The talented professors/writers Claudia Dreifus and Andrew Hacker have a new book coming out in August called Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids—and What We Can Do About It. It's a topic CM and I frequently explore here so I'm very much looking forward to this one. Yesterday's Chronicle of Higher Eduction included an interesting article adapted from their book entitled, Are Colleges Worth the Price of Admission? Good question. Hacker and Dreifus begin: Tuition charges at both public and private colleges have more than doubled—in real dollars—compared with a generation ago. For most Americans, educating their offspring will be the largest financial outlay, after their home mortgage, they'll ever make. And if parents can't or won't pay, young people often find themselves burdened with staggering loans. Graduating with six figures' worth of debt is becoming increasingly common. So are colleges giving good value for those investments? What are families buying? What are individuals—and our society as a whole—gaining from higher education?
So after years of interviews with policymakers, students, and university leaders... Their conclusion?
Colleges are taking on too many roles and doing none of them well. They are staffed by casts ...