Four Models Of Higher Ed: A Time For Choosing
Augustine taught us that the drama of human life is to properly order our loves, implying there will always be one ultimate thing we desire the most. I believe this is right, and I think it has implications for all of life, including higher education. In general, while colleges and universities may have multiple motivations driving their existence, whether they admit it or not, they always have a single something that drives what it says and what it does. Every college and university has something that rules it and something that it loves more than anything else. Every board and administration takes its marching orders from something and bases its actions on those orders. Every faculty member runs her classroom according to some rule, grades papers determined by some rubric, and advises students governed by some norm.
If this provisional thesis is true, the next question follows quite naturally: what actually motivates colleges and universities? While not exhaustive, I want to use the taxonomy from Book 8 of Plato’s Republic (surprise!), a taxonomy used to explain political regimes. However, I think they can be used to describe colleges and universities as well. They are as follows: aristocracy is rule by the best (love of the good), timocracy rule by the honorable (love of honor), oligarchy rule by property owners (love of money), and democracy rule by the people (love of freedom and equality).
Let’s begin with universities ruled by honor. This is a strange idea on its face, but we see it most clearly in the service academies. People serve in the military for all kinds of reasons (perhaps most do it for economic reasons), but the service academies aim to prepare citizens to perform what is likely the most honorable actions: defending fellow citizens from attack, and sacrificing their own lives if necessary. The guarantee made to graduates is that upon graduation, they’ll be prepared for a life of honor.
The second option is for a university to be ruled by money (oligarchic model). This doesn’t mean boards, administrations, and faculties wake up every day with dollar signs in their eyes. Instead, the evidence is more subtle. On this model, university administrators might consult business leaders to determine what kinds of skills the modern economy needs, and they’ll construct the curriculum around those skills. The promise made to prospective students is that an education at this school will lead to a job, maybe a well-paying job. And while the university may teach literature and math, those programs are in service of the captains of industry who will one day be the graduates’ employers.
The third category is the democratic one. This model is where most universities likely think they are: bastions of free and open discussion with an aim toward the truth. The source is JS Mill’s On Liberty essay, where the ideal is rigorous exchange of views, no matter how extreme. The promise for graduates on the democratic model is to develop critical thinking skills, rigorous methodologies in all disciplines, and the attainment of truth in all fields. There is, however, something more profound going on with this way of educating. The deep promise is that graduates will become better democrats. They’ll see the views of their fellow citizens not as ones to be immediately “cancelled” but to be heard, at least for a while, until a rigorous and respectful critique can ensue. In short, graduates of democratic universities will instinctively see their comrades as equals deserving of respect. And while these colleges may promise gainful employment on the other end, those jobs will always be in service of democratic ends.
Finally, there’s the aristocratic model, where the purpose of the university is to do what the late Georgetown priest and political philosopher James Schall called the joint pursuit of “what is,” a journey into the deep structures of reality. This model is the most difficult to see, since nothing like a military uniform (timocracy) or work readiness program (oligarchy) so obviously distinguishes it. In fact, it may superficially resemble all of the other models, especially the democratic one, even if its aims are different. Still, this model is different from all the others because universities that follow it are guided by some source that transcends money, honor, and even the ideal of free discussion.
First, an aristocratic university will always question and critique any directives that come from the economic interests (oligarchic model) that place pressure on it, according to some source like divine revelation, the weight of tradition, or natural law. If a company prizes the skill of writing marketing copy that preys on the lust, greed, and envy of consumers, an aristocratic university should at least question whether that skill should be taught in its classrooms. Second, an aristocratic university will never be completely satisfied with an egalitarian forum for discourse in its classrooms (democratic model). In the end, the views of the students are not of equal worth, and deference needs to be paid to the wisdom of the professor and the external source she relies on. Finally, an aristocratic university will even rise above the timocratic model, since the pursuit of “what is” includes an inquiry into the useless (speculative philosophy, imaginative arts), and not just a preparation for a life of honor.
With this imperfect framework laid out, where’s the payoff? Well, first I think it’s a useful way to think about any new college or university being proposed. For example, the new University of Austin wants to provide an alternative to most of what’s on offer today, namely, something besides institutions perversely driven by “prestige or survival” (roughly the timocratic and oligarchic models). As an alternative, UATX aspires to be a place of free inquiry (democratic model), using an Aristotelian method to guide its curriculum (aristocratic?). I question whether UATX will truly be an aristocratic university, since its driving ethos seems to want as many views as possible represented on the faculty, with no sense of a transcendent source acting as a guide. It seems to perfectly embody the democratic model.
This framework can also be used to evaluate current institutions. As more and more schools move toward vocational ed models, it’s worth asking if they are becoming oligarchic, even if their mission statement gives a nod to the aristocratic through some reference to biblical revelation (for example). It should at least give those who aspire to the aristocratic to beware of forces that make their institutions into something different.
In conclusion, it remains my view that every school needs to serve some master, and as Jesus told us, it’s impossible to serve two masters. But I’ll leave with a few questions: what other categories could be added? For example, where does the technical fit into the taxonomy? Do we not, after all, live in a technocracy? Am I wrong to argue that a university must bow to one thing, even if it tries to serve other things? Or is it possible to give equal deference to money and the good, or free discussion and the good? Finally, do all schools need to bow to the same thing, or is it a good thing for America to have a healthy mix of aristocratic, oligarchic, timocratic, and democratic universities composing its landscape? After all, maybe it’s past time to force every 18–22 year old to pretend to like Shakespeare, as John McWhorter likes to say, and encourage most of them to go to trade school.
Anyway, those are questions for thought and discussion.
