Why We Have College

     The June 6 issue of the New Yorker has an article by Louis Menand entitled Live and learn,  and subtitled, Why We Have College.   The questions he raises are mostly the same ones raised in my post of April 1, entitled Should Education be sold as Job Training?   In my post I asked whether college is to be sold as a job training program,  or does college exist to teach those skills we need to live successful lives, but are not likely to learn anywhere else.
    Menand approaches the subject from the opposite perspective of that taken in my post.   I wrote as a retired person recalling an argument I had with a professor when I entered college, over a half century ago. Menand, a retired professor who has taught at Harvard and also at CUNY, begins by recalling an argument with a student a half century ago.  But he asks the same questions--and adds yet another.  In addition the the two possible functions of college which I cited, he also suggests that a college curriculum may be merely an arbitrary set of hoops we force students to jump through as a way of separating the incompetent from the competent--a sort of four year IQ test.  As such, a college is merely a credentialing service.
     I discussed the article with a retired professor of my acquaintance, and I had assumed that he would dismiss out of hand the idea that curriculum content is arbitrarily chosen. But he did not.  He thought that all three supposed functions of college may have some validity, including the "credentialing" function. He cited as evidence the fact that often people who earn a PhD in some abstruse field never secure a job in that field, but are offered a position in some other field.  By earning the PhD, they proved that they are capable of dealing with complex material, and were therefore qualified for the job.  Take a look at Menand's piece if you have any interest in the direction of higher education. (Note:  This link runs a little slow, but be patient and you'll get there.) And then check out my post of April 1.