The Business Model: An Idea Ready to Eat The World

We’ve all heard it, ad infinitum.  Governments should run like a business.  Healthcare is looking for a new business model.  Prisons are emerging profit centers.

And so, reading of Governor Rick Scott’s solutions for trimming Florida’s public college and university costs, I was not surprised to scan the words ‘business model.’  Scott is tapping into Rick Perry’s strategy, The Seven Breakthrough Solutions for cutting college costs in Texas. The ‘solutions’ seem almost reasonable, until you peel up the corners.

Now let’s get real.  College tuitions have skyrocketed across the country.  Anyone who has been to college recently or sent a child [or children] through a University system can attest to the financial burden the 4-5 year pricetag can exact.  Few students or parents would reject reasonable methods to trim expenses, make universities run more efficiently and ultimately make higher education more affordable.

But are we willing to trim cost and quality in tandem?  Will we accept the quick fix and sacrifice departments and/or fields of study because [on first glance] they will not produce degrees or students useful to Rick Scott’s or Rick Perry’s vision of America?  That would be a world where everything is one big business deal, oozing with profit for owners and shareholders and populated with workers with the ‘right’ degrees. Those degrees would translate into immediate jobs for the same business types who created the system to begin with, a self-perpetuating loop.

What could go wrong?

Plenty.

Let me say I have nothing against degrees in science, technology, engineering and math [STEM].  We need more degrees in these fields; emerging economies [China, India] are killing us in the sheer number of technical/science students they’re preparing for the future. But not everyone is suited for these majors.  And surprise!  There is still a place in the world for the humanities, a background from which the likes of JFK [history/international affairs], Ronald Reagan [sociology] and Steve Wynn, business guy [English] graduated and did pretty well for themselves.

My problem is pushing specific degrees at the exclusion of all others. For instance, slashing funds for grants and scholarships in Liberal Art programs—Scott has a particular dislike of anthropology–mocking the value of academic research [yes, there are flaky university studies out there but the vast majority of academic research has broad, important, if not immediate applications]. Or in terms of evaluating faculty?  The approach would measure faculty members as profit or loss centers [this gauged on the faculty member’s time spent in the classroom, against the outside funding said faculty member manages to encourage and net].  A likeability quotient is added to the frothy mix and student evaluations are weighted in determining tenure. These applied standards are in lieu of placing primary value on a faculty member’s expertise in his or her field.  College/university accreditation?  It complicates the reform measures.  So poof!  Get rid of it.

Perhaps more importantly, this approach dismisses the true purpose and nature of higher education: to teach everything there is to teach; to produce graduates who have critical thinking skills, an understanding of the world around them and the people who inhabit that world now and those of the past; and finally, inspiring creativity, which in turn inspires innovation.

If you want drones then set up a factory, an assembly line.  If you want enlightened adults, provide the freedom to choose, develop, think, consider, re-consider.  Support risk-taking in whatever field of study a student chooses or has a passion and talent for.  Encourage students to try their hand, hearts and minds at everything.  Inspire students to go their own way and take those creative leaps that lead to startling advancements.  Respect the learning process, the exquisite power and beauty of discovery and the uniqueness of the individual.

Earth to the Rickety Twins:  One size does not fit all.  Easy solutions to complex problems are doomed to failure. Just ask Herman Cain about his 999 economic plan, which is crumbling under scrutiny.

Dare I say that not all things fall within the purview of a business model, a structure that seeks profit before all else. Yet, this is the main ‘fix’ being hawked like a bad toupee across the country.  Run ‘it’ [fill in subject of choice] like a business and all things will flourish.

Well, here’s a thought: The Seven Breakthrough Solutions that Rick Scott wishes to co-opt for the State of Florida is more like the Seven Percent Solution of Sherlock Holmes, a wicked addiction. Like any drug habit, the fix is a sweet, temporary illusion but the damage it creates can be permanent.  Even fatal.

And btw, just to voice a pet peeve of mine: people are not human resources. Let’s return to that accurate, quite serviceable term: human beings.

We’ll all be better off for it.

For a very direct and rather withering response to the ‘Breakthrough Theory ‘ in Texas, a business style, market-driven proposal for higher education, see comments by Dean Randy L. Diehl, College of Liberal Arts, University of Texas at Austin, here.

And from the St. Augustine Record a report on Rick Scott’s dandy proposals of Breakthrough Education Policy [more a Texas carbon copy] here.