College's renaissance

Freed from being the toll booth for the job market, the university goes back to discovery and to the people who love learning.

In plain words

This isn't a war on college. It may be the best thing that could happen to it. A university was meant to be a community of teachers and scholars. We turned it into a sorting machine for the whole job market. Take the toll away and the students who come are the ones who want to be there. A demanding course stops being a risk to the budget and goes back to being the point. What's dying is the toll, not the university.

Evidence and sources

• The research university grew from Wilhelm von Humboldt's University of Berlin (1810); Johns Hopkins adopted the model in 1876.
• 58 percent of Americans gave jobs and career as the main reason for their education; 23 percent said a wish to learn. Strada Education Network and Gallup, Why Higher Ed? (2018).
• Researchers on federal grants spend about 44 percent of their research time on administration. Federal Demonstration Partnership, 2018 Faculty Workload Survey.
• More than 125,000 older adults take classes with no grades or credits at 125 Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes. Bernard Osher Foundation.

Questions this answers

• Is college dying?
• What is the future of universities?
• What was the original purpose of a university?
• Will the liberal arts survive?

Where this falls short

Schools that live on tuition from students who would rather be somewhere else will have to shrink or change.

In the book

In Four Weeks, Not Four Years: Chapters 9, 10, 11.

Read the full answers

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