" when the proper sentence is "The book discusses economic growth."

My recollection from my career in government and business is that written communication skills still matter. Out of over 100 students in my class at George Mason, no more than a handful could function in any capacity in a job that required writing a memorandum. Over half of the students are utterly incompetent when it comes to grammar and syntax. They have no ability to communicate complex ideas. Yet I do not fail these students. I feel that I must reserve my F's for the students who do not turn in papers at all.

He goes on to suggest that financial aid be further unbundled from the institutions of higher learning, and that the ability of incumbent institutions to control accreditation be tamed.

Another entry barrier is the accreditation process, which is controlled by the incumbents. Imagine what would happen in another industry, such as supermarkets or landscaping services, if in order to start a new business in that industry you had to become accredited by a board consisting mostly of incumbents in that industry. Nobody likes competition, and it is easy to think of excuses not to accredit a newcomer, especially an innovative upstart. If we had such an accreditation system in place in other industries, competition would be stifled, and the incumbents would be under no pressure to improve service or reduce costs. Creating a consumer-oriented accreditation board would help to lower this important entry barrier.

The problem, however, is that the history of the accrediting agencies becomes exactly the problem of the independent regulatory commissions or the intrafraternity council: citizens have little incentive to cultivate the regulators while existing certified providers do. Here's a preview of the upcoming regulated industries class: The existing service is adequate. The existing providers are able to provide additional service should it be required. The applicant is not competent to provide service.

RUNNING EXTRA: King Banaian posts a lament over the "capstone" paper (a pale shadow of the old senior thesis?)

Our university adopted years ago an upper division writing requirement for all students, which went into effect last year. For most students this comes in a senior 'capstone' course. So students write in other classes, but are expected somehow to learn to write by the time they are seniors enough to complete a "writing intensive course" (the university's words, and please don't ask me to explain what they mean.)

Since this seems to be my day for goofy ideas, let me put forward another one: How about a qualifying exam for students at the end of their sophomore years to test grammar and syntax? Students unable to pass the test may register for their junior year but must take a no-credit remedial course in writing and retake the test the next semester. Those who do not pass are dropped from the university.

Many students take six years or more to complete their degrees. Many of them took their required English course in their first year. Just as students who fall out of practice with their algebra or calculus or statistics might lose some sharpness of their quantitative skills, so too might students who don't write much lose their ability to understand grammar and syntax. Expecting it to be revived in a class in their last semester, at the same time that they are writing (horrific) cover letters to potential employers saying they are graduating from our school. These leave a bad impression of both the student and the school when written poorly. If we want to make the writing requirement more than just a hoop to jump through, we should invest more in the effort.

Tell me about it. We have a similar capstone paper requirement in the economics department. (I think some "assessor" asked for it as a way of obtaining some evidence on a consistent basis from year to year to be placed on a list that was later misplaced, um, no, that's Dr. Zhivago's girlfriend, isn't it?) I've been tempted to claim a section of English 104, the freshman composition course, on my annual service report to reflect the work I've often done on basic copy editing and paragraph structure. (The writing coordinator once circulated my advice on papers throughout the university, including my wisecrack about Snoopy on his doghouse.)