The mark of quality

One nondescript afternoon, I was sitting in Axinn pretending to work on my thesis. As if I weren’t already busy enough listening to the sounds of liquid trickling down stones and considering the mental riddle of the in vitrine miniature TV display, a tour came by. The tour guide seemed very sure of the names and histories of various things about Axinn that few students know so well. I would wager, however, that she knew little more about that antennae’d appliance than I.

Her confidence in the rest of these things and her choice to marshal this wide-eyed herd without remuneration, I believe, demonstrate that she has really enjoyed her time at Middlebury. Why would she willingly lecture about the buildings within which she felt prisoner, unless for talking’s sake? But nobody at Middlebury talks just to hear himself talk, say, in class, or writes a column just to see it in print. Now, I also believe that she believes, in one way or another, that Middlebury provided the perfect alignment of professors, MCAB-sponsored hypnotists and tempeh à la carp meals that resulted in her having a great time. In the eyes of the tourists, she both announces the quality of Middlebury — its academics, architecture, etc. — while signifying the mark of quality (i.e. here’s a well-spoken student who is smart and happy because the College made her so). She is a powerful saleswoman, a trustworthy proponent of the product, both a cause and result of her honest, non-economic desire that they attend Middlebury.

We are all well aware that this education must be purchased. That’s why, like any vacillating potential purchaser, we like reassurance. Sometimes when I’m essentially decided that I will buy a pair of athletic socks but haven’t yet walked to check out, I like to look at the label and read about its moisture-wicking technology. It’s the exceptional sweat transfer apparatus that glosses over my rationality and assures me that the 11 bucks is worth more than just knit cotton, and, on a grander scale, that I’m not on the losing side of the economic system (how can someone make a dollar without taking it from someone else?).

What’s Middlebury but a collection of moisture wicking technologies: marks of quality, or rather, what are meant as marks of quality? Wood paneling, winning records, expensive-sounding entrées they are appealing signifiers of the worth of this place. I enjoy all these things greatly, and don’t intend to part with them. I recognize, however, that these value-adding extras affect my personal well-being more than my academic maturation, and are mostly superfluous.

Just as Socks Incorporated creates these desires and markets them, the College creates value both real and illusory. As can be asked of both, does the product’s functionality in later use justify its price at purchase (a price that, it is worth mentioning, incorporates the costs required to convince me to purchase it)? There is no positive solution, only normative ones with differing criteria of value. For example, one polarized answer is that the Middlebury degree is worth its cost insofar as it leads to a well-paying job, earning its worth back and then some. This answer presupposes financial return as a measure of value. Most proponents of this view often mistakenly conflate the worth of the Middlebury degree with the worth of the Middlebury education. An individual at the other end of the spectrum might contend that the student’s development alone (perhaps in mind, body and spirit), although not really quantifiable, is worth some amount.

In purely fiscal terms, the future value of the liberal arts degree is far more valuable than the four-year Middlebury education. The degree is itself a signifier of value, not necessarily proof of it: moisture-wicking technology hyped beyond its ability to wick moisture. Employment contacts and alleged certification of the possessor’s ability to work hard inflate the cost of the education.

Now, let’s return to that nondescript afternoon. As I was watching, a father reached his hand out and rapped his knuckles on some Starr library wood. He was testing the quality of wood and its construction, as if a creaky panel in the library were indicative of a college’s obsolescence. This parent is going to buy his son a higher education, though at which college is yet to be determined. So, he’s in this purchaser’s state of limbo, essentially sold, but reading the label as proof of his good decision. That’s three-quarter inch oak, you know, really nice stuff. Logically, the good lumber is proportional to the good education. But it kind of is. The College must balance out its qualities everywhere, or it risks having one detract from the rest. Likewise, Jostens has graciously offered its soon-to-be graduates with several choices of over-priced diploma frames that best project our intelligence to others. The Jostens people know that a college education this expensive needs a proportionally expensive frame. My point of all this discussion? It just seems unfortunate that education is perceived according to monetary, not academic, value.