Higher standards for higher education

This month, the Columbia University Democrats started a petition calling for President Bollinger to either resign from his position on the board of the Washington Post Company, which claims Kaplan, Inc. as its largest subsidiary, or to use his position to change the practices of the company. The CU Dems have hit the nail on the head in their criticism of the situation—Bollinger should not be affiliated with an organization that exploits any group of people, and his position on the board of such a company is fundamentally in conflict with the values of our University.

That Bollinger should not be on the board of the Washington Post Company is, on one hand, a matter of ethics. Kaplan, a for-profit corporation that provides online and in-classroom degrees as well as test preparation services, has been consistently charged with taking advantage of people who are in some way insecure about enrolling in higher education, according to the New York Times. Targeting people who are mentally, physically, or financially disabled, Kaplan offers false promises of success. More than 50 percent of their students do not graduate, and students who do graduate still end up with massive debts that cripple them for years.

Columbia, both as an institution and as a body of individuals, should stand against such exploitation. For one, the university is need-blind in its admissions and so selects its students based on the likelihood of their success rather than on their ability to pay. Furthermore, Columbia, as a not-for-profit school that supports the liberal arts, values education for the sake of knowledge and learning rather than for the sake of turning a profit. While there are for-profit universities with ethical approaches to learning and running a business, Kaplan is not one of them. It is a contradiction that Bollinger is on the board of both the Washington Post Company and a university that, even when charging high prices from its students, uses those funds for research or for improvement.

Being on the board of an organization is a tacit endorsement of that organization’s practices. As Bollinger is the president of Columbia, we should hold him to a high standard and expect him to make decisions that are in line with the values of the university. We ask that President Bollinger reconsider his connection to the Washington Post Company and to Kaplan, and either resign from his position or work for reform.

Full disclosure: Kaplan, through the automated Google AdSense service, advertises on columbiaspectator.com.

Sam Klug recused himself from writing this editorial because he is a member of the Columbia University Democrats.

Correction: The printed version omitted a full disclosure notice. Spectator regrets the error.