Improving Productivity in Higher Education

The subject of productivity in higher education is one that has long interested me. I do not pretend to be an education productivity expert, but rather an observer of the scene who cannot help applying the economist’s view of the world to the provision of education services.

I’ll start with a story reflecting an early experience after finishing my graduate work at Chicago. When I arrived at my first regular teaching position, I put together reading lists for my courses and sent them to the library so that books and articles could be placed on library reserve for students to read. After a couple of classes, my students complained that the reserve items were not available. I checked with the library and was informed that faculty members had to go into the stacks and pull the items to be placed on reserve, something I had not been told. I complained: why should faculty members, even lowly new assistant professors, do such work when students paid substantially less could do the work? Did it make sense to use employees with Ph.D.s to pull books off library shelves?

Over the years I’ve observed many other examples of inefficient use of faculty time. Historically, universities have simply not paid much attention to productivity. In fact, I know of no other large U.S. industry where productivity enhancement is such a low priority. That said, one of my delights from serving on the Webster board is that this university is so well structured to deliver education services efficiently. My lecture is not primarily about Webster, although perhaps I can encourage an active discussion among faculty and administration about opportunities for productivity enhancements at this university. In fact, I believe that in today’s world every firm needs a culture that includes a continuing search for better and more efficient ways to conduct business, and that the culture should involve every employee.

Before proceeding, I want to emphasize that the views I express here are mine and do not necessarily reflect official positions of the Federal Reserve System. I thank my colleagues at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis for their comments. Tom Garrett, Senior Economist in the Research Division, provided special assistance. However, I retain full responsibility for errors.

William Poole*
President, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

*I appreciate comments provided by my colleagues at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Thomas A. Garrett, Senior Economist in the Research Division, provided special assistance. I take full responsibility for errors. The views expressed are mine and do not necessarily reflect official positions of the Federal Reserve System.

Full Text: http://www.stlouisfed.org/news/speeches/2005/4_19_05.html