Grading Higher Education

More than a century ago, the president of Harvard, A. Lawrence Lowell, issued a warning to America’s colleges and universities. “Institutions,” he said, “are rarely murdered. They meet their end by suicide … They die because they have outlived their usefulness, or fail to do the work that the world wants done.” Most of the institutions he had in mind are still around today, but the doomsday talk is back. William J. Bennett, secretary of education under President Reagan, and Jeffrey Selingo, an editor at The Chronicle of Higher Education, believe our system is self-destructing. Their tones are different — Bennett and his co-author, David Wilezol, write in an expectant mood of good riddance, while Selingo is sympathetically alarmed — but their views are grimly consistent. College costs are up. Learning and graduation rates are down. nyt.

I libri di cui si parla sono: William J. Bennett e David Wilezol, Is College Worth It? (Thomas Nelson); e Jeffrey Selingo, College Unbound (New Harvest).