“We start out trying to do one thing with public policy, and we wind up with unintended consequences that nobody wanted,” he says.

Like healthcare—another area of skyrocketing costs—higher education enjoys heavy subsidies, either through taxes (for public schools) or charitable donations (for private schools and, increasingly, public schools as well). And when a third party subsidizes the cost, says Martin, there’s little incentive to cut back.

Although issues of cost and competition affect all schools, he believes large research institutions are in particular trouble.

Those out-of-control costs, a declining interest in rigorous disciplines such as math and the sciences, and grade inflation are symptomatic of what he believes is the real problem in higher education: a declining emphasis on teaching.

“The rewards are for research. The rewards [at research institutions] are not for superior teaching,” he says. “That causes a misdirection of resources away from what higher education’s primary mission ought to be, which is exceptional teaching.”

Martin, who often writes on the economics of higher education, has just published his first book, Cost Control, College Access, and Competition (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2005). And when pressed, he admits he has a plan to change the misdirected incentives in higher education.

It is, he acknowledges, a somewhat expensive and probably far-fetched plan, but for all his emphasis on the importance of hard facts, he is something of a dreamer.

His vision calls for a new model, which he calls the “Generous Donor National Teaching College.” (Perhaps, he suggests, Bill Gates might be willing to write the check.) The institution would hold annual competitions to hire its faculty, who would all be teaching fellows hired on one-year contracts (no tenure). The college would “aggressively” measure their effectiveness and achievements as teachers. After several years, the fellows would have survived the annual competition for their jobs and established credentials and reputations for superior teaching.

And of course these exceptional teachers would be well paid and highly sought after by other institutions.

The goal, Martin explains, is to “create a market for good teaching” by providing consistently reliable information not available at present. And markets love information.

“It would be a way of doing the same kind of thing for teaching that we do in essence for research now,” he says. “Institutions would be able to establish national reputations based on the quality of their instruction rather than on the quality of their research. As it is now, the academic hierarchy is based exclusively on research output rather than on teaching. And that creates all kinds of incentive problems.”

Martin admits he was a rowdy West Texas farm kid who was “turned around” by his experience at Austin, a small liberal arts college. After seven years in the corporate world of financial planning and mergers and acquisitions, he decided to return to academe. Although he spent much of his academic career at regional research institutions—first Louisiana State and later University of Texas-Arlington—turning out the expected articles, he never lost his conviction that the real point of higher education is the teaching. In 1996 he returned to his liberal arts roots when he joined the Centre faculty. In addition to his book, this year he also received a Kirk Award from the College for his teaching.

What does he most hope students take from his classes? How to break down a problem—any problem—into its component parts and then make up their own minds.

“I have no interest at all in teaching students what to think,” he says. “But I have a strong interest in teaching students how to think. Once they learn that, then there are few situations they won’t be able to handle.”

—D.F.J.

Centrepiece
Centre College
600 West Walnut St.
Danville, KY 40422

Phone: (859) 238-5717
Fax: (859) 238-5723
E-mail: alumnews@centre.edu
or johnsond@centre.edu