What’s College For?

College costs keep rising, but Kathleen Parker argues that the more serious problem is that students are no longer getting “much bang for their buck.” 

Parker sites a study from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni that criticizes colleges for “an increasing lack of academic rigor, grade inflation, high administrative costs and a lack of intellectual diversity.” She describes the problem as “a breach of trust between colleges and the students they attract with diversions and amenities that have little bearing on education and that will be of little use in the job market.” Colleges are administratively top-heavy, with most of those assessed spending one-third of their academic budget on administration.

It’s a crisis, no doubt. But Parker doesn’t quite get to the bottom of it. The crisis should do more than catalyze an improvement of the current system. It should instead force a reconsideration of the purposes of college education and of our societal decision to make it a form of vocational training.