 "David E Van Zandt")
A qualified lawyer, a sociologist, an academician, an administrator and an expert in international relations, David E Van Zandt has led the New School, New York as its president since 2011. Zandt was in Mumbai for the formal inauguration of the Parsons affiliation with the Indian School of Design and Innovation (ISDI), a new art school based in the heart of the city at Lower Parel. In an interview with Anjuli Bhargava,he talks about the big challenges facing higher university education in the United States and the world. Edited excerpts:
Why is university education facing such a crisis in the US ? People are no longer sure the degrees they pay for are worth it..
It's a challenge facing the entire world, as I see it. The question is who is going to pay for quality higher education. Should it be something that the state pays for or should it be paid privately.
More From This Section
Private schools have always been much more expensive and there the costs just keep increasing. It's got to the point where even an upper middle class family struggles with it. Barring very few universities that have very large endowments, most of these private universities are tuition based. They charge the full amount from those who can pay and use part of that amount to subsidise those who can't pay. And we are reaching a point now where the pool of those who can pay is getting smaller and smaller and it has to support a bigger and bigger base. Quite a few of the liberal arts colleges are not getting enough paying students in.
What happens now ?
The heavily endowed private institutions will do fine for an extended period of time. Some of the very strong state funded universities - Berkeley, Michigan - will manage for sometime - they have increased tuitions for in state students and they charge a higher amount from out of state students. They also have some endowments.
The federal government already lends students a lot of money. It has also started an income based repayment system so that you only pay 10 per cent of your income as the student loan repayment and if after ten years or so you haven't managed to pay the full amount, they forgo the rest. How long will the federal government be able to do that, one doesn't know.
Universities have been far more aggressive in attracting foreign students in the last decade…
Yes, some of them have tried to attract full pay foreign students to buttress up funds.
We see a lot of students from Korea, Canada, Korea, Brazil and India. These countries too can only send a certain number. In India, for instance, only a very tiny percentage can afford full fees charged by the US universities.
Then, countries like China have already managed to set up pretty high quality institutions at home to keep back students. India has similar ambitions.
As I see it, this too - looking at foreign students to buttress funds - will cap out at some stage.
I don't know if you are aware of the foreign universities bill in India that has been around for some time…
Yes; based on that bill, we considered setting up a law school at the time. We were running an executive style master's programme in Seoul, Madrid and Tel Aviv. We were giving a Northwestern degree but without that Bill, it would be very hard to do anything.
If it's passed I think you would see many colleges view India as a potential market but you would see some business schools. I'm not sure about a full research university.
I'd love to get to the point where we could offer a full Parsons degree in India - on the lines of Paris - but I'm not sure when that may happen. Without the bill, it's just not feasible.
How serious is the threat from MOOCs especially from the employment point of view ?
At this point of time, employers prefer degrees from accredited universities. There are some companies who are willing to explore hiring candidates who demonstrate a particular skill - no matter where they learnt it from.
