"Forbes on Fox" segment unfair to Spring Arbor University

The Forbes on Fox panel today talked about the Spring Arbor University Student Loan Repayment program. Unfortunately several of the panelists made comments without full knowledge of how the program works. Those comments were negative and gave misleading information or made incorrect assumptions about the loan repayment program. This is in response to those comments.


Some of the specifics of the program at Spring Arbor University:

-          The student must graduate from the university, therefore the program gives students the incentive to finish the degree and not drop out. If they drop out they cannot use the program.

-          After graduation they must be employed at least ¾ time (minimum 30 hours per week). So, they cannot just “sit around and do nothing.”

-          There are lower and upper income thresholds that give the student incentives to get a higher paying job because they will be farther ahead if they do. It is not an “all or nothing” program like many government give aways.

-          If their income is below the lower income threshold long enough, they will receive reimbursement for the entire amount of loan payments. But remember, it is a reimbursement. So, the graduate is still responsible for repaying the loan. They are just being helped when their income is low, but they must be employed.

-          As income increases to the upper income threshold, the benefit is reduced proportionately and in a way that give them the incentive to get better paying work.

-          Assistance will continue until loans are repaid or income increases above the upper income threshold.

Concerns raised by the Forbes on Fox panel and response to each:

This program will just encourage graduates to not seek employment after graduation (John Tamny). No it will not! To collect the graduate must be employed. They are not allowed to be unemployed. It only helps them if their income is below the threshold. This encourages the graduate to work no matter what the income level and allows them to pursue jobs in their chosen field even if the job does not pay a high wage. It just gives them the freedom to not worry about the loans payback schedule. Currently graduates of college who cannot find a well paying job stay unemployed. This program requires them to be employed in order to get assistance. It would be like requiring people on food stamps to first show that they are taking the initiative to help themselves before they get the food stamps. Or it would be like the unemployment program not allowing the unemployed to wait until they find a job that pays better then the one they lost.

This is just a “Hail Mary pass” for institutions in trouble and who charge too much already.   This was a very well thought out part of a business plan. The plan works based on the principle of an insurance policy and is administered by an organization in exactly that way. It does not increase costs by spreading them across all students because the cost of the program is covered by additional student enrollment in the coming years that will be handled without any increase in staffing at the university. The increased enrollment is due to the program itself and therefore does not have any additional marketing costs attached to it. So, tuition was not increased to cover the program and costs are not increased at the university.

This must have been thought up by the Obama administration. Someone else who went to the school is paying off my loan.  Again, not true. It is covered by an insurance fund which the last time I looked, is based on the free enterprise system. There is no redistribution of wealth as one panelist said. It is an insurance fund that is covered by the university streamlining its processes and staffing and enrolling additional students. In fact, this program is more like a warranty on an automobile which can only be collected on if the owner meets certain conditions (regular maintenance). Graduates are getting a warranty on their education but they only can collect based on certain reasonable conditions.

Go ahead and try it because online education is going to cost less and knock out 50% of colleges anyway. The fact is that online education does not cost less. In many cases online course cost more to deliver and there are many areas of education where online will not work (for example, would anyone on the panel go to a medical doctor who got his/her M.D. online? I would bet not. Or would the panel use a lawyer who did their degree online?) Online education is only effective in certain types of courses and subject matter. The future is an integration of online and classroom education which Spring Arbor is also doing.

Humans are Driven by Consequences

I was thinking today about all the things that our government is "trying" to do in the name of helping us and something dawned on me...when are we all going to "get it?"

I know its because it is my work, but when are we all (both government and non-government alike) going to realize that people don't just function in a vacuum. Human beings are driven by consequences. I believe we all have this innate ability to quickly measure a situation and take actions that will be in our own best interests...at least we think so at the time.

Why do we as a society constantly create situations that make people less productive and less happy. This is nothing new...I first saw it in the several unionized jobs that I held where it became clear that because no one could earn a higher pay rate than anyone else, people did the next best thing...they did the minimum amount of work to get by, thereby maximizing their own personal return on investment of their time.

We see it in government programs that encourage people to not work. We see it in health insurance policies that give us the impression that we can go to the doctor for "free" so we go more often than we really need to, which in turn drives up health insurance costs. We see it in the endless late night television advertisements by lawyers telling me that I am "entitled" to some sort of settlement for something someone else did to me. I see it when I actually have students tell me they deserve an A in a course because they paid tuition.

I guess the final straw today was when I read the Wall Street Journal assessment of the House Health Care Bill, in which I learned that our elected representatives want to spend a trillion dollars on something that the Congressional Budget Office estimates will help 2 percent of the population. It also didn't help to read that in the Cash For Clunkers program the government (because of its wonderfully efficient systems) spent something like $24,000 on each clunker it took off the road!

So, the bottom line is...people do things because they either pay off, or appear to pay off. Wait, maybe I just answered my own question....our elected officials do get it...what they are doing pays off for them! Not for the rest of us! But then why would any elected official really care about those who elected him/her anyway? I guess they are smarter than I gave them credit for being.

Entitlement Attitudes

As I prepare to begin teaching college classes this fall, I have begun thinking about the apparent change that has occurred since the time I began teaching. I have noticed it in my classrooms in particular. When I began teaching "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away" most of the students came to school to learn. Those who were not interested in learning, did not expect to get an A or didn't show up all together. In fact they were happy to merely pass the class. Grades were actually an indicator of performance.

Well, in recent years that has changed. Most students now come to class expecting to get an A in every class. And many of those expecting an A, believe they should receive an A without even doing any work. They believe that just attending the class somehow qualifies them to receive a top grade. When they are reminded of the "requirements" in the syllabus they act as though I am speaking a foreign language.

I have even had students miss classes and not turn in assignments, and at the end of the semester come to me and ask if they can do an "extra credit" project so as to receive an A in the class. I used to try to help them understand the error of their ways only to be frustrated (the foreign language response!) Last year a colleague told me what she says and now I say the same thing. When a student comes to me asking for extra credit after not doing required assignments I now say, "I am sorry, but I don't think that would be fair to you. You see, since you have not be able to handle the regular class assignments, it would unfair to have you do extra work at this time." And I believe that is exactly true.

I have a feeling that my experience with the "entitlement attitude" is merely a snapshot of what is happening throughout our society. I am not sure why it is happening, but I do not believe it is biologically caused. I think that people are learning it. I believe that they learn it in two ways: first, from the larger society; and, second from their own personal experience.

Dr. Larry Pfaff

Hiring a President

A few years back I wrote an article called “Hiring the Best and Avoiding the Rest.”

Recently I have been thinking about how we “hire” a new president (or any public office holder for that matter.) So, I am going to make an attempt to apply good Psychological principles to the process of hiring a president. Please note that throughout this rambling I will use “hiring” and “electing” to mean the same thing.

As citizens today we are faced with the difficult problem of electing qualified people to serve in public office. We have a real problem because unlike hiring an employee, we cannot place “help wanted” signs everywhere and just pick the best qualified candidate. We cannot post a job description on Monster.com and wait for the best to apply. Unfortunately most of the time, we just wait until election time and vote for one of the people on the ballot, a ballot determined for us by the political parties. But given that we don’t have much say in the “pre-screening” process (or do we?), what could we all do to improve what we end up with in our elected officials?

Elections are always a gamble. We can never know the outcome of our decision until after the election and actual on-the-job performance occurs. However, we can increase our probability of electing (hiring) more qualified people by improving the process we use. I will discuss some of the steps and techniques to help us do that, improve our process. Elections are a high stakes game of chance. We as citizens need to be prepared to make sure we have the odds on our side. Think of it this way:

An election is a game of chance.

Smart citizens (electors) know how to play the game

by using a systematic process to

maximize the potential for success.

Most of us do not take the election (hiring) process as seriously as we should. Smart voting (hiring) not only gets a good person on the job, but it helps avoid problems down the road. Hiring the wrong person is a costly mistake for a company, but it can be even more costly for an entire nation! Look at the cost to the states who have had governors resign recently. The question is, could some of those mistakes been avoided by not having elected those people? Smart hiring (electing) won’t avoid all mistakes, but it will improve our odds.

We have a lot at stake, which is why good elections (hiring) are vital to our success as a society. Electing (hiring) leaders is perhaps one of the most important and least attended to tasks of all citizens. The traditional hiring process has three steps: 1) Defining the job; 2) Recruiting candidates; and, 3) Selecting an employee. This isn’t quite the same in the election process. Usually we think we only can act at the third step (election). But I think the general public, the media, and the political parties can have an incredibly powerful impact on the first two steps. I would think of the three steps for hiring an elected official as: 1) Developing a Success Profile; 2) Narrowing the field; and, 3) Electing a leader.

Developing a Success Profile

This is the step where the media can have a huge impact, aided by the input of political scientists and Psychologists. What are the characteristics and skills necessary for a person to be an effective president? What skills and experience does a president need to get things done in Washington D.C? I would think that we could easily develop a list of 8-12 critical characteristics and skills a person would need to be an effective president. A different, but similar list could be developed for any elected position. The media needs to objectively report what makes for an effective president, not just what they would like to see.

By analyzing and defining the job this way we can focus our efforts on looking at candidates who have these specific, job-related skills. This job definition process (actually it is a success definition) would also be extremely valuable for the political parties in the primary process. I believe that it would not be difficult to develop this skill list. For example, one could look at the presidents of the past century and evaluate their performance. Then an analysis can be done to compare performance on the job to their skills and work experience. In no time at all we would have a profile of the skills, knowledge, and abilities of a successful president.

Unfortunately, the political parties and the media are not focused on the skills necessary for success. Rather, they tend to focus on the personal appeal, attractiveness and speaking ability of candidates. It also appears that political parties sometimes focus on things such as party loyalty and connects. I would maintain that these are of minimal value as a president. I am not saying they are not important, but they are a small part of a good president. In other words we need as a society to be asking the question, "What does a person need to be successful in this elected position?" We may find, for example, that being an effective senator requires a very different set of skills and experience than those of an effective president.

Defining the job is the critical first step in finding an effective person in any position, including elected positions. If done poorly, it will negatively affect the rest of the process. In the area of elections it is not only done poorly, it is not done at all! Without a clear skill profile the rest of the process is left to chance…which is exactly what has happened in recent years.

Narrowing the Field

Once we have a Success Profile the candidate recruitment process can begin. This ought to the primary responsibility of the political party! Start with the Success Profile. The party should then be actively finding people who match that success profile and match the beliefs of the party. This would be a systematic process. But once we get to the primary process the media and the general public can have a significant role. The media should be looking at and reporting about primary candidates in terms of their match to the Success Profile, not just what they say in written speeches in front of supportive audiences. As we move through the primary process candidates can be questioned on their performance. We can also see how they hold up under the pressure of the campaign process.

Electing a Leader

Perhaps the most important thing that Psychology tells us about human performance is that:

The best predictor of future performance is recent past performance, especially performance in the same skill areas.

In other words, I would not hire a quarterback for my professional football who has never played quarterback, even though he was a very successful blocker. And I would never hire someone to fill an accounting position who had never done accounting, even though she was a very successful salesperson. Nor would I hire as the new CEO for a company someone who had only run a machine on the assembly line, even though has was the best machine operator. So, why would we hire someone who does not fit our Success Profile to lead the most powerful nation in the world? Am I being too harsh? I don’t believe so. That’s why the success of our presidents (and all political leaders for that matter) is so unpredictable…the process is done so poorly! I am not blaming the candidates; I am blaming the system that brings us those candidates.

But the best way would be to first have the Success Profile I mentioned and we would really take the guesswork out of the process. If the political parties and the media have done their jobs, then electing a leader is easy. In fact, I believe that if the parties and the media did what I describe above we would for the first time in a long time have two qualified candidates from which to choose. But even given that, the citizens would need to look at the Success Profile and compare that to each candidate’s:

1) Past work history, especially recent history

2) Compare how that history compares to the Success Profile

3) Performance during the campaign, especially on areas in the Success Profile.

4) Yes, add in a little likability too.

There you have it. Pretty simple. Will this happen? Probably not. Why? Because the political parties and the media are too invested in the current (purely based on luck) system and will be resistant to change.

I welcome your comments.