Many of our colleges and universities have figured out that they can attract and keep more students (and their money) by offering them more entertainment than education. As long as the tuition keeps flowing in, who cares whether students learn much or little?
In today’s Martin Center article, Elizabeth Chen looks into general education courses at several schools, beginning with Harvard.
She writes:
In the current landscape of higher education, typical general education requirements are overly broad and lack rigor. Not only do they include a litany of unnecessary courses, but they are also missing the material needed to cultivate good citizenship or develop essential skills for the workplace. A standardized general education curriculum can solve this problem by removing nonessential courses and requiring all students to take courses that will actually help them.
How bad is it? Chen provides lots of evidence.
Read the whole thing.