Educational Localism

For obvious reasons, I've blogged before in these pages about differences between the US and NZ with respect to higher education. One point noted somewhere was that undergraduates here tend (to a very significant degree) to just go to whatever their local Uni is. When it comes to what Americans call 'college' (different meaning here), there is no real competition to get in, and little competition between the schools, although University of Auckland is so much larger than everyone else that it usually gets ranked #1.

If you're oriented towards the American system, as I have been, you might wonder about this. Imagine it was done in the US: Oregonians went to Portland State, OSU, or UO; Michigan..ians? went to University of Michigan or Michigan State or Eastern M.S.; Mississippians went to Ole Miss or MSU.

Just looking at the best schools in those three states, a striking disparity quickly emerges: if you were born in a lucky state (Michigan), you'd go to a top-tier school, while in an unlucky state (Mississippi), you'd go to a lower-tier school, and if you were moderately lucky to be born in Oregon, you'd go to a moderately-tiered school. That just seems absurdly unfair, right? Education shouldn't be tied to your location of birth, which is one reason why people travel out of state for their undergraduate careers.

So are things radically unfair here in NZ? Those lucky enough to grow up in Auckland go to the #1 school, while those raised near, say, Palmerston North go to a non-negligibly lower-tier school (Massey U.).

Well, here's one reason to think it's not fair (honest edit:) unfair. In a post on new trends among academics, Peter Levine cites the following interesting fact:

When experts investigate student outcomes from very different kinds of colleges (e.g., local state schools versus fancy private ones) they find differences in "career and economic attainment" after graduation, but few differences in what students actually learn. "These findings could be expected because in the areas of career and economic achievement, the status-allocating aspects of a college and what a degree from that college signals to potential employers about the characteristics of its students may count as much if not more than the education provided."*

*Ernest T. Pascarella and Patrick T. Terenzini, How College Affects Students, vol. 2 (Jossey-Bass, 2005), p. 591

I take it this is a result from US students (given that much of the rest of the world doesn't have "fancy private" schools). In any case, education-wise, and (I take it) other things being equal, it appears that there's little or no reason to go to a higher-prestige school. So, education-wise, there's no more reason to attend Princeton than Mississippi State.

(This might sound shocking to you--it sounds partially shocking to me, given that I tend to respect the work done at Princeton more than MSU, and much more work comes out of Princeton for me to be familiar with--but keep in mind that student habits are often the same, and a faculty member's teaching ability is most decidedly not proportional to his or her research acumen.)

But, of course, career-wise you'd much rather attend Princeton: more opportunities, more well-connected connections, more job offers, better salaries, etc. But this is because of the non-educational message the degree sends to potential employers.

So that would explain why the system isn't patently unfair here in NZ: here not much more respect is given to one university than another, so it doesn't grossly affect one's life chances where one goes to Uni. So why not go local, especially if the education will be roughly the same?

(Of course, other things aren't always equal. If you want to study politics, you come here to Vic, it being in the same city as the government. Etc., etc. Perhaps the biggest overrider should be if you want to have a career doing research in some area--then it really would matter that you gain experience under excellent people already doing research in that area. But that's different than what you learn in the classroom, at least in most cases.)