An oops about higher education coverage in the Post

Today, Post columnist Robert McCartney writes, in "Find the Money For Higher Education," about the need for more local funding for higher education in the region. I don't disagree. I want to get a PhD some day, and I don't want to spend tons of money to do so. For the subjects I am interested in (urban sociology, land use planning, transportation planning) there are limited options, especially within DC proper.

Plus, I have written plenty before about how the University of the District of Columbia could be restructured, about community college planning for DC (I recommend that DC join with Montgomery and/or Prince George's Counties and create a combined system, just as the counties in Northern Virginia have combined to create one community college system covering all the counties), not to mention how the college tuition program offered to DC residents only covers undergraduate education.

-- Thinking regionally: Community Colleges
-- Creating a community college in the District of Columbia
-- Have you ever known a college to shrink in size?

I might not have written about this column, except for one thing, it ends on a weak logical argument about how much the region cares about education, measured through the amount of coverage in the Washington Post. From the article:

Textbooks or Touchdowns?
Here's one measure of what interests the public about state universities: How many Post stories referred to presidents and coaches since the start of 2008?

Maryland president Mote: 26
Maryland football coach Ralph Friedgen: 177
Virginia president Casteen: 9
Virginia football coach Al Groh: 114

Of course there are more articles in the Washington Post about college football and basketball and coaches than on the system of higher education in DC, Maryland and Virgnia. Every day the Post includes a multi-page "sports" section.

By comparison, once each week the Post runs a single page on K-12 education. While the Post has a beat reporter on museums in Washington (Jacqueline Trescott), it lacks any assigned beat covering higher education in the region, while beat reporters are assigned to cover University of Maryland football and basketball, Virginia college sports, etc.

So Mr. McCartney needs to look a little more inward, at the Post, too. Although I don't disagree with him that way more needs to be done on higher education in the region.

E.g., I am concerned about the disconnections between higher education and economic development spinoffs within DC--i.e., comparable to how MIT and Harvard and Stanford spawn businesses, or the impact of medical education and research on health care related business spinoffs, etc. We just don't see much of this within DC proper, despite the presence of a number of reasonably respected universities.

But there are many other issues besides. Education, both at the K-12 level and the higher education level, is intimately connected to successful communities.