Since the 1980s, higher education has continued to shift from being an institution that teaches people how to think to a place that creates industry workers as fast and efficiently as possible. Neil Kraus, professor of political science at UW-River Falls, discussed his thoughts on three year bachelor degrees, UW system funding, and the purpose of education.

One ramification of this ongoing change is the trend to hire chancellors from states other than Wisconsin. Like searching for a new CEO in corporate America, the leaders are hired in hopes that they will fix all of the problems left by the last chancellor and the current government. The University of Wisconsin system has become known as a place for chancellors to come and build up their resume before transferring to a better university. In addition to searching for chancellors, universities are perpetually in the position of filling vacant professors, restoring what they were designed to do: educate students.

Earlier this year, the Wisconsin Board of Regents Education Committee approved three-year bachelor degrees across the UW system, saving students a year of tuition, and only requiring 90 credits instead of the usual 120 credits. UW Green Bay is already beginning to roll out three year degrees for Marketing, cybersecurity, and other career-focused programs. Kraus argued these degrees undermine the value of a broad liberal arts education, and since there is no distinction between students who complete a 4 year program vs a three year program, there will be confusion in the workforce.

Education is not about pumping out workers. Because the economy always changes, so will the job market. In the recent past, there was a strong push to teach people how to code, but now the market is oversaturated with software developers and AI is beginning to take over these jobs. Similarly, STEM majors continue to be pushed onto students as a good “practical career move,” even though STEM has moved away from science and engineering and has become synonymous with technology. Now technology is becoming less secure as a career as AI gets more advanced. When the economy changes, the nature of jobs change as well. According to Kraus, the purpose of education is to teach students how to think, which naturally results in their ability to adapt in any economy, participate in an intelligent democracy, and ultimately, become good humans who live in the world and contribute to society.

Universities require yearly audits to determine where money is needlessly spent, and this usually ends in cutting humanities programs and closing smaller state universities. Most students travel to college within an hour of their home, so removing these smaller colleges tends to limit access to education for these students. Kraus said that in addition to these conversations about humanities spending, there should also be a required technology audit which evaluates whether technology is actually being used, and whether it is actually useful for education.

Neil Kraus is a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin–River Falls and President of United Falcons of UW River Falls. His most recent book, The Fantasy Economy: Neoliberalism, Inequality, And The Education Reform Movement, received Honorable Mention for the 2024 Michael Harrington Book Award from the Critical Political Science Section of the American Political Science Association. For more of his work, visit here and here.

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