20 April 1973
Much publicity has been given recently to an alleged “glut” in graduate education. Let us examine this situation for a moment by asking and answering some important questions.
Question: Why is graduate education valued so highly in our culture?
Answer: In part the answer is tradition. The ideal man in western civilization has been “a gentleman and a scholar.” To be a scholar enables one to be a “knower.” Knowledge is liberating and exhilarating. Many also seek to engage in intellectual pursuits because they give a person a station in life above the menial. Many persons in our culture think that it is degrading to earn a livelihood in a way that dirties one’s hands.
Another reason why graduate education is highly valued is that ofttimes it enables a person to achieve a technical competence that is needed by society. Engineers and scientists particularly, including both physical and social engineers and scientists, have been much sought after in recent times. Accountants and information specialists are in demand.
In sum: Graduate education has great social and often great vocational value.
Question: Why has there been such a marked increase in persons receiving higher degrees?
Answer: The reason for the increase is again twofold. Because of the great cultural value placed on graduate degrees, great masses of people see them as their personal key to joining the elite of our society. Every underprivileged (that is to say non-elite) parent would like to see his children join the higher ranks, to become elite. So in this age of social egalitarianism, education has come to be seen as an inherent political “right” by which minorities and repressed persons are to be given their fair share of the civilization’s glory. It is dimly recognized that if everyone had a Ph.D. then the Ph.D. would be of no value to anyone. But since relatively few persons do, there is still great advantage in being called “Doctor” even though the value is diminishing.
The second main reason for the increase in persons with higher degrees is money. The Federal Government, being persuaded of a national emergency, has poured billions of dollars into degree production.
In sum: The increase in graduate degrees is due to social and political pressures.
Question: Is there a real glut?
Answer: There is an oversupply in some fields. Fields that are directly oriented to vocational needs of society other than teaching are faring much better.
Question: Will the oversupply continue?
Answer: The desire for upward social movement with its attendant political pressure will assure continuing oversupply, supposing economic stability. Private universities have cut back but state institutions continue to increase in all fields. Only the lack of funds prevents increasing oversupply.
Question: What are the results of oversupply?
Answer: An oversupply creates a buyers’ market, which means that quality of product becomes very important. Business and industry will tend to profit from some oversupply in that they can pick and choose more. But the oversupply is least in the areas needed by business and industry.
Under the free market, universities would also profit from the oversupply, for it is in the fields that lead to university teaching that we have the greatest oversupply. But we do not have a free market. The system of tenure assures that year of being hired, not competence, is the criterion for continuing university employment. Able graduates in the humanities and social sciences may have to be jobless or under-hired and to be content with their increased social status.
Question: What is the best strategy for a person to pursue in a buyers’ market?
Answer: Be good. To be good in your field means mostly to be well-disciplined and hard-working. It is your continuing production, not your past laurels which count.
Question: Can a “good” person really break into the tight market?
Answer: The oversupply is strictly in “ordinary” graduates. Extraordinary people are always in demand.
Every day I see inquiries from search committees, ads in papers, requests from friends for extraordinary people.
Question: What are the characteristics of this extraordinary type of person?
Answer: The answer is three-fold:
- It is to be good in your field, as mentioned before. Have you published? Have you done an outstanding piece of research? Do you know the frontiers of your field? Do you have a “magnificent obsession” that makes you work on even if you are not being paid for it?
- Are you a good person? Are you steady, resilient, resourceful? Do you have your passions and appetites in control? Is your family life happy and stable? Are you cheerful, gracious, grateful?
- Are you a good leader? Do you have a keen sense of right and wrong, and do you openly stand for what is right? Do you have vision, so that you are able to plan wisely and fulfill those plans? Are you able to enlist the support of others through persuasion and information? Do you help everyone on your team to achieve every satisfaction you achieve?
For all of our social and material glory, our great need today is for intelligent, righteous leadership. How sad to see men and women poorly trained, or self-indulgers, or unable to muster backbone, or blind to possibilities, or unable to change, or unwilling to follow, or unable to share; cynics, backbiters, given to lucre, faint of heart.
Question: Doesn’t all this begin to smack of religion?
Answer: Indeed it does. Religion is the ordering of life. No man can every rise above the personal religion he espouses. (A person’s personal religion and his church may be two different things.) Every personal and social problem can be shown to be a problem of religion. Poverty, ignorance, war, are all functions of religion as are plenty, intelligence, and peace. The real solution to the world’s problems is in religion. If men could and would repent, that is to say, to exchange their false beliefs for true ones and their evil desires and poor habits for good desires and good habits, then we could solve every problem, including all of yours and mine.
But how can the world repent? Most people don’t even believe that what we call repentance is possible. The only hope the world has is to see true repentance. Then they will know it is possible. This is where you come in.
You who graduate from Brigham Young University know of the true and restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. If you live that Gospel, you will come to exemplify every good thing I have mentioned today. Brigham Young University certifies to the world today that you have basic competence in your chosen field. But it is up to you to be and to demonstrate to the world that you are also a good person and a good leader.
The world has mistakenly thought that academic training was sufficient to provide the leadership the world needs. Operating on that principle has caused us to go round and round, from war to war, from tax to tax, from program to program with little real change in our human situation. What the world needs is not just you, but a repentant you made over in the image of our Lord and master, Jesus Christ.
In the midst of all else that transpires today, I hope you will remember that today is the occasion set aside annually to commemorate that greatest of all events of history, the atonement of our Savior. In that sacrifice on the cross, our Master fulfilled His perfect example to us. There is nothing fine which we could ever hope to attain wherein He has not set the example of perfection in that already. We say we believe in seeking after those things that are virtuous, lovely, of good report, or praiseworthy. Of all things or persons, Jesus Christ is the most virtuous, lovely, of good report and praiseworthy. We can do no better than to become exactly as He is.
We send you forth today as graduates, to do good among men. Our Savior sends us all forth as His children, to be the salt of the earth, to bring full and true salvation within the grasp of every nation, kindred, tongue and people. It is our hope that you go forth to serve, not to be served; to love purely, to sacrifice, to establish Zion. May you be giants of strength among fearful companions. May you be islands of righteousness in a sea of instability. May you desire and lay hold of every good thing. May we all honor our Master as He has honored us. This is my hope and prayer for you and for all of us.