A toilet bowl born too late...

Well, you know historically the situation was very much reversed. Students paid professors by the lecture. So, unpopular lecturers couldn't attract the funds to stay in business. Consider:

In the 12th century, Bologna was a center of intellectual and cultural life. Students came to Bologna from all over Europe to study with prominent scholars. These individual professors were not originally organized into a university; each one operated freelance, offering courses on his own and charging whatever fees students were willing to pay. If a professor was a lousy teacher or charged too much, his students would switch to a different professor; professors had to compete for students, and would get paid only if students found their courses worth taking.

This information is from "A University Built by the Invisible Hand" by Roderick T. Long.

I think our gut reaction to complaints like this is to accuse the dissidents of being ungrateful little wretches who just don't get it. It's certainly true that a certain amount of autonomy has its advantages for teachers, and we can argue that the students just don't know what's best for them. We also tend to think of educating students as menial "paying our dues" kind of work, whereas what we really want to do and should be doing is working on our research. This model doesn't work very well for students.

That said, I don't think many things would change even if we DID revert to a model where we were paid based on the number of students we taught each semester--assuming that we were allowed to set our own fees. Assuming that students were still required to take certain courses, they probably would either sign up for the cheapest teacher everytime or the one with the best reputation. I think students would quickly figure out that the first option isn't the most conducive to a good education. Also, this practice would force teachers to compete with each other and likely take a real and sudden interest in making their classes more useful, invigorating, and shallow. The goal would b not so much to ensure that students learned a lot, but that they BELIEVED they had learned a lot.

This kind of model is still practiced in some kinds of teaching. For example, let's say I want guitar lessons. I would pay a tutor or for some classes and would likely only stay in them if the teacher could make me feel that I had potential and gave enjoyable lessons. The teacher would want to please me because I might tell others to hire her services or give bad word of mouth. This leaves these poor folks with no choice but to compliment and praise the talents and potential of even the most tone-deaf and utterly incapable aspiring musicians for the sake of a paycheck.

It's hard to say how standards would change under a pay-per-lecture model, because I noticed that my own students' performances increase dramatically when I offer a more challenging curriculum and set very high standards. They tend to take the class very seriously then and give me stellar evaluations at the end (assuming that I've taught them how to improve their work so their grades steadily improve). It might be rather like a private doctor who must convince a patient that there is indeed something very wrong with him, and if he doesn't agree to weekly appointments and lots of pills then death is imminent. Thus, part of our responsibilities would be to show three things--one, writing is very important; two, the student has a LOT to learn, and three, we can offer the best method to become a quality writer. We'd have to establish ourselves by offering up examples of not only our own proficiency, but examples of previous students who have gone on to illustrious writing careers (or at least were recognized for their writing talent).

Another angle

Let's consider a different approach to getting paid by results. Most of us are paid on standard scales related to rank, years of service and the like. At my community college, all faculty are paid on the same schedule.

And each of us in composition gets the same number of students per section to start the term. Let's say I work really hard and get 80% of my students to meet the course standards and pass. Let's say one of my colleague runs his class so that only 40% of the students are left at the end of the term. He's had to read fewer papers than me, has done less work than me, and produces poorer completion rates. He may claim he is upholding standards, but he's also getting the same pay for a lot less effort.

Since I'm at a tax-supported open admissions institution, the students' economic class status is not a significant factor in college revenues. But within that system, there's no mechanism for rewarding a professor who is effective at getting students to learn and perform well. And, for what it's worth, my 80% vs. 40% example is not hypothetical.

Consider this remedy: let's say that with normal attrition, 75% of students should pass a composition course. Now, let's have the faculty construct a program-wide assessment process (holistic, portfolio, something solid). Let's say the year's load is 200 students enrolled. As soon as I get 150 students to pass the departmental exam, I get my full pay. If I want to keep working, I get overload pay. Or I can take time to work on other projects, presuming I can get my 150 students to pass in less than a year.

Such a system has clear accountability and would get away from seat-time approaches to education. It might even change the attitude of the young journalist at the U of Zero.