Along with the growth of public universities, private universities have mushroomed in major urban areas. While public and private universities are both hubs of higher education, they are indeed distinct entities. Compared to public universities, private universities are smaller in infrastructure and student body, narrower in operational scope (i.e., instructional areas, research agendas, and public services) and more expensive in terms of tuition and fees. This article examines how different pre-existing perspectives in our public and private universities dwarf the learning process.

Return-on-Investment
We are all painfully aware that tuition and fees in some of the private universities are prohibitively high. Extremely high tuition and fees force parents to monetize their children's education. Many have wondered whether a bachelor's degree in computer science or economics from NSU is worth the many lakhs of taka that it requires. Vartan Gregorian, one of the leading educators in the US, argues that higher tuition leads people to evaluate education in terms of return-on-investment (ROI). This ROI mode of thinking is a far cry from learning for the sake of evolving as a human.

Taking-for-Granted
At the polar extreme of the ROI mode of thinking exists an orientation that takes education for granted. In making higher education financially affordable, our public universities charge such infinitesimal tuition and fees that education from such a system appears less worthy. When annual tuition and fees are less than the monthly allowance of cigarettes (for some), would that not tempt students to blow smoke in the name of education? While public universities incur huge expenses to teach their students, students have little opportunity to experience first-hand the costly nature of their education. Thus, many students fail to perceive the actual value of their nearly-free, public funded higher education. As a result, it becomes increasingly difficult for public university students to appreciate the education that they receive. Under such circumstances, education becomes expendable, furthering the deterioration of our public universities.

Utilitarian
Conceptualizing higher education as a means to an end is yet another debasing way of viewing education. This tendency is prevalent in both public and private universities of our country. Students, parents, friends, and relatives -- all view education in terms of its scope of direct utilization. The problem with direct utilization of learned materials is that we commodify the intellectual process and relegate philosophically grounded subjects to trade applications. A brilliant resolution to this problem comes from F. Scott Fitzgerald, the great American writer: "[w]hat we must decide is perhaps how we are valuable, rather than how valuable we are."

While trade applications are good, they fail to capture the breadth of education. Trade is concerned with "how," "when," and "where." Philosophically grounded education also explores "why" and "wherefrom?" When we pursue education as a trade application our static capability increases. We become capable of completing balance sheets or solving differential equations. But we never stop to wonder why we complete our balance sheets in the way we do or why we muster differential equations. To again quote Vartan Gregorian: "Now, more than ever, the university has to teach you … not only what you know, but also what you don't know." There exists a pervasive tendency in our society to mindlessly follow established routines. In other words, we are drawn to apply what we know, but are comfortably ignorant about what we do not know. This stunts critical thinking, which is the essence of higher education.

Degree = Education
Perhaps years of deterioration in public universities has also made many of our students and a large part of our society oblivious to the true ethos of education. In both public and private universities, students take a certain number of courses following a specific combination to fulfill their degree requirements, seldom questioning the purpose of their education. A set number of courses may suffice for a degree, but true education happens when the student becomes illuminated by her or his acquired knowledge, when the student pledges to be committed to the lifelong pursuit of learning.

At its core, university education is about learning to learn. An analogy may help: if learning and fishing were parallel, effective education would give our students the capability to fish for life, regardless of their location and other external conditions. Unfortunately, recent models of education in both our public and private universities are more about fishing for only a certain amount of fish. Whether the student will be able to fish for the rest of her or his life, or more importantly, whether the student would want to fish for the rest of her or his life is not a pronounced concern of our public and private universities.

Noushi Rahman, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Management, Lubin School of Business, Pace University, New York.