College Tosses Baby, Hoards Bathwater?
"Crushing debt, dismal job prospects and the delay of important adult milestones such as buying a home and starting a family are the logical outgrowth of a system that sets its priorities this way. Nor is it just our students who are suffering; the economy as a whole is being dragged down by the failure to equip the next generation to compete in a workforce environment that their grandparents, and increasingly even their parents, don’t recognize anymore.
No doubt there are those who disagree, but new vice chancellors for diversity and inclusion (or for anything else for that matter, vice chancellors for saving money and cutting unnecessary costs exempted) should only be created when all other costs are safely under control and no serious cutbacks are being made to core academic departments. One consequence of the academic cost squeeze now under way is that more and more people (students, parents, taxpayers, legislators) are going to start looking under the hood to see just why the engine is running so poorly and getting such bad gas mileage. As that happens, a lot of the academy’s most cherished ideas are going to come under intense political and economic threat."
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