Originally published on July 16, 2019
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LANDING ON THE MOON
Fifty years ago, on July 20, 1969, two Americans became the
first humans ever to walk on the moon. It was America’s response to
establishing technological superiority over Russia after the Soviet Union sent
Yuri Gagarin, on April 12, 1961, the first human, into space.
In One Giant Leap: The Impossible Mission That Flew Us to
the Moon, Fishman recounts how Kennedy made it clear that his original
determination to go to the moon was to overtake the Russians. He was told,
after the Gagarin flight that going to the moon was the only way to beat the
Russians in space. He believed that “The Soviets have made it a test of the
system. The Soviets had bragged from their very first space launch about how
their performance in space proved the superiority of communism over democratic
capitalism.”[i] Kennedy asked Congress on May 25, 1961 to appropriate funds “to
achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and
returning him safely to the Earth.“[ii]
It took less than ten years to land a man (actually, two
men) on the moon and return the crew safely to Earth. This achievement took an enormous effort. At
the height of the program, over 400,000 people worked on the Apollo program,
across all states, costing a total of $126.4 billion in 2018 dollars.[iii]
THE NATIONAL DEFENSE EDUCATION ACT OF 1958
Landing on the moon wasn’t the only response. The United
States responded initially after Sputnik in 1957 with the National Defense
Education Act (NDEA) of 1958[iv], whose purpose was “to strengthen the national
defense and to encourage and assist in the expansion and improvement of
educational programs to meet critical needs.” It passed the House and Senate
with an overwhelming majority and was signed into law in 1958.
Much of the funding appropriated under the NDEA went to
federal grants and loans for students and strengthening science, mathematics,
and modern language instruction. As a consequence, enrollment in higher
education more than doubled in the 1960s. Enrollment grew from about 3.6
million to 8.0 million during the 1960s.[v] Much of the growth was in 2-year
colleges. To accommodate the rapid enrollment in community colleges, new
community colleges were founded at a rate of about one per week on average during
that decade.
Educational attainment has increased dramatically since
1957. In 1957, only about 9.6% of men 25 years an older and 5.8% of women 25
years and older had completed four years or more of college. In 2018, this
percentage was 34.6% for men and 35.3% of women 25 years or older.[vi]
Despite the enormous increase in students attending college
and getting degrees, we are again facing the prospect of losing technological
superiority. As Robert Mueller’s recent report[vii] indicates, Russia has
developed capabilities to interfere in our elections (and likely many other
damaging capabilities), and as Thomas Friedman recently pointed out, “China has
its eye on dominating the two most important industries of the 21st century:
artificial intelligence and electric cars. It intends to use A.I. to perfect
its authoritarian control at home and electric cars and batteries to liberate
itself from dependence on the “old oil” of the last century. China knows that
data is the “new oil,” so the country whose government and companies can
capture the most data, analyze it and optimize it will be the superpower of
this century.” [viii]
GROWTH OF POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION
As was the case for the Race to the Moon, postsecondary
education will need to be part of our country’s equation of staying
competitively ahead of Russia and China. But, unless substantive changes occur
in our postsecondary education infrastructure and not simply by pouring more
money into our current institutions, our country will not be able to meet these
new challenges.
The current system of colleges and universities was
established during the 1960s when California under University of California
President Clark Kerr launched a Masterplan for Higher Education[ix] to meet the
enormous demand. The Master Plan called for a 3-tiered system: 2-year colleges,
4-year colleges focused primarily on teaching at the undergraduate and Master’s
level, and research universities. The plan ensured that only a small number of
research universities would provide doctoral and professional education and
that research became the almost exclusive purview of research universities.
This system spread across the U.S. and worked well for
decades. Research universities grew and flourished. Today, less than 10% of
postsecondary institutions are classified by the Carnegie Classification as
research universities and they enroll 36% of all postsecondary education
students. On the other end of the spectrum are the community colleges that make
up 36% of all colleges and universities and enroll 34% of all postsecondary
education students.[x]
A FOCUS ON QUALITY AND OUTCOMES
Where higher education has failed is in not focusing more on
quality and outcomes that matter in creating a successful society. The current
focus of our higher education system needs to shift from simply increasing the
number of students who enroll (and graduate) to producing individuals that
remain competitive throughout their lives for today’s and tomorrow’s rapidly
changing economy. Today’s students need to leave universities with skills in
complex problem solving, critical thinking, emotional intelligence, working in
teams that are fluid and change repeatedly and be technology savvy. Developing
these skills is best done by solving problems that do not have clean solutions
in the back of a textbook, come from real-world problems posed by the public or
private sector or the community and require clear and effective communication
of implementable solutions back to whoever posed the problems.
The current system of higher education is ill-suited to
provide every student with these kinds of experiences. There are three main
reasons: First, only 1 out of 3 students attend higher education research
universities who could provide these skills, while 1 out of 3 students attend
community colleges that do not have the capacity to provide these experiences.
Second, research universities still use the one-on-one apprenticeship model
that does not scale well to the millions of students who need to acquire research
skills. Third, except for 2-year colleges, our higher education system caters
largely to full-time students and only provides limited life-long learning
opportunities for those who are already in the workforce.
To remain competitive and ahead of Russia and China, we will
have to scale access to real-world problems to current enrollment numbers that
could be achieved through a combination of integration of educational
activities across institution types and a much deeper involvement of the public
and private sector and communities in the delivery of educational experiences.
[i] Fishman, C. (2019). One Giant Leap: The Impossible
Mission That Flew Us to the Moon. Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition.
[ii] NASA History: Excerpt from the ‘Special Message to the
Congress on Urgent National Needs.’ President John F. Kennedy. Delivered in
person before a joint session of Congress May 25, 1961.
(https://www.nasa.gov/vision/space/features/jfk_speech_text.html; accessed on
June 29, 2019)
[iii] Fishman, C. (2019). One Giant Leap: The Impossible
Mission That Flew Us to the Moon. Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition.
[iv] National Defense Education Act. Public Law 85-864.
September 2, 1958. (http://uscode.house.gov/statutes/pl/85/864.pdf; accessed on
June 29, 2019)
[v] National Center for Education Statistics. Table 301.20.
Historical summary of faculty, enrollment, degrees conferred, and finances in
degree-granting postsecondary institutions: Selected years, 1869-70 through
2015-16. (https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/current_tables.asp; accessed on
June 29, 2019)
[vi] CPS Historical Time Series Tables. Table A-2. Percent
of People 25 Years and Over Who Have Completed High School or College, by Race,
Hispanic Origin and Sex: Selected Years 1940 to 2018.
(https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/educational-attainment/cps-historical-time-series.html;
accessed on June 29, 2019)
[vii] The Mueller report, annotated. Washington Post Staff.
Updated April 20, 2019.
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/politics/read-the-mueller-report/?utm_term=.8ee82d31cff4;
accessed on June 29, 2019)
[viii] Friedman, T. Trump Takes On China and Persia at Once.
What’s to Worry About? He’s imposed pain. Now, if he only had defined plans and
goals. New York Times. June 25, 2019.
(https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/25/opinion/trump-china-iran.html; accessed on
June 29, 2019)
[ix] Coons, A. G., Browne, A. D., Campion, H. A., Dumke, G.
S., Holy, T. C., McHenry, D. E., & Sexton, K. (1960). A master plan for
higher education in California, 1960-1975. Sacramento: California State
Department of Education. (http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/uchistory/archives_exhibits/masterplan/MasterPlan1960.pdf;
accessed on June 29, 2019)
[x] Data from The Carnegie Classification of Institutions:
2018 Update Public File. (http://carnegieclassifications.iu.edu/; accessed on
June 29, 2019)