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A New Course
UNIVERSITIES FACE PROBLEMS THAT CHRISTOPHER LASCH
DENTIEIED 34 YEARS AGO, HAS THE TIME COME TO EIX THEM?
MAGDALENA KAY
JUDGING BY THE SPATE OF BOOKS that
have addressed a sense of crisis in American higher education over the past 50 years, the university system has been in trouble for a long time, and shows no signs of improvement. Ifs a strange situation: American universities consistently garner the top spots in international rankings, research scholars are constantly quoted by newspaper articles and news shows, and American presidents all seem to have Ivy League credentials. Tuition costs are hitting astronomical highs—approaching the average American's annual salary—and yet students apply to college in massive numbers, apparently undeterred by the prospect of massive debt or the impoverishment oftheir parents' bank accounts, or both. If the Higher Education
Act is not reauthorized this year, fewer students might be tempted to take this plunge.
But cost is not what all the fuss is about—at least, not only cost.
Books on the decline of the university come out regularly, with titles that are often stunninglyblunt,suchas The University in Ruins, The Moral Collapse of the University, and Tyrannical Machines: A Report on Educational Practices Gone Wrong and Our Best
Hopes for Setting Them Right. Other titles give a specific diagnosis, such as Impostors in the Temple: American Intellectuals Are Destroying Our Universities and Cheating
Our Students of Their Future. Recent titles sometimes promise a narrative of recovery, such as Our Underachieving Colleges: A Candid Look at How Much Students Learn and
Why They Should Be Learning More or College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be. Such titles seem to point in very different directions: Is there a problem with students, with teachers, with administrators, or maybe with government? If you dare to assert that you don't see any problem at all, you're going to feel pretty lonely This
UNIVERSITIES FACE PROBLEMS THAT CHRISTOPHER LASCH
DENTIEIED 34 YEARS AGO, HAS THE TIME COME TO EIX THEM?
MAGDALENA KAY
JUDGING BY THE SPATE OF BOOKS that
have addressed a sense of crisis in American higher education over the past 50 years, the university system has been in trouble for a long time, and shows no signs of improvement. Ifs a strange situation: American universities consistently garner the top spots in international rankings, research scholars are constantly quoted by newspaper articles and news shows, and American presidents all seem to have Ivy League credentials. Tuition costs are hitting astronomical highs—approaching the average American's annual salary—and yet students apply to college in massive numbers, apparently undeterred by the prospect of massive debt or the impoverishment oftheir parents' bank accounts, or both. If the Higher Education
Act is not reauthorized this year, fewer students might be tempted to take this plunge.
But cost is not what all the fuss is about—at least, not only cost.
Books on the decline of the university come out regularly, with titles that are often stunninglyblunt,suchas The University in Ruins, The Moral Collapse of the University, and Tyrannical Machines: A Report on Educational Practices Gone Wrong and Our Best
Hopes for Setting Them Right. Other titles give a specific diagnosis, such as Impostors in the Temple: American Intellectuals Are Destroying Our Universities and Cheating
Our Students of Their Future. Recent titles sometimes promise a narrative of recovery, such as Our Underachieving Colleges: A Candid Look at How Much Students Learn and
Why They Should Be Learning More or College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be. Such titles seem to point in very different directions: Is there a problem with students, with teachers, with administrators, or maybe with government? If you dare to assert that you don't see any problem at all, you're going to feel pretty lonely This