"The Overselling of Higher Education"

Parents Forum
32

<p>idad, thanks for posting the U of Chicago piece - the last line is telling: “There are no aims of education. The aim is education. If—and only if—you seek it…education will find you. Welcome to the University of Chicago”. All in all, a compelling argument that a four-year, elite liberal arts education is just that - elite, and as such, it is certainly not the only path to enlightenment (or success in the job market) out there.</p>

<p>Also of interest, is Stuart Tannock’s article “Higher Education, Inequality and the Public Good”: </p>

<p>"Yet even as demand for college education swells across the nation, the sobering truth is that college, in its current form at least, can help only a few of us resolve our labor market difficulties. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, no more than 30 percent of jobs in the United States currently, and for the foreseeable future, will require a college degree. </p>

<p>“Unless we rethink fundamentally the approach we have been taking to college we may well be backing ourselves into a corner from which there is no way out. Such rethinking requires us to enter into a new conversation about the relation of higher education not just to inequality in this country (and beyond) but also to our vision of the “public good.” This conversation needs to include individuals of all social backgrounds, occupations, and levels of income and education—unlike today’s, in which research and debate on higher education is preoccupied with what is happening on college campuses, in isolation from what is happening away from them, and is dominated by the voices of current and former chancellors, provosts, and presidents from elite universities.”…</p>

<p>“SINCE THE BEGINNING of this country, public and private institutions of higher education have received extensive public financial support, in the form of direct subsidy and investment, as well as through tax breaks to college students and their families and tax exemptions to colleges and their donors. Unlike with primary and secondary schools, we have never expected colleges (particularly four-year colleges) to serve directly all individuals in the country—including the shift, in the period following the Second World War, from an “elite” to a so-called “mass” or “universal” model of higher education. But we have expected—and we should expect—that, in return for public support, colleges will benefit all of us, even if indirectly, regardless of whether we go to college or not.”</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=407[/url]”>http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=407&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;