USA Higher Education Bubble? What about Indian Higher Education Bubble?

Last updated on January 3rd 2014

The word bubble is a strong word. Is it proper to associate the word with Higher Education? A few days ago, I was not sure. But I recently came across some articles from reputed media organizations and a set of videos from a conference of scholars which makes me wonder whether it actually may be proper and correct, to use the word, bubble, to describe some, student-numbers-wise, significant parts of higher education.

Please note that towards the bottom of this post, the views of US university faculty and some US and European university presidents and research directors are given which argue against one of the suggestions of at least one US education researcher mentioned earlier in the post [separation of teaching and research duties (and so, faculty)], to improve the situation in higher education. The first comment to the post is also an interesting one (this paragraph is an update to the post).

Here's an August 2012 article from the Economist that uses the phrase 'higher education bubble', The college-cost calamity, http://www.economist.com/node/21559936.

Here's a September 2013 article on Forbes.com, Three Reasons Why College Bubble Will Burst, http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnwasik/2013/09/04/three-reasons-why-college-bubble-will-burst/.

I was also quite surprised to note that Wikipedia has a page on Higher education bubble, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_education_bubble. An extract from it: "The higher education bubble is a hypothesis that there is a speculative boom and bust phenomenon in the field of higher education, particularly in the United States, and that there is the risk of an economic bubble in higher education that could have repercussions in the broader economy. President Obama nearly doubled the federal Pell Grant Program, from $19 billion in 2009 to $36 billion for 2013. Enrollment at more than 40 percent of private colleges and universities declined last year, forcing the institutions to offer steep tuition discounts to fill seats.

According to the theory, while college tuition payments are rising, the rate of return of a college degree is decreasing, and the soundness of the student loan industry may be threatened by increasing default rates. College students who fail to find employment at the level needed to pay back their loans in a reasonable amount of time have been compared to the debtors under sub-prime mortgages whose homes are worth less than what is owed to the bank."

A few days ago, I came across a very interesting set of videos about a session in the (USA) National Association of Scholars (NAS) 2013 Conference on (USA) Higher Education Bubble.

[NAS stands for National Association of Scholars, http://www.nas.org/. From http://www.nas.org/about/overview, "NAS is a network of scholars and citizens united by our commitment to academic freedom, disinterested scholarship, and excellence in American higher education." From its wiki, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Association_of_Scholars, 'The National Association of Scholars (NAS) is a non-profit organization in the United States that opposes multiculturalism and affirmative action and seeks to counter what it considers a "liberal bias" in academia. The NAS describes itself as "an independent membership association of academics working to foster intellectual freedom and to sustain the tradition of reasoned scholarship and civil debate in America’s colleges and universities." The NAS is generally viewed as politically conservative advocacy group, although it rejects the label.']

BTW I am quite sure Indian higher education also has at least some of these problems, and some more problems of its own. Studying such issues that USA higher education seems to have may allow us to understand problems of Indian higher education and explore ways to improve it. That is the intent of this post.

The first talk: Andrew Gillen, Session 3: The Higher Education Bubble, NAS 2013 Conference, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r34V6CogEGE, 15 min. 38 sec, published April 26th 2013.

[From http://www.educationsector.org/person/andrew-gillen, "Andrew Gillen is a senior researcher with Education Sector at American Institutes for Research. Gillen has a wealth of experience in researching and writing about higher education, focusing mostly on college costs and financial aid, accreditation, and the economics of higher education."]

The youtube page above has my lengthy notes from the talk (picked up from the transcript and edited) as a comment under my name, dated December 29th 2013. The notes may be convenient to quickly browse through or perhaps even study.

The notes cover Gillen's views about USA Higher Education. He mentions that the defining characteristic of a bubble is unsustainable growth and that there are two bubbles in USA Higher Ed. - the enrollment bubble and the cost bubble. He provides some startling data for the enrollment bubble like:

• Only 25% of high school students are prepared for college but 68% enroll.
• 1/3rd of college students have to enroll in remedial courses. [Ravi: From the wiki, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remedial_education, "Remedial education (also known as developmental education, basic skills education, compensatory education, preparatory education, and academic upgrading) are course sequences designed to bring underprepared students to expected skill competency levels."]
• Only 58% of college students graduate from 4 yr colleges. Only 30% graduate from 2 yr (community) colleges.
• Between 40% to 48% of college graduates have jobs that do not require a college degree.

"When you combine (data what you get is) that for every 100 students who begin at a four year college only 58 manage to graduate within six years; four years later only 35 have managed to find jobs that required a degree. So in other words only about one-third of college entrants are able to complete and make use of their college education within 10 years of first enrollment. This immediately raises the question over whether the resources that are being spent on other two thirds could possibly be spent more wisely someplace else."

Students and parents and families are starting to realize that college isn't the safe investment that it once was. Wages for recent college graduates have been falling; a lot of them are struggling to find jobs and yet tuition keeps increasing.

Main threat to traditional college education from the cost front is MOOCs.

Proper and widely agreed measure of outcomes of colleges is not available; It is not clear what constitutes a high quality college. So colleges compete on reputation instead of value which is essentially quality divided by price; To boost reputation colleges indulge in flashy things unrelated to actual education of students.

Determining how students are learning is important to improve students' education. Measures like CLA -  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collegiate_Learning_Assessment, outside certification exams like CPA for accountants, bar exam for lawyers etc. may help in creating a measure of learning for college students.

Information about labor market outcomes could be useful for students to decide which degree to study.

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The next talk in the session conveys a very ruthless view of USA Higher Ed. So if you tend to get upset reading such views I think it would be best to skip the rest of the part of this post that covers this talk. The reason I am covering it in this post is that while some of the views may be rather strong, some views seem to have the ring of truth.

George Leef, Session 3: The Higher Education Bubble, NAS 2013 Conference, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzMEaAjEunw, 19 min. 50 sec, published April 26th 2013. George Leef is director of research for the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, http://www.popecenter.org/about/author.html?id=29.

I made a sort-of transcript of some parts of the talk and added it to the above youtube page as a comment (dated December 29th 2013). I have given below a summary of that notes-comment.

• Bubbles are based on misperceptions of value that start to feed on themselves. People come to believe that some good or service is really more valuable than it actually is. 
• Higher Ed. has people believing that a college degree is extraordinarily valuable and that it will add a million dollars to more to lifetime earnings as compared to people who do not have a college degree. [While the million dollars figure may be true as an average figure it does not apply to all streams and that aspect is not disclosed by Higher Ed. people.]
• He talks about the Bennett hypothesis. [Ravi: New York Times Nov. 2013 interview with Bennet, "Catching Up on the Bennett Hypothesis", http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/education/edlife/catching-up-on-the-bennett-hypothesis.html, New York Times op-ed by Bennet in 1987 when he was US Secretary of Education - http://www.nytimes.com/1987/02/18/opinion/our-greedy-colleges.html. Andrew Gillen's paper on it, "Introducing Bennett Hypothesis 2.0", http://centerforcollegeaffordability.org/research/studies/bennett-hypothesis-2.]
• Problem of credential inflation: As labor market is full of people with college credentials employers prefer to hire people with college credentials (even though that may not be necessary for the job in question).
• Strong parallels between housing bubble and higher education bubble. Govt. policy was making housing artificially cheap and encouraging people to buy houses as a national good. The same is being done with higher education by making it artificially cheap with government financing (student aid loans) and the argument that college degree was very good for the individual and the country.
• Some consequences of the Higher Ed. bubble - many young people with an education only in name, many young people not getting jobs commensurate with their supposed education, enormous misallocation of resources, credential inflation resulting in good job paths being closed to (capable) people with high school education (or community college education).
• People are realizing that the value perception about college (million dollars more if you have any college degree) is mistaken.
• The college degree credential system is going to be replaced (in future) by a system where what people have learned and what they can do will be looked at (instead of only the college degree credential).

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The third talk of the session, Michael Poliakoff, Session 3: The Higher Education Bubble, NAS 2013 Conference, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlJqIxur00I, 21 min 29 sec, published April 26, 2013, is from a senior person from ACTA, American Council of Trustees and Alumni. Here's Poliakoff's page on the ACTA website, http://www.goacta.org/staff/michael_b_poliakoff.

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Then there is the Q&A, Session 3: The Higher Education Bubble, NAS 2013 Conference, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCfIiBADwbE, 27 min 59 sec, published April 25th 2013.

I found the last question to be very interesting and have put the edited transcript of the question and answers from all three speakers as a comment on the above youtube page. I have tried to summarize this Q&A below:

Q: So, what is the post bubble world (post Higher Education bubble burst world) likely to look like?

George Leef's view is that unbundling of education will be the big change. Students will shop around for courses (across educational institutions), pick a course here and a course there. They will go for what is good and what satisfies their needs.

Michael Poliakoff's view is that good quality online courses (some of which is already available) will democratize high-quality higher education (will save cost and provide high-quality education).

Andrew Gillen thinks that the universities will have to unbundle research and teaching duties and other things done by universities to be competitive with others who offer only the teaching aspect. Big endowment institutions like Harvard will not be affected. Tuition driven higher-ed. institutions will see a big change. From student's perspective the unbundling process will allow them to go for (courses offering) very specific skillsets especially in rapidly-changing fields.

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Can some sectors of Indian Higher Education also be said to be facing a bubble problem?

Let me first look at Andhra Pradesh, the state where I live.
Here's an NDTV (national TV media) article dated September 19th 2013, No takers for engineering courses: Andhra Pradesh's problem of plenty, http://www.ndtv.com/article/south/no-takers-for-engineering-courses-andhra-pradesh-s-problem-of-plenty-421048. Some points from the article:

After first phase of admissions this year (2013) over one hundred thousand (one lakh) seats in Andhra Pradesh (AP) engineering colleges are vacant (out of a total of two hundred and thirty five thousand seats). [Political unrest in the state may have had some effect for this situation.]

75% of passed out graduates from AP engineering colleges have reported that they have not got jobs!

Experts view is that technical jobs are available but these graduates are not knowledgeable enough and do not have requisite social skills to bag these jobs.

Here's a Times of India (mainstream national newspaper) article dated August 31st 2013 on similar lines, Engineering colleges in Andhra Pradesh facing bleak future, http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-08-31/news/41641666_1_nine-colleges-eamcet-certificate-verification.

Here's a Hindu Business Line (mainstream national business newspaper) article dated September 2011 by the Director, Centre for Telecom Management & Studies (for more about the technical credentials of the article author see http://drthchowdary.net/), which gives his harsh view of many of these "degree shop" Andhra Pradesh engineering colleges, "Farce of an education in engineering", http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/farce-of-an-education-in-engineering/article2447570.ece.

Now let me move to neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu.
Here's an article from Times of India, dated April 12th 2013, Engineering colleges up 'for sale' in Tamil Nadu, http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-04-12/news/38490500_1_few-engineering-colleges-many-college-owners-arts-and-science-colleges, which gives a bleak picture. It quotes a leading former academic administrator that at least 100 colleges of engineering and other disciplines are up for sale.

Here's an article again from the Times of India, dated July 27th 2013, More than 80,000 engineering seats remain vacant in Tamil Nadu, http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-07-27/education/40832525_1_five-colleges-seats-c-thangaraj.

From the above articles, it seems to me that at least in some parts of Higher Education in India, not only has there been a bubble (some of the articles above show the growth in student seats over the past few years) but the bubble has even burst (in some parts, I repeat).

Therefore it may be very valuable for Indian higher education policy makers and administrators to study the article and video links this post has provided about USA higher education bubble.

I felt it appropriate to repeat some of the suggestions to deal with this bubble problem and some predictions from the USA conference session:

Proper and widely agreed measure of outcomes of colleges is not available; It is not clear what constitutes a high quality college. So colleges compete on reputation instead of value which is essentially quality divided by price; To boost reputation colleges indulge in flashy things unrelated to actual education of students.

Determining how students are learning is important to improve students' education. Measures like CLA -  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collegiate_Learning_Assessment, outside certification exams like CPA for accountants, bar exam for lawyers etc. may help in creating a measure of learning for college students.

Information about labor market outcomes could be useful for students to decide which degree to study.

...

The college degree credential system is going to be replaced (in future) by a system where what people have learned and what they can do will be looked at (instead of only the college degree credential).

...

Andrew Gillen thinks that the universities will have to unbundle research and teaching duties and other things done by universities to be competitive with others who offer only the teaching aspect. Big endowment institutions like Harvard will not be affected. Tuition driven higher-ed. institutions will see a big change. From student's perspective the unbundling process will allow them to go for (courses offering) very specific skillsets especially in rapidly-changing fields.

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I feel it is appropriate to also share the view of related matters from USA university professors. Some of these views (on teaching-only appointments) are related to the topic of unbundling teaching and research duties and are quite opposed to it. This is a document, dated October 2009 (draft version), which gives the American Assocation of University Professors' view on Tenure and Teaching-Intensive Appointments, http://www.aaup.org/report/tenure-and-teaching-intensive-appointments.

Endnotes 3 and 4 of this document state that in 1969, among full-time faculty, the ratio of teaching-intensive faculty (nine or more hours of teaching per week) to research-intensive faculty (six or fewer hours of teaching per week) in US academia was 1.5:1. But by 1998 the ratio had become 2:1 largely due to "teaching-only" appointments. It refers to data from Jack H. Schuster and Martin J. Finkelstein, The American Faculty: The Restructuring of Academic Work and Careers (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006).

The article states that the majority of teaching-intensive positions have been shunted out of the tenure system and that 'has in most cases meant a dramatic shift from “teaching-intensive” appointments to “teaching- only” appointments, featuring a faculty with attenuated relationships to campus and disciplinary peers. This seismic shift from “teaching-intensive” faculty within the big tent of tenure to “teaching-only” faculty outside of it has had severe consequences for students as well as faculty themselves, producing lower levels of campus engagement across the board and a rising service burden for the shrinking core of tenurable faculty.'

[From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenure_(academic), "Tenure is a senior academic's contractual right not to have his or her position terminated without just cause." Ravi: In other words, tenure gives a permanent and protected position.]

Here is a very interesting European Molecular Biology Organization interview, dated September 2007 of leading research and administrative lights of academia and industry on the topic, "The future of research universities. Is the model of research-intensive universities still valid at the beginning of the twenty-first century?", http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1973958/. The interviewees include presidents/chancellor of universities, and present/former directors of research departments/institutions of US & Europe, and a Japanese professor emeritus.

Some significant points from the interview.

*) Advanced nations need scientific research and a trained workforce for the knowledge-based economy they are deeply involved with.

*) New pressures on universities to produce trained workforce (graduates) as well as generate new knowledge (research).

*) One interviewee mentions that private sector research labs. were at the forefront of research some decades earlier which heavily contributed to today's knowledge economy. But now the private sector research labs. play a much smaller role with (in the case of the US) long-range research (basic research) responsibility shifting to US research universities, and their work may drive a big part of tomorrow's (US and perhaps other countries') knowledge economy.

*) A specific question is asked of these leading lights, "ER: Do you see a trend away from universities in which both teaching and research are combined, towards universities specializing in one or the other—and is this desirable?" Some of the interviewees do see such a trend (in one case, notes a reversal of the trend) and almost all of them specifically say that it is undesirable.

---------- end interview points ------------

The above material quite strongly argues against separating teaching and research in universities.

Please note that the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license does not apply to this post.

2013 Milken Institute Panel Discussion - The Future of Higher Education in America

Last updated on January 4th 2014

This youtube video, "The Future of Higher Education in America",http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw_Ey9Oip9g, 1 hr, 16 min, 19 sec, has a panel discussion on the subject-title and seems to have been done sometime in early 2013. So this panel discussion gives a fairly current picture of USA higher education.

The panel discussion was hosted by Milken Institute. From its wiki,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milken_Institute, "The Milken Institute is an independent economic think tank based in Santa Monica, California that publishes research and hosts conferences that apply market-based principles and financial innovations to a variety of societal issues in the US and internationally."

The youtube page description has the following:

Student debt surpassed the $1 trillion mark in 2012 and now is the second-largest category of household debt behind mortgages. Default rates exceed those of credit cards, and college tuition and fees have been rising even faster than health care costs. At the same time, employers are seeing a mismatch between their needs and the qualifications of those in the labor pool. This incongruity threatens to derail productivity and economic growth, raising serious questions about national competitiveness. Given this backdrop, how can the American higher education model fulfill the learning, affordability and job-preparation needs of students? What role can colleges and universities, online technology and government play in setting higher education on the best possible course?

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The moderator of the panel is John Nelson, Managing Director, Public Finance Group, Moody's Investors Service [He has a background in economic analysis of educational institutions.]

The speakers/panelists are:

William Bennett, Former U.S. Secretary of Education; Author, "Is College Worth It?", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bennett. From his wiki, "William John "Bill" Bennett (born July 31, 1943) is an American conservative pundit, politician, and political theorist. He served as United States Secretary of Education from 1985 to 1988. He also held the post of Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy under George H. W. Bush. In 2000, he co-founded K12, a for-profit online education corporation which is publicly traded."

Steven Knapp, President, The George Washington University,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Knapp, http://www.gwu.edu/. From GWU wiki,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington_University, "The George Washington University (GW, GWU, or George Washington) is a comprehensive private, coeducational research university located in the United States' capital, Washington, D.C."

Daphne Koller, Co-Founder, Coursera Inc., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daphne_Koller, https://www.coursera.org/. From her wiki, "Daphne Koller (born 27 August, 1968) is an Israeli-American Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Stanford University and a MacArthur Fellowship recipient. She's also one of the founders of Coursera, an online education platform. Her general research area is artificial intelligence and its applications in the biomedical sciences.". From the Coursera wiki, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coursera, "Coursera is a for-profit educational technology company offering massive open online courses (MOOCs) founded by computer science professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller from Stanford University. Coursera works with universities to make some of their courses available online, and offers courses in engineering, humanities, medicine, biology, social sciences, mathematics, business, computer science, and other areas."

Patricia McWade, Dean of Student Financial Services, Georgetown University,http://www.georgetown.edu/. From its wiki, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgetown_University, "Georgetown University is a private research university in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Jesuit and Catholic university in the United States."

Anthony Miller, Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer, U.S. Department of Education. From his wiki, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_W._Miller, "Anthony Wilder "Tony" Miller is the United States Deputy Secretary of Education, confirmed on July 24, 2009 to replace Raymond Simon, who resigned from this Office on January 20, 2009." [BTW the current Secretary of Education of the US is Arne Duncan, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arne_Duncan]

---

This seems to be quite an appropriate and high-profile group (in US higher education field) who seem to have good knowledge of the current situation and challenges in US higher education.

I have put down, usually in brief, some of the points touched by this panel discussion as a comment on the youtube page under my name. The comment was made today, 28th December 2013. I think it would be useful for readers interested in this topic to view these points/notes (posted as a comment).

USA - Student Right to Know Before You Go Act

Last updated on September 5th 2014

Update on Sept. 5th 2014: The act (or rather bill) mentioned below seems to have got stuck at the introduction stage. https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr1937 states that it has only "4% chance of being enacted"!
--- end update ---

I was very happy that some senators in the USA have introduced a new act which will empower USA students and parents with more information for making crucial higher education decisions.

Here's a press release dated May 9th 2013 about the act, "Sens. Warner, Rubio, Wyden Introduce Student Right to Know Before You Go Act",  http://www.warner.senate.gov/public/...

[Note: The Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license does not apply to this post.]

Some important extracts from the press release are given below:

The legislation would streamline existing institutional reporting requirements to give students and their families more tools to easily compare graduation rates, student loan debt, employment prospects and potential future earnings as they make important decisions about higher education.

...

"Many high school seniors who are heading to college this fall have just paid their tuition deposits, and they likely have real questions about what value they are getting for their money," Sen. Warner said. "This bipartisan legislation will combine relevant information in a rational way so that students and their families can access comparative information on which colleges and which majors will result in a good job.

...

“A college education is one of the most important investments an American can make in their lifetime, so it’s critical that we equip potential students and their families with as much information as possible,” Sen. Rubio said. “With this legislation we can finally provide meaningful, easily accessible data to make higher education decisions easier for the 21st century student.”

...

“There’s been a needed focus on access to higher education, but it’s time to bring value into the equation,” Sen. Wyden said. “Instead of forcing students to make blind decisions on such a huge investment, this bill would empower them with a wide range of information about what their choices will mean in working world.”

...

Rising educational costs and uncertainty in the job market have made the stakes higher than ever for individuals looking to invest in higher education. According to the College Board, the average cost of tuition and fees for the 2012–2013 school year was $29,056 at private colleges, $8,655 for state residents at public colleges, and $21,706 for out-of-state residents attending public universities. Two-thirds of college seniors who graduated in 2011 had student loan debt, with an average of $26,600 per borrower.

--- end extracts ---

This USA Today article, "Column: Learning blind" by Senators Wyden and Rubio, dated 19th September 2012, is about the same topic and very interesting (to me, at least).

Indian students *must* also have access to similar information about Indian institutions of higher education.

I am deeply thankful to USA senators Mark R. Warner (D-VA), Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) for bringing in this legislation. [I wonder whether it is law now.] Readers may wonder why I should be thankful for this law which has been introduced in the USA and not India. Well, I think this USA law can be a model for other countries in the world like India to emulate. I think it will be far easier for Indian legislators to bring in similar laws in India and convince Indian academic administrators and academics about its need, now that the USA has introduced it.

Decline in USA Higher Education - PBS Documentary dated 2005; What about Indian Higher Education?

A few days ago I saw a very informative, comprehensive and thought-provoking Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PBS, documentary video, "DECLINING BY DEGREES: HIGHER EDUCATION AT RISK", about USA higher education which is dated 2005. The corresponding DVD sales item entry on http://www.shoppbs.org/product/index.jsp?productId=2018341#Details states, "Declining by Degrees blows higher education's cover, showing that the multi-billion dollar enterprise of higher education has gone astray."

I am quite sure that Indian higher education (academia) would also be having some of the problems that are shown in this documentary about US higher education. Therefore, in my humble opinion, viewing the documentary and/or reading the transcript of the documentary may be of immense benefit to Indian higher education (academic) policy makers and administrators.

The documentary is available on youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcxDVYo2wH8, 1 hr, 56 min, 02 sec. A good transcript of the documentary is available here: http://learningmatters.tv/images/blog/Declining.pdf (53 pages). The time markers given below are with respect to the youtube video mentioned earlier and the transcript page markers are with respect to the just mentioned *good* transcript.

Some of the higher education institutions that figure in the documentary are Western Kentucky University - http://www.wku.edu/, University of Arizona - http://www.arizona.edu/, Amherst College (Massachusetts) - https://www.amherst.edu/ and Community College of Denver - http://www.ccd.edu/. There are discussions with students as well as their parents. And discussions with faculty, university presidents and other university/academic leaders.

I have given below a few notes I made from the transcript (these are selective based on my concerns about Indian higher education/academia). These notes comprise of short description/summary of certain parts of the transcript and a few short extracts in quotes. [Please note that the Creative Commons Attribution license (CC-BY license) does not apply to this post.] It also has a few comments from me within square brackets prefixed with Ravi.

John Merrow is the interviewer & narrator and is the education correspondent with PBS. He has a doctorate in Education and Social Policy from Harvard Graduate School of Education - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Merrow.

[Video - Around 00:03:45, Transcript - Page 2]
"68 PERCENT OF TODAY’S COLLEGE STUDENTS ARE WORKING AT LEAST 15 HOURS A WEEK. 20 PERCENT HOLD DOWN FULL TIME JOBS WHILE TRYING TO BE FULL TIME STUDENTS" [Ravi: This is reflective of the high cost of higher education in the USA. I think, at least some sections of, Indian higher education seem to be on a similar path of high cost.]

...

[Video - Around 00:04:49, Transcript - Page 3]
Lara Couturier from the Futures Project, Brown University - http://www.brown.edu/, talks about reports from business leaders asking for better skills to be imparted by higher education.

Richard Hersh, a former president of Hobart and William Smith Colleges - http://www.hws.edu/ and Trinity College - http://www.trincoll.edu/, mentions that it (lesser skills) impacts defense, economics, people becoming taxpayers etc.

Kay McClenney from the Community College Leadership Program, University of Texas at Austin - http://www.utexas.edu/, talks about the American public not having much information about what happens in higher education and so not having concerns about it, besides its cost. Lara Couturier has a similar opinion.

[Ravi: I think the above part is true of the Indian situation as well. "From the standpoint of student learning", most Indians don't really have any information about what really happens in Indian academia.]

...

[Video - , Transcript - Page 5]
The transcript mentions that Grade Inflation (giving good grades more easily than appropriate) is not a new problem.

[Video - Around 00:10:56, Transcript - Page 5]
Richard Hersh confirms that there is a "huge amount of grade inflation".

...

[Video - Around 00:11:33, Transcript - Page 6]
William Pritchard who teaches English literature at Amherst College, Massachusetts - https://www.amherst.edu/, tells John Merrow about leniency in giving grades.

...

[Video - Around 00:12:08, Transcript - Page 7]
John Merrow discusses the need for retaining students with Prof. Strow who teaches Economics at Western Kentucky University, and Gary Ransdell, president of Western Kentucky University - http://www.wku.edu/.

...

[Video - Around 00:15:36, Transcript - Page 8]
Huge classes with 150 to 200 people makes economic sense says Peter Likins, President of University of Arizona - http://www.arizona.edu/, but students and experts are not happy with it.
...

[Video - Around 00:19:15, Transcript - Page 10]
A student is unhappy with large classes of 150 people and with instructors being more interested in research and felt that she was not being challenged. She later takes an introductory course in planetary science where she gets to interact individually with a professor who was team leader of a NASA mission, and gets inspired by him. The student finishes her graduation and goes on to graduate school at UCLA to study space and planetary physics.
...

The documentary then deals with attitude issues of students - partying, not spending enough time studying, working/beating the academic system (passing, sometimes with decent grades, without proper study - sleep walking through college), some students not being worried about poor grades/GPA, students not doing reading work assigned to them before coming to class etc.

...

[Video - Around 00:34:37, Transcript - Page 17]
John Merrow plays the devil's advocate and tells Paulette Kurzer, a professor of Political Science at the University of Arizona, that professors are boring and don't bring classes to life due to which students do not get interested. Kurzer deftly handles it and talks about challenges in handling a class with 230 students; about not being able to check frequently whether students have understood the lecture.

...

[Video - Around 00:41:39, Transcript - Page 19]
Tom Fleming, an Associate Astronomer and Senior Lecturer at the University of Arizona, talks about facing the fact that he has 135 students some of whom may not have learned/studied well in high school, and that he cannot change history. Instead he tells them that he will them their money's worth.

[Ravi: I think such teachers should be role models for higher education.]

...

[Video - Around 00:44:03, Transcript - Page 20]
Lee Shulman from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, comments positively on Tom Fleming's way of making classes interesting using technological and teaching resources.

...

[Video - Around 00:44:41, Transcript - Page 21]
Tom Fleming talks about how he taught during his initial years as a teacher which had students being more passive. He states that he and all his colleagues in the astronomy department were trained to be researchers and not teachers. Later he got a week of teacher training from the University Teaching Center of the University of Arizona. He also got a laptop on which he could experiment with teaching techniques.

The staff at the University Teaching Center mentions that some academics have told her that they would like to attend the teacher training workshops there but as the rewards are on the research side, they have to work on research

Tom Fleming's teaching skill is recognized by the university and he is paid to teach others his teaching techniques but he is not on the tenure track!
[Ravi: I find it truly shocking that excellence in teaching has less reward in US academia (no tenure) whereas excellence in research is very well rewarded (with tenure). Is it any wonder why teaching excellence has become unimportant in US higher education institutions? Very, very unfortunately I think Indian higher education is going down the same road - perhaps has already gone down that same road in some educational institutions. The people who suffer are the students and their parents as they do not get teachers who are focused on teaching them very well, and society at large as it does not get well skilled graduates and post-graduates from such higher education institutions.]

The scene shifts to Western Kentucky when Brian Strow wants tenure and raises, and for that his quality of teaching is not what matters but the research articles he publishes.

[Ravi: As simple as that! I thank Brian Strow for his honesty and courage to speak the truth.]

...

[Video - Around 00:49:33, Transcript - Page 23]
Lara Couturier says, "We need to elevate the status of teaching." And reward faculty for being good teachers instead of driving them to focus on publishing research papers.

[Ravi: There's the solution. But is US higher education exploring this solution? It seems that it is not. Why should Indian higher education fall into (or perhaps has already fallen into, in some places) the same trap as US higher education by focusing on research and making teaching an effectively unimportant part of an academic's career? (There don't seem to be any clear measures of teaching quality/effectiveness used by Indian academia - so the Indian academic would typically get a good rating on the teaching so long as there are limited student failures in the subjects he/she teaches)]

...

The documentary then covers the 'Living Learning Community' where students study together and have a better learning experience by doing so.

...

[Video - Around 00:56:33, Transcript - Page 27]
A student is shown struggling to do a full-time job (at a factory) and her studies. She talks about how she got into credit card debt to pay her study costs.

The documentary states that 65 percent of US college students go into debt for their studies. It states that things were different 60 years ago when the GI bill became law.

The GI bill's (introduced to help veterans of World War II) positive and transformative effect in opening up higher education to "ordinary Americans" is covered. Higher Education was supported by Federal and State funds and "BECAME THE HIGHWAY TO THE MIDDLE CLASS". America too prospered from millions receiving higher education.

But in the 80s the government funding to higher education reduced and low interest loans took their place. Rather than the earlier "social contract" where higher education being made available to many at mainly government cost, the individual was expected to pay for his/her higher education (with support via low interest loans).

[Ravi: This segment of the video and/or transcript seems to be an excellent overview of the economics side of US higher education right from the end of World War II. I think India too faces the individual student/parent paying vs. government-funded/government-subsidized higher education question including the vital social contract aspect of it.]

...

[Video - Around 01:04:32, Transcript - Page 30]

Amherst college, an elite college with a billion dollar endowment and only 1600 students, is covered. The detailed coverage includes small class sizes, dedicated and talented teachers/professors, limited teaching load of professors, good salary of professors, college giving financial aid to some less privileged (poor) students thereby having a mix of privileged and less privileged students etc.

[Ravi: The elite universities & colleges in the USA seem to be very, very well funded with huge endowments. They perhaps can excel in both teaching and research. It is the commoner universities and colleges which do not have billion dollar endowments who have to struggle with the problems covered in this documentary. But it is the latter who cater to the majority of (commoner) students. I think we have a similar situation in India where there are elite educational institutions who are very well funded (more by the government than by private donors, I believe) and who perhaps are well positioned to excel both in teaching and research. But the commoner/non-elite higher education institutions of India which cater to the majority of the tens of millions of higher education students in the country would perhaps be facing similar problems that the US commoner/non-elite higher education institutions face (as covered in this documentary).]

...

The scene shifts to Denver and a student who qualified to join NYU (New York University) but did not do so as she felt it unfair to burden her family with the high tuition costs of NYU (40,000 US $ a year for four years). She enrolled instead at her two year community college where tuition is only 2500 $ a year. From wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_colleges_in_the_United_States, "In the United States, community colleges (once commonly called junior colleges) are primarily two-year public institutions of higher education. After graduating from a community college, some students transfer to a university or liberal arts college for two to three years to complete a bachelor's degree, while others enter the workforce." Another student is also covered. Community colleges are discussed.

...

[Video - Around 01:17:36, Transcript - Page 36]

President Christine Johnson of the Community College of Denver (CCD) - http://www.ccd.edu/, faces challenges as the state has reduced funding but enrollment has gone up. That results in cuts which are hard to make as it impacts individuals.

Other university presidents talk about the the state's financial support is eroding and how important fund raising has become for them. The tight funds situation leads to professors, even full professors, not being well paid is such universities and that is a source of "great discontent" to academics.

...

The documentary covers a part-time instructor (who in the past was a full time college professor) who teaches at three educational institutions (as I guess he needs the part-time salary from three places). Administrators talk about concerns related to using part-time instructors.

[Video - Around 01:24:06, Transcript - Page 39]
"NATIONALLY, NEARLY HALF OF ALL COLLEGE FACULTY ARE PART-TIMERS, UP FROM ONLY 22% IN 1970."

...
[Video - Around 01:25:39, Transcript - Page 40]
Western Kentucky also has a significant percentage of faculty as part-timers (42%). Western Kentucky's financial situation is covered where it becomes clear that the university has to generate significant revenue from sources other than state funding. Such stress results in tuition going up - 62% in four years at Western Kentucky.

Lara Couturier: "We're moving toward a system where the only people who will have access to a college education are those who can pay for it."

[Ravi: Numbers force facts into the open and then the facts cannot be swept under the carpet. The above numbers tell a compelling story of the decline in affordable and good/decent quality higher education in the USA. The vital question for Indian higher education policy makers and academic administrators may be - what can we do in India to avoid such a decline in affordable and good/decent quality higher education?]

Western Kentucky University staff/students are shown making calls to prospective students - marketing.

...

[Video - Around 01:27:45, Transcript - Page 41]
Higher education has become very competitive. Universities compete with each other to get paying customers (students). That means spending money on facilities that attract students. University presidents speak frankly about this very business-like competition.
[Ravi: One thing I really admire about some Americans is their ability to honestly state things as they are. These university presidents are talking like business CEOs! Perhaps that's what a US university president has to be nowadays. Will the equivalent for Indian higher education, the vice-chancellors, also have to become like business CEOs (or have some already become like business CEOs)?]

...

[Video - Around 01:32:12, Transcript - Page 42]
This section deals with rankings - UN News & World Report College Guide. There are various factors for ranking colleges but there is no measure of student learning. The speakers indicate that there has been no measure of student learning for 200 years of higher education and that it is "sort of the holy grail of higher education and accountability".

The rankings are said to be driving US higher education. [Ravi: That's the power of these university/college rankings & gradings (India has NAAC grading for institutions of higher education, http://www.ugc.ac.in/page/NAAC.aspx, and perhaps some other grading/accreditation organization(s) too). Academic administrators have no choice but to treat them very seriously and make academic administrative decisions to help improve their ranking (or retain their good ranking).]

For getting good rankings universities need to attract bright students. So top high school performers are given "Merit Aid" by universities to attract them. One such student even says she is "making a profit off of coming" to university!
These "Merit Aid"/brilliant students also get special teaching and dorm facilities.

...

[Video - Around 01:38:24, Transcript - Page 45]
There is some discussion on whether "Merit Aid" is helping those who may not really need it and leaving behind those who need financial help.

...

[Video - Around 01:47:18, Transcript - Page 50]
Prior to this section there is coverage of lucrative sports (Basketball) contracts that University of Arizona gets due to its superb university basketball team and coach.

A significant portion of the budget of the University of Arizona is from outside contracts.

...

[Video - Around 01:50:59, Transcript - Page 51]
Before this section there is coverage of poor students who struggle to earn and study, and some of them drop out in the process.
There is talk of the social contract (in higher education) being broken

A graduation day ceremony with joyful students is shown.

...

[Video - Around 01:52:48, Transcript - Page 52]
Some troubling statistics are given. About half of those who start college don't graduate. And many of those who graduate become heavily indebted.

Then the following questions are raised:

DID THEY GET THE EDUCATION THEY PAID FOR?

HOW CAN WE MAKE SURE THEY DO?

HOW DO WE OPEN THE DOORS FOR HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS WHO’VE BEEN LEFT OUT? AND HELP THOSE WHO ARE STRUGGLING TO STAY IN?

HOW DO WE REWARD GOOD TEACHING?

AND HOW MUCH TIME DO WE HAVE?

[Ravi: All the questions above (five of them), in my humble opinion, are very, very relevant for Indian higher education today.]

Speakers say that the higher education system is at great risk.

"STANDUP: WE SPENT TWO YEARS ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES AND WHAT WE SAW IS DISTURBING. THE FUTURE DOES NOT LOOK BRIGHT. THE COUNTRY NEEDS A RENEWED SOCIAL CONTRACT SO THAT ANYONE WITH TALENT AND DETERMINATION CAN GO TO COLLEGE AND COLLEGES NEED TO PAY MORE ATTENTION TO TEACHING AND LEARNING. WE DON’T HAVE MUCH TIME. BECAUSE WHILE AMERICAN HIGHER EDUCATION IS DECLINING MUCH OF THE INDUSTRIALIZED WORLD IS MOVING UP, FAST."

[Ravi: "COLLEGES NEED TO PAY MORE ATTENTION TO TEACHING AND LEARNING" - I think that is totally, totally valid for Indian higher education. The obsession for research in some Indian higher education institutions (perhaps driven by the way university rankings/grading are done and the way research grant money is distributed by the government/UGC/other grant agencies to Indian universities) may be seriously dampening the motivation among Indian academics to be good teachers, and so Indian higher education institutions may well suffer/be already suffering the same fate as most of the US higher education institutions covered in this documentary.]

USA: The Student Loan Debt Disaster! Update: Income Based Repayment Plan Seems to be a Superb Solution

Last significant update on 17th February 2014
Minor title update on 20th June 2014

Update: From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_loans_in_the_United_States#Income-Based_Repayment_Plan :
"If a student's loan debt is high but their income is modest, they may qualify for the Income-Based Repayment Plan (IBR). Most major types of federal student loans—except for PLUS loans for parents—are eligible for IBR.[25] Income-based plans provide for payment of 15% of disposable income for up to 25 years, then the loan is forgiven."

The videos given below did not talk about Income Based Repayment Plan - maybe that has been introduced later. IBR does seem to provide significant safeguards to the debt crushing somebody's life. So it does not seem so bad now, to me.

Now there seems to be a new law making the burden even lighter (for students borrowing from 2014) - limiting payments to 10% of (disposable) income (so a reduction from 15% to 10%) and debt being forgiven after 20 years (10 years if person is in public service) if they are making the monthly payments properly. Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/education/higher-education/ensuring-that-student-loans-are-affordable. I think this makes it even better - so now it seems to be quite OK, unless I am missing something. I mean, even if one does not get a good paying job but gets some job - one pays only 10% of disposable income. That seems really decent.

---- End Update ----

The student loan debt problem is horrendous! Here are two youtube videos having people tell their own story about student loan debt in the USA:

Dr. Noelle, -$213,000 student loan debt, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiCg92uKN5g, 13 min. 26 secs, published in May 2013. She is a PhD in Psychology and is now an Assistant Professor, who is saddled with debt and is staring at a very tough life! She is very articulate and tells her story very well.

I Owe CitiBank $105,000, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eip-xRhokMM, 10 min. 31 secs, published in Apr. 2011. This is a very sorry tale of an American social work student, who seems to be of Chinese ethnic background, and his US based family.

Today I visited a local bank (in Puttaparthi, India) for some work. As the concerned officer was not at his seat I was looking around at the notices and posters in the branch. There was a big education loan poster and if I recall correctly the maximum amount mentioned was Rs. 30 lakhs! [30 lakhs is 3 million; at the current exchange rate of around Rs. 62 to a US Dollar, Rs. 3 million comes to slightly over 48,000 US $.]  I don't know how much of India is getting into this same problem that is plaguing America. But maybe most university educated people, as of now, get jobs in India and so are able to repay the loan.

I think there must be some strong laws, I repeat strong laws, that ensure that youngsters are made fully aware of the huge dangers of student loans, before they take on a loan. Financial institutions that "sell" loans to students without explaining the dangers involved should be penalized by having the entire loan money written off. You may think I am being a little extreme - but see these videos and see what a horrible situation these chaps have landed into. They would have been far, far better off not having gone to university at all and taken some job after high school! These poor chaps will lead the best part of their lives with debt hanging over their heads - my God! What a pathetic state of affairs!

I thank God that I dropped out of my Physics masters in 1984 in Bombay/Mumbai due to financial problems and looked for a job, instead of (seriously) looking at some financial institution that would loan me money for my Physics Masters (and any further education). Otherwise I would have suffered a similar fate as the poor chaps above, at least for a few years.

Suggestions to Improve CS & IT Education in India sent to Think India - A Public Policy Advocacy Think-Tank

Day-before-yesterday on CNN-IBN, http://ibnlive.in.com/, perhaps the most popular and most powerful Indian English TV news channel, I saw a message on the ticker asking for suggestions to improve education in India from http://thinkindia.in.com/. The About us page, http://thinkindia.in.com/about-us/, states "The Think India Foundation is a brand new initiative of Network 18. The Foundation will act as a media-active think tank engaged in the task of public policy advocacy. It will be our objective to adhere to, and propagate, the principles of fiscal conservatism, regulated free markets and social liberalism, which are the hallmarks of most successful economies and advanced societies.   The main objective of Think India Foundation is to influence public policy through thoughtful advocacy, independent research, public speaking engagements and events, and regular interactions with policy-makers, business and social entrepreneurs, using partnerships with multiple media (print, TV, online, social and blogs) to achieve these goals."

I think Network 18 owns the CNN-IBN TV channel and so it has powerful media connections.

I have given below the main content (slightly edited to make it suitable for a blog post) of the two mails I sent to them (on Dec. 14th and Dec. 15th 2013).

-------- First mail ------------------
I have been making fair amount of effort over the past two years or so to share my views on how to improve the practice of software development in Indian Computer Science and Information Technology academia.

You may want to view my preprint paper (not yet published in a peer reviewed publication) titled, Improve the Practice of Software Development in India by Having a Software Development Career Track in Indian CS & IT Academia, http://arxiv.org/pdf/1202.1715.

You may also want to view my recent blog post having details of a mail exchange between me and Mr. Phil Baty of Times Higher Education Rankings which publishes The World University Rankings (response from Mr. Baty is a very short one). The post is titled, Suggestion of Separate University Rankings for Research Excellence and Teaching Excellence, https://eklavyasai.blogspot.com/2013/12/suggestion-of-separate-university.html.

If you would like to know more about my views on Indian CS & IT academia - problems, suggestions for improvement and some other material - you may please visit my blog, https://eklavyasai.blogspot.com/p/table-of-contents.html.

--------- Second Mail -----------------------------------------------------------------

I forgot to mention in my mail of yesterday that Google search for the following terms (on my computer):

• poor software development skills Indian Computer Science graduates
• poor software development skills Indian CS graduates
• poor software development skills Computer Science graduates
• poor software development skills CS graduates
• improve software development skills Indian Computer Science graduates
• improve software development skills Indian CS graduates
• improve programming skills Indian CS graduates

gives my paper, Improve the Practice of Software Development in India by Having a Software Development Career Track in Indian CS & IT Academia, http://arxiv.org/pdf/1202.1715, as the first non-advertisement result.

In addition the same paper comes up within the first ten results in Google Search for the terms:

• poor programming skills Indian Computer Science graduates
• poor programming skills Indian CS graduates
• poor programming skills CS graduates
• improve programming skills Indian Computer Science graduates

A Hard Look at the Indian Scientific Establishment

A correspondent who is a distinguished and veteran Indian and international CS & IT researcher, academic and industry person passed on this article, "Honours and Numbers", http://www.epw.in/commentary/honours-and-numbers.html, published in Economic and Political Weekly issue dated December 14th 2013. The article takes a hard look at the current Indian scientific establishment. [Background for non Indian readers: CNR Rao is a leading scientist of India, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._N._R._Rao. Sachin Tendulkar is a (recently retired) leading cricketer of India, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sachin_Tendulkar. Both CNR Rao and Sachin Tendulkar were recently conferred the highest civilian award of India, the Bharat Ratna (Gem of India), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharat_Ratna.]

A main part of the correspondent's comment on the above article was: "It's high time there was more analytical thinking about Indian science. The popular press seems to thrive on handouts and personalities, rarely going beyond that to examine the case for (and against) science in India."

I did not think that such articles challenging some of the practices and statements of the Indian (top) scientific establishment ever get written (publicly) in India.

I have noted that the author has chosen to be anonymous. Perhaps that was a very wise decision! A correspondent mentioned that the reason could be to ensure that the focus was on the content and did not get distracted (from it to the author's name and personality). I think this reason makes sense (though I had not viewed it that way earlier).

Not being a scientist myself (I am an industry trained and self-taught software technologist), I have had only a spectator view, though a long and close spectator view of around a decade, of the Indian scientific and academic establishment. But, to me, this article seems to be a very courageous truth-telling article about the Indian scientific establishment. I congratulate the author for this courageous and thought-provoking article.

However, some of what the article states may be flawed or incorrect. I am not saying there are flaws or errors - I simply don't know. I don't have the in-depth exposure to and top-level view of the Indian scientific establishment to affirm the veracity of all of the article's contents. I hope this article will have a rebuttal from some appropriate person in the Indian scientific establishment so that readers can see both sides of the coin.

BTW one distinguished US academic to whom I had sent the above link found the article interesting. He expressed concern at the state of affairs where number of papers and citations are given emphasis, and also noted that Peter Higgs would have lost out in this game and lost out so badly that he would not have had the chance to make the breakthrough that he did.

For more on Peter Higgs' view of (Western) academia today please see, "Peter Higgs: I wouldn't be productive enough for today's academic system", http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/06/peter-higgs-boson-academic-system.

Note: The Honours and Numbers article mentioned at the beginning of the post has the following reference which does not work, "2 See http: //www.geocities.corn/physics_plagiarism/ for a report on plagiarism by the vice-chancellor of an Indian university." (using .com instead of .corn also does not give the correct result). A correspondent provided this link, http://www.geocities.ws/physics_plagiarism/, which gives the correct page having details of the plagiarism as well as the list of Indian academics mostly from very well known and eminent Indian academic/scientific institutions who endorsed the webpage (Feb. 2003 seems to be the last update of the page). 

Suggestion of Separate University Rankings for Research Excellence and Teaching Excellence

Last updated on December 13th, 2013

I sent an email to Mr. Phil Baty of Times Higher Education Rankings, http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings, with similar content to what is given below. The mail was copied to the editor of the Hindu.


I read your interview in The Hindu today, "Indian varsities lag behind in research", http://www.thehindu.com/features/education/indian-varsities-lag-behind-in-research/article5433479.ece.

While I believe the Times Higher Education Rankings may take into account teaching excellence in some way, in this interview you said, "The single best indicator in the rankings is the research impact, and here Peking performs pretty well — one of the strongest performances of any university."

In my humble opinion, such rankings as that of your esteemed institution, may result in academic administrators and the academics who are administered by them, giving less importance to teaching and more to research.

The summary of a January 2011 article of Science magazine, "Changing the Culture of Science Education at Research Universities", http://www.sciencemag.org/content/331/6014/152.summary, has 13 authors from 11 different USA universities including MIT, Harvard and Yale, stating that "teaching load" is viewed as a derogatory label in STEM disciplines in many research universities, that "reward systems at research universities heavily weight efforts of many professors toward research at the expense of teaching" and that some institutions even reward research accomplishments and "raising outside research funds" by giving the concerned professors “teaching release”!

Please note that the above article is by 13 authors (academics presumably) affiliated to 11 different USA universities including MIT, Harvard and Yale.

Given this situation, I wonder whether your esteemed rankings institution can consider having two separate university rankings, one for research excellence and one for teaching excellence.

The teaching excellence ranking may be of great utility to the majority of students (and their parents) worldwide who go to (send their children to) universities primarily for an education and not necessarily research. BTW I have great appreciation for university research and am not against it in any way. But teaching should also be given its rightful place in a university.

--- end mail similar-content ---

I also forwarded the above mentioned mail to appropriate persons in Indian higher education.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Here's a short video, "Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2013-2014 results", http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdRp7GHrcVU, 6 min. 37 secs, giving a good overview of the importance and impact of these rankings. In the later part of the video the presenter, Mishal Husain (BBC news presenter), speaks to Phil Baty.

Some highlights of the video from my perspective (picked up using the transcript):

*) 2013-14 is the tenth year of these rankings.

*) Global research industry is bigger than ever; 7 million people doing academic research and 1000 billion US dollars spent on this research work.

*) The rankings are used by academics to decide on partnerships and career decisions; industry and philanthropists for investment decisions; 170 million people in higher education; students may be using it to choose where to study.

*) Top universities in these rankings are US and UK based with universities from European countries like Germany and Netherlands coming after them.

*) Asian universities from China, Singapore and South Korea are marching up the ranks.

*) Phil Baty says the reason for these Asian universities rising up is "pretty basic, I think it's about money".

*) These countries (East Asian) have recognized the power of universities to drive the knowledge economy and so are investing money "at incredible levels" in their universities.

*) In the West austerity has hit the universities and the effect of these austerities are seen in the rankings.

*) The rankings have emerged as a geopolitical indicator. Success in the rankings is important to governments of some countries like India, Japan and Russia.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update made on December 13th, 2013

I received the following mail response from Phil Baty of Times Higher Education Rankings:

Thanks for your suggestions – believe me that developing new and additional teaching indicators is high on our agenda.

I welcome your thoughts and your contribution to the discussions.

--- end mail response extract ---

I have given below relevant extracts of my response to him:

Thank you so much for your response.

It is very heartening for me to note that "developing new and additional teaching indicators is high" on your esteemed organization's agenda. I am also very encouraged by your acknowledging and responding to my mail.

In this context you may find the following two blog posts of mine to be of some interest:
a) Concrete Suggestions for Measuring Teaching Quality in Practice-Oriented Computer Science/Information Technology streams, https://eklavyasai.blogspot.com/2013/06/concrete-suggestions-for-measuring.html

b) Discussion on Concrete Suggestions for Measuring Teaching Quality ..., https://eklavyasai.blogspot.com/2013/06/discussion-on-concrete-suggestions-for.html

...

Thanks again and I wish Times Higher Education Rankings all the very best in its efforts to improve measurement of teaching excellence in its rankings.

--- end mail extracts ---

I would also like to mention that Phil Baty was fine with his response being shared/put up on this blog.