Good morning, today I will share about some task from IT For Teaching Subject in last semester ..
The first task is Prezi:
In my opinion, Prezi is one of many applications to make our presentation more interest. If you want to watch my task, please click in here. Download
2. Slide Master:
This program from Microsoft Powerpoint, if you want to watch. Download in here ..
Okay, I think enough ..
I want to take a rest and drink my tea :)
Comments(0)
your religion is your religion, this is my belief.
Is the Quran credible?
Besides religious guidance, the Quran contains
hundreds of verses that speak of the universe, its components and phenomena such
as the Earth, the sun, the moon, the stars, mountains, wind, running water,
plants, embryological animals, and the successive stages of development of the
human being. More than 1,000 verses relating to cosmic facts or cosmic phenomena
can be counted in the Quran. During the early days of the Quran, scientific
knowledge of the universe was limited and it was not easy to elaborate on the
verses relating to the universe or its phenomena except within the limitations
of the time. However, we now know about the laws of the universe much more than
before and that is why reviewing the 1,000 or more verses relating to the
cosmos, man and his surroundings can be one of the most obvious miraculous
aspects of the Quran. This is because of the precedence of the Quran, which was
revealed more than 14 Centuries ago, with many of the scientific facts, at a
time when people had no knowledge whatsoever of such facts. The Quran has
addressed so many of these facts in a language that is more precise, accurate
and concise than scientists have ever been able to do. Nothing in the Quran
contradicts any established scientific facts. These cannot be all covered in a
short article and hence I have chosen only five verses that can testify to the
miraculous nature of the Quran from a scientific point of view:
1) The creation of the universe
is explained by
astrophysicists in a widely accepted phenomenon, popularly known as the
“Big Bang.” It is supported by observational and experimental data
gathered by astronomers and astrophysicists for decades. According to
the “Big Bang,” the whole universe was initially one big mass (Primary
Nebula). Then there was a “Big Bang” (Secondary Separation), which
resulted in the formation of Galaxies. These then divided to form stars,
planets, the sun, the moon, etc. The origin of the universe was unique
and the
probability of it occurring by “chance” is zero. The Quran contains
the following verse, regarding the origin of the universe:
Have those who
disbelieved not considered that the heavens and the earth were (once) a joined
entity, then We separated them and made from water every living thing? Then will
they not believe? 
(Quran, 21:30)
The striking congruence between the Quranic
verse and the “Big Bang” is inescapable! How could a book, which first
appeared in the deserts of Arabia 1400 years ago, contain this profound
scientific truth?
2) In 1925 an American astronomer by the name of
Edwin Hubble provided observational evidence that all galaxies are receding from
one another, which implies that the universe is expanding. The expansion of the
universe is now an established scientific fact. This is what the Quran says
regarding the formation of the universe:
And the heaven We constructed
with strength, and indeed, We are [its] expander.
(Quran, 51:47)
Stephen
Hawking, in his book A Brief History of Time, says: “The
discovery that the universe is expanding is one of the great intellectual
revolutions of the 20th century.” The Quran mentioned the expansion of the
universe before man even learnt to build a telescope!
3) Scientists say that before the
galaxies in the
universe were formed, celestial matter was initially in the form of
gaseous
matter. In short, huge gaseous matter or clouds were present before the
formation of the galaxies. To describe initial celestial matter, the
word “smoke” is more appropriate than gas. The following Quranic verse
refers to this state of the universe by the word dukhan which means smoke:
Then
He turned to the heaven when it was smoke...
(Quran, 41:11)
Again, this fact is a corollary to the “Big
Bang” and was not known to mankind during the time of the Prophet Muhammad 
.
What then, could have been the source of this knowledge?
.
What then, could have been the source of this knowledge?
4) It was thought that the sense of feeling and
pain was only dependent on the brain. Recent discoveries prove that there are
pain receptors present in the skin without which a person would not be able to
feel pain. When a doctor examines a patient suffering from burn injuries, he
verifies the degree of burns by a pinprick. If the patient feels pain, the
doctor is happy, because it indicates that the burns are superficial and the
pain receptors are intact. On the other hand if the patient does not feel any
pain, it indicates that it is a deep burn and the pain receptors have been
destroyed. The Quran gives an indication of the existence of pain receptors in
the following verse:
Indeed, those who disbelieve in Our verses (i.e.
signs, proofs) - We will drive them into a Fire. Every time their skins are
roasted through We will replace them with other skins so they may taste the
punishment. Indeed, Allah is ever Exalted in Might and Wise. But those who
believe and do righteous deeds - We will admit them to gardens beneath which
rivers flow, wherein they abide forever.
(Quran, 4:56-57)
Prof. Tagatat
Tejasen, Chairman of the Dept. of Anatomy at Chiang Mai University in Thailand,
had spent a great amount of time on research of pain receptors. Initially he
could not believe that the Quran mentioned this scientific fact 1400 years ago.
He later verified the translation of this particular Quranic verse. Prof.
Tejasen was so impressed by the scientific accuracy of the Quranic verse, that
at a medical Conference in 1985 he proclaimed in public the Shahadah (Islamic
Declaration of Faith), i.e. he embraced Islam.
5) The source of iron (Fe); we read in the Quran:
Indeed, We have sent down iron in which there is great (military) might
and benefits for the people.
(Quran, 57:25)
It has recently been proven that
all iron, not only in our planet but also in the entire solar system, was
obtained from outer space. This is because the temperature of the sun cannot
generate iron. The sun has a surface temperature of 6000 degrees Celsius and a
central temperature of about 20 million degrees Celsius. There exists much
hotter stars, which are known as novae, or super novae where temperatures can
reach 100s of billions of degrees Celsius and it is in these stars that iron is
formed. When the percentage of iron reaches a certain proportion of the mass of
the star it explodes and these exploded-particles travel in space until they are
captured by the gravitational fields of other heavenly bodies. This is how our
solar system all obtained its iron and it is an established fact today that all
the iron in our solar system was not generated or created within the system but
has come to it from outer space.
One wonders why the Quran comments on matters
like these, things that were not known to anyone at the time of revelation or
even for centuries afterwards, unless Allah knows in His eternal knowledge that
the time will come when man will then immediately realize that the Quran is the
word of Allah and that Muhammad
is His last messenger. Allah says in the Quran:
is His last messenger. Allah says in the Quran: We shall show them Our signs in the horizons and within themselves until
it becomes clear to them that it is the truth.
(Quran, 41:53)
Prof. Tejasen accepted Islam on the strength of
just one scientific “sign” mentioned in the Quran. Some people may
require ten signs while some may require hundred signs to be convinced about the
Divine origin of the Quran. Some would be unwilling to accept the Truth even
after being shown a thousand signs. The Quran condemns such a closed mentality:
Deaf, dumb and blind- so they will not return [to the right path].
(Quran, 2:18). Also:
The example of those who disbelieve is like that of the one
who shouts at what hears nothing but calls and cries [i.e. cattle or sheep] -
deaf, dumb and blind, so they do not understand.
(Quran, 2:171). And:
Then do they not reflect upon the Quran, or are there locks upon [their]
hearts?
(Quran, 47:24).
Deaf, dumb and blind- so they will not return [to the right path].
(Quran, 2:18). Also:
The example of those who disbelieve is like that of the one
who shouts at what hears nothing but calls and cries [i.e. cattle or sheep] -
deaf, dumb and blind, so they do not understand.
(Quran, 2:171). And:
Then do they not reflect upon the Quran, or are there locks upon [their]
hearts?
(Quran, 47:24).
first short story, for refreshing ^_^
Love Comes from A Friendship
I
had never felt a first love even when I was studying at the University.
I do not know why it happened, maybe because I had too much to learn
when in Senior in High School so I’d never find a love that truly
memorable. When the initial study at the university, the love did not
come because I was busy with a variety of activities on campus and was
eager to pursue high score at the class. I was also not interested in
girls around me or had a curiosity to know a woman.
At
the beginning of university entrance, there was actually a girl who
looked to have interest in me. She started to give a short message
essentially that wanted to know me more. He continued to greet me
through the short message. Oddly, she did not mention her real name and
only mentions Initials. I was used to respond to a text message without
knowing the identity of the person sending. Several times I talked to
her about a few things through the short message. However, I had a sense
of boredom with the situation and was eager to find out her real name.
I
do not like the little people who continue to conceal the identity and
so curious to know. One time, I got to know her because I called her by
phone. I was not far from her, and she realized that I was on the phone.
She was very shy and did not want to say hello again to me via text
message on mobile phone.
After
that happening, I no longer found things related to love and I did not
have interest about love. My friends say that I had changed and got to
know a woman. They even made a fun of me by saying that I did not have
the ability to pick up a woman. But, I did not care about anything they
say. For me, a love comes in a beautiful way and should not be imposed.
One
time, I found the first love and a true love of my life. The woman who
became my first love was my a classmate but we had not known each other
very well. When in the class, we only just greeted each other and did
not have any interest. Though we were in a class almost every day and
engaged in the same lesson. There was a story that is so unique and our
friends did not believe when we were in love because we had been in the
same class within 2 years.
The
love was present when we are sitting close together in a place and
there was one of our friends started teasing each other as if we liked.
At first, we felt ashamed because it continued teasing. However, from
that teasing, I kept getting a sense of confusion. I kept thinking about
her every day even in every single time in my life.
Then,
I began to know her through a text message that I sent. When the first
short message sent, I got a response and I kept talking to her through a
text message on mobile phone. I found hard to sleep and kept thinking
about her. Finally, I decided to express love to her, and she received
with a very happy feeling. Up to now, I became her life companion and
want to continue to be close until death separates us.
Reference : http://www.caramudahbelajarbahasainggris.net/2013/04/contoh-cerpen-bahasa-inggris-tentang-persahabatan-dan-cinta.html
do you still hard to think positive?
The Power of Positive Attitude Can Change Your Life
Positive attitude is the cause of success and happiness.
A positive attitude helps you cope more easily with the daily affairs
of life. It brings optimism into your life, and makes it easier to
avoid worries and negative thinking. If you adopt it as a way of life,
it will bring constructive changes into your life, and makes them
happier, brighter and more successful.
With a positive attitude
you see the bright side of life, become optimistic, and expect the best
to happen. It is certainly a state of mind that is well worth
developing.
Positive attitude manifests in the following ways:
- Positive thinking.
- Constructive thinking.
- Creative thinking.
- Optimism.
- The motivation and energy to do things and accomplish goals.
- A attitude of happiness.
A positive frame of mind helps in a lot of ways, such as:
- Expecting success and not failure.
- It makes you feel inspired.
- It gives you the strength not to give up, if you encounter obstacles on your way.
- You regard failure and problems as blessings in disguise.
- Believing in yourself and in your abilities.>
- You show more self-esteem and confidence.
- You look for solutions, instead of dwelling on problems.
- You see and recognize opportunities.
A positive attitude leads to happiness and success and can change
your whole life. If you look at the bright side of life, your whole life
becomes filled with light. This light affects not only you and the way
you look at the world, but it also affects your whole environment and
the people around you. If this attitude is strong enough, it becomes
contagious. It's like radiating light around you.
The benefits of a positive attitude:
This might seem like a repition of the above, but it helps to make this message clearer.
- It helps you achieve goals and attain success.
- It brings more happiness into your life.
- It produces more energy.
- Positive attitude increases your faith in your abilities, and brings hope for a brighter future.
- You become able to inspire and motivate yourself and others.
- You encounter fewer obstacles and difficulties in your daily life.
- You get more respect and love from other people.
- Life smiles at you.
Negative attitude says: you cannot achieve success.
Positive attitude says: You can achieve success.
If you have been exhibiting a negative attitude and expecting failure
and difficulties, it is now the time to change the way you think. It is
time to get rid of negative thoughts and behavior and lead a happier
and more successful life. Why not start today? If you have tried and
failed, it only means that you have not tried enough.
Simple tips for developing a positive attitude:
- Choose to be happy. Yes, it is a matter of choice. When negative thoughts enter your mind, just refuse to look at them, substituting them with happy thoughts
- Look at the bright side of life. It's a matter of choice and repeated attempts.
- Choose to be optimistic.
- Find reasons to smile more often. You can find such reasons, if you look for them.
- Have faith in yourself, and believe that the Universe can help you.
- Associate yourself with happy people.
- Read inspiring stories.
- Read inspiring quotes.
- Repeat affirmations that inspire and motivate you.
- Visualize only what you want to happen, not what you don't want.
- Learn Learn to master your thoughts
just laugh and make laugh.
Let us make our friends laugh. because I will show how to make a joke.
Learn Each Step
How to Make Up a Joke Fast
-
Think outside the box. Use your surroundings and situation to help you think of funny stories and jokes. Be up to date on current events as well. Knowing what is going on in the world will make you more witty and quick.
-
Use inspiration from around you. Consider the following situations where jokes are derived from the surroundings:- Let's say you're with your friends on a farm and everybody is trying to make up dance moves. You look around and see cows. Then you could say "I'm gonna dance with you until the cows come home, actually I would rather dance with the cows until you come home".
- Second example: Say you're at a library and nobody is reading. You could say "From the moment I picked up this book until the moment I set it down I couldn't stop laughing. One day I intend on reading it."
- Third example: You could be coming home from eating or from the movies. you could say "I had a great evening... but it wasn't tonight." While this is easy, with the right "crowd" you might get some laughs.
-
Give yourself time to practice and improve. While it's not easy at first, once you get better at it, you'll be the funniest person in town! -
Learn about joking. It is a serious thing. Go to YouTube and watch shows like Who's Line is it anyway? and stand-up comedy. -
Try knock knock jokes. Remember that wordplay is the key. (i.e. try saying little old lady then I didn't know you could yodel.)
I know, how hard it is to speak English.
10 Reasons Why English Is A Hard Language
The purpose of this article is to put language difficulty into
perspective for native English speakers struggling with foreign
languages. Languages like Japanese, Russian, Chinese, Arabic, or even
easier languages like Spanish, can seem very difficult, just because
we’re not used to them. English seems sooo easy and simple, but that’s
because we’ve been raised with it. Here are ten reasons why English is
actually one of the hardest languages in the world.
THE WORLD’S CRAZIEST SPELLING SYSTEM
English spelling is extremely counter-intuitive! Why is it that words
like “through”, “trough”, and “though” sound so different? It seems
like for virtually every “rule” a prescriptivist writes down to try and model English spelling, exceptions can be found.
The fact is, although it’s possible to make rough guesses at English
spellings using phonetics, in order to really know English spelling, you
have to memorize the spelling of every word. Even words whose spelling
seems straightforward and simple, you still memorize (maybe
subconsciously without even trying) just because otherwise when you
wanted to spell it, you’d have no way to know it was simple and straightforward.
There is a method to the madness of English spelling. It’s based on
etymology. Based on how a word is spelled, we can make guesses about
where the word came from. German, French, Latin? Maybe somewhere more
exotic like Japanese? This is very useful, because it keeps spelling
consistent between different English-speaking nations.
English is pronounced rather differently in the United States, in
Britain, in Australia, and in India. If, as so many people have
suggested, spelling reform were attempted, which nation would be the
standard? At most one nation could enjoy perfectly phonetic spelling.
The others would just switch from one bizarre spelling system to
another. And even for that one country, the spellings would become
obsolete as the pronunciations of words changed. Even in the United
States, pronunciations vary from dialect to dialect.
So, there’s good reason for the English spelling system. It’s one of
the most successful spelling systems in the world, because of its
flexibility and its strength across wildly differing dialects. But that
doesn’t mean it’s easy to learn! For a foreigner trying to learn
English, spelling is extremely difficult!
THE SOUND SYSTEM IS SO RICH
When you study a foreign language, you’re liable to run into sounds
which aren’t present in your native tongue. Part of the challenge is
learning, mechanically, how to produce these sounds. In Japanese,
there’s a different “R” sound, which actually sounds something like a
mix between “R”, “L”, and “D”. In Mandarin, there are a dozen sounds
which are all really hard to learn. German is famous for its hard
gutteral sound, which we’d have to master if we wanted to get Johann
Sebastian Bach’s name right.
Generally, more exotic new sounds mean more difficulty learning a
language. English has a very rich set of sounds. It has the ability to
string consonants and vowels together almost arbitrarily. Take a look at
the word, “strengths”. There’s only one vowel out of six or seven
consonants, depending how you count! Again look at “squirrel”. A very
difficult word for foreigners to learn to pronounce.
And this is only made worse by the crazy spelling system. Not only
are there a million sounds to learn, but there’s small indication from a
word’s spelling which sounds are involved.
And, going the other direction, some foreigners must learn to
identify certain sounds which they consider distinct. For example,
English actually has two distinct “L” sounds, but we as English speakers
can’t hear the difference because we never need to in order to
understand the language. But to, e.g., a native Russian speaker,
suddenly there are two sounds floating around and both are to be
considered identical. It’s similar to learning Japanese, where the “g”
of “go” and the “ng” of “thing” are treated as being identical.
SUBTLE ORDERING
In English, there are subtle ordering requirements which even English native speakers aren’t consciously aware of. We get them right every time, because we subconsciously know
about them through practice, but that just makes it all the harder for
foreigners, since these rules are so subtle and hidden.
The best example is adjective ordering. Compare, “a cute little
puppy” to “a little cute puppy.” The first is fine, while the second
sounds wrong. How is a foreigner to know which order to use?
Can you explain it to them? (There is actually a method, but it’s rather complex and better to just learn subconsciously)
Can you explain it to them? (There is actually a method, but it’s rather complex and better to just learn subconsciously)
WHICH SYNONYM TO USE??
Because of its diverse, promiscuous etymological origins, English has
lots of synonyms which, just from a dictionary definition, seem very
similar if not identical in meaning. Part of becoming a master English
speaker, is knowing which words to use when. Although synonyms are
grouped up in a thesaurus, that doesn’t mean the words are identical.
Even if their official meanings are identical, different synonyms convey
subtly different moods and ideas.
You can watch a movie or see a movie, but you can only watch TV, never see it. You can’t view either of them, even though when you watch either of them, you become a viewer (and never a watcher, much less a seer!) Try explaining that to someone who speaks Arabic!
STRESS
In English, the entire meaning of a sentence can be changed by placing stress on a word. For example:
- I entered my room.
- *I* entered my room.
- I *entered* my room.
- I entered *my* room.
- I entered my *room*.
A grammar of English usually only even addresses the meaning of the
first, stressless, version of the sentence, even though a foreigner will
hear all variations if they’re immersed deeply enough in the language.
For native speakers of stressless languages, it’s very difficult to
even hear the stress at all. This counter-balances Mandarin’s dreaded
tone system which English speakers always cite as evidence of Mandarin’s
horrid difficulty.
POETIC, OLDER ENGLISH IS EVERYWHERE
In order to be really fluent in English, you can’t just learn modern
English, you must also know a little bit of older, more poetic English.
Not actual “Old English”, since that’s a whole other language entirely,
but “older” English.
Here in downtown Columbus, there’s a church which advertises with the message: “Which part of ‘Thou shalt not‘
don’t you understand?” This slogan always makes me laugh, because,
having studied languages, I’ve come to see how the slogan must be
extremely confusing to most ESL speakers. The truth is that, for a lot
of speakers, “Thou” and “shalt” are both unfamiliar. And the fact that
by stringing them together in essentially the same structure as “You
will not”, you end up creating a command– that’s even worse!
Older English shows up in literature, plays, poetry… even video games.
WHAT’S UP WITH THESE QUESTIONS??
In English, it’s very strange how the whole grammar of a sentence
changes when the sentence is put in question form. “It is warm” becomes
“Is it warm?” Notice how the “it” and the “is” are switched. To us, this
is totally natural because we’ve been raised with it. To a lot of
speakers of other languages, the whole device seems needlessly
difficult.
Continuing with the “It is warm” example, there actually is a valid
question, “It is warm?” It’s interesting to ponder the difference in
meaning between “It’s warm?” and “Is it warm?” In the latter, the
speaker genuinely doesn’t know whether it’s warm. In the former, it
seems almost like the speaker thinks it’s not warm, and is asking for
re-confirmation.
These kinds of subtle distinctions make English a pretty difficult language grammatically.
IRREGULAR CONJUGATIONS OF VERBS, AND SIMILAR PHENOMENA
Some people who study Spanish think the verbs there are bad. English is stuffed full
of irregular verbs! How come the past tense of “buy” is “bought”, and
the past tense of “sell” is “sold”, and neither “buyed” nor “selled” are
real words?
And that’s just the “usual” conjugations of verbs, i.e., past tense
and third person singular. There are other verb conjugations, but
they’re just so irregular we don’t even acknowledge them as
conjugations. For example, taking an adjective and forming its “-ness”
quality. As in, deriving “swiftness” from “swift”. This process is as
irregular as you can get. “Strong” doesn’t become “strongness”, it
becomes “strength”, even though its opposite, “weak”, does become
“weakness”. “High” becomes “height”, and if you mess up and say
“highness” instead, it sounds like you’re talking about some bizarre
royal bloodline!
Sometimes you can even “undo” a conjugation and end up with a whole
new word than what you started with. The word “truthiness”, for example,
has recently been popularized. Another example is “awesomeness”.
“Awesome” is actually derived from “awe”: something is awesome if it
inspires awe (at least, that’s the original meaning). So in theory,
“awesomeness” and “awe” should be the same thing, and “awesomeness”
shouldn’t even be a word since it should be redundant, and yet, they
don’t mean the same things and “awesomeness” is a word.
THE CASE OF THE LEFTOVER CASES
Being derived from German, which has a heavy case system, English
originally had its own heavy case system. English cases have mostly been
phased out, but the remnants of a case system still exist, which almost
means in English it’s the worst of both worlds.
Let me explain what cases are. Cases are different “forms” for words
to indicate what function they serve in a sentence. For example, in the
sentence “the cat ate the fish”, “the fish” is the “object” (it’s
getting eaten), and “the cat” is the subject (he’s doing the eating).
There are no cases here; in order to tell who did the eating and who got
eaten, we have to look at word order. If the sentence were “the fish
ate the cat”, the meaning would be very different!
In a cased language, “the cat” might have different forms, to
indicate whether the cat is the subject, object, or something else
(German has four different cases and Russian has even more). Similarly
with “the fish”. The advantage of a cased system is that word order is
more flexible. The forms of the nouns tell us what roles they play, so
the order of the sentence is less crucial. The downside of the case
system is that it’s more complicated, and there’s more to memorize.
As I said, English is mostly case-free. But, there are leftovers from
the old case system. That’s why we have “I”, “me”, “mine” and “my”. And
why we have “you”, “yours” and “your”. And why we have “he”, “him”, and
“his”, and “we”, “us”, “ours” and “our”. In each of these groups, it’s
really the same word, just in different forms- different cases. So, part
of learning English is learning a case system, even though it’s only
used for a handful of words.
And English doesn’t even get the positive advantages from its case
system. Even in a sentence entirely using cased words, like “I hit him”,
word order is still important– “Him hit I” is totally incorrect unless
your name is Yoda.
Incidentally, the leftover case system also explains the annoying “who”/”whom” dilemma, which many native English speakers are confused by, not to mention ESL speakers!
WHAT KIND OF WORD IS THIS, ANYWAY??
One of the most difficult things about English, is the fact that
there’s very little in the way of signals to tell you what kind of word a
word is. For example, in Japanese and Spanish, all verbs have similar
endings. Not so in English.
The lone exception is the English adverb, which often ends in “-ly”,
but even this isn’t a universal rule, and adverbs are about the least
important words in a language anyway.
In English, the same word can even fall into multiple categories.
“Trust” is a noun, but also a verb. “Quiet” is both a noun and an
adjective (even though its opposite, “loud”, is only an adjective).
“Abstract” is all three!
In fact, almost any adjective can be used as a noun, just put “the”
in front of it: “The dead shall walk the earth.” And any noun can be
used as a verb, like in the famous example, “I’ll cookie you!” The
possibilities are endless, as long as you’re creative. All this makes
English a lot of fun- but it also definitely makes the language
complicated!
CONCLUSION
If you ever find yourself stressing out over learning a foreign
language, just be glad you don’t have to learn English as a second
language!!
Reference : http://www.xamuel.com/10-reasons-why-english-is-hard-language/
easy technique for cheap college
do you want to go to college? but did not have a cost?
okay, I will explain how the cheapness of college.
Can We Make College Cheaper?
Critics of American higher education
have a set of theories to explain the ever-rising cost of college
tuition. Schools are inefficient. They blow too much money on
administrators, not enough on academics. The academics they do
have spend their time on research, not students. And those students live
in an increasingly plush world created by the arms race for prestige
rankings: Best medium-sized college in the Midwest! Most wired campus in
the country! Top-rated college for would-be aerospace engineers!
“These people are going to say, ‘Ah! Colleges, they’ve turned themselves into country clubs!’” said David Feldman,
an economist at the College of William & Mary. “Everybody can point
to an anecdote of a souped-up dorm and say, ‘Yep, that’s the problem
right there!’”
Feldman and William & Mary colleague Robert Archibald
refer to this set of theories as the “dysfunction narrative” of the
rising cost of college tuition. This is the narrative that dominates
policy debates around what to do about the problem. And Feldman and
Archibald argue that these explanations get the whole story wrong.
“There’s a part of the story they may explain,” Archibald said. “But I
think it’s a much smaller part of the story than other people think.”
The two economists pick apart the case for higher-ed dysfunction in their book, “Why Does College Cost So Much?” And they’ve distilled their alternative explanation into a breezier paper just published by the American Council on Education that should inform policymakers and angry Occupiers trying to figure out where all this college debt came from — and what we’re going to do about it if we want more Americans to have access to some higher education.
“Everyone’s saying, ‘but we ought to just be able to economize and
cut out all the fat, that’s the solution to this problem. Schools are
fat, sassy and over-fed. And if government cuts off the spigot, it’ll
force us to become more efficient,’” Feldman said. “We began to look at
that seriously: Is that really what’s going on?”
Their first observation is a jarring one: the cost of college
education generally always rises faster than inflation. But the pair
argues that’s not the real problem here; education isn’t unique in this.
Feldman and Archibald produce this graph charting products (cars,
jewelry, nursing homes, education, etc.) that grew more costly than the
rate of inflation over the last six decades:
CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE
In 52 out of those 64 years, the cost of education outpaced the rate
of inflation. A couple of industries to the right of education on this
graph did this even more often: dental services, life insurance,
hospitals, and nursing homes (many of which, not surprisingly, are tied
to the other great cost debate of the day: health care). Some sectors of
the economy simply outpace inflation in general. The common
denominator? They’re service industries, not manufactured goods.
This is the core of Archibald and Feldman’s argument: We expect
technological progress to make things cheaper. Assembly lines have made
cars more affordable. Advances in computer technology have made an iPod
possible for every teenager. Technology in these industries increases
productivity growth, and as a result, whatever goods pop off the
assembly line tend to fall in price.
The same rule doesn’t hold for education, however, or for most personal services.
“For services, you’re not going to have productivity growth, because
productivity growth means doing more per hour, or more per worker,”
Archibald said. “And there are lots of service industries where really
what is being purchased is the time of a person.”
In that case you get a crummier product — say, a haircut — if you get
less of that person’s time. This is true whether that person is your
hairdresser, or the violinist in an orchestra you’ve paid to see, or
your college professor. These are jobs that can’t easily be turned over
to machines (although many education policymakers are currently debating
this). And so goods become cheaper while services — like education — become more expensive.
Technology, in fact, frequently has the opposite effect on education
that it has on cars. Schools have to put a computer on every desk and
cutting-edge tools in every science lab, and that makes education more expensive, not less so.
But here is the main point the authors want to make: just because
college costs generally rise more rapidly than inflation doesn’t mean
college becomes less affordable over time. This is because — as a result
of all of that technological progress — the quality of life in America
has been rising, along with the incomes of the average family. So as
tuition has increased, so too has the ability of families to pay for it,
especially as the real cost of your car, and your washing machine, has
declined. (And that doesn’t take into account tuition discounting: many
students — and not just top scholars or athletes — aren’t charged the sticker price at many colleges and universities.)
This pattern held for decades. This is what the real cost of higher education has looked like over time:
CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE
More recently, though, families haven’t been able to keep up.
Archibald and Feldman note that this problem really kicked in around the
year 2000. And this is the part of the story that has nothing to do
with educational dysfunction and everything to do with trends in the
broader economy.
“Something very unusual is happening in the economy with all of the
income gains, where the rising tide only lifts yachts,” Archibald said.
As economists have widely noted, most of the income gains over the past
decade have been concentrated among the wealthiest Americans.
“That’s generated a lot of problems, which rebound down to how people
think about higher education. If we can figure out what’s caused that
and change it, a lot of what appears to be a problem with higher
education doesn’t look nearly as bad.”
These trends in income distribution aren’t the only culprit. As
college costs have gone up, the share paid by state governments has
plummeted, further driving up the price of tuition that families pay.
CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE
That chart suggests a simple policy solution: if states would go back to chipping in more money,
that would offset more of the burden of rising costs on families
struggling to afford education. (It would also alleviate some of the
pressure on schools that need to charge higher tuition to middle-income
families to pay for discounts given to lower-income students). This
proposal, though, sounds politically laughable in today’s climate.
“That’s not a solution,” Feldman said. “That’s just not going to happen.”
So if states aren’t likely to boost funding, and the other main cause
of the problem is rooted in fundamental economic trends much bigger
than what colleges can control, where does this leave us?
“It leaves us in a world in which the solutions are all slow, incremental, and unsexy,” Feldman said. “That’s the truth.”
Proponents of the “dysfunction narrative,” on the other hand, have
offered some pretty tangible, big ideas: cut funding, reduce research,
increase distance learning, force schools to be more efficient.
Feldman and Archibald worry these ideas will do great harm to
education. But they also sound a little worried that while they have a
more coherent explanation for the problem, they don’t have answers to it
likely to awe the public. Schools everywhere are experimenting with
ideas to integrate Internet learning (without giving way to it
entirely), and to test new models of student-teacher engagement.
“Much of the progress in this kind of innovation is piecemeal, at the
edges, and it might shave a percentage point off the rate of cost
increase,” Feldman said. “But it’s unlikely to completely change the
direction of higher education 180 [degrees] and turn it into a modern
assembly line.”
In that case, perhaps we should turn to the even bigger question: So what’s behind the rising income inequality in America?
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