What is college for?

"In particular, the university curriculum leaves students disengaged from the material they are supposed to be learning.  They [students] see most of their courses as intrinsically “boring,” of value only if they provide training relevant to future employment or if the teacher has a pleasing (amusing, exciting, “relevant”) way of presenting the material. As a result, students spend only as much time as they need to get what they see as acceptable grades (on average, about 12 to 14 hour a week for all courses combined).  Professors have ceased to expect genuine engagement from students and often give good grades (B or better) to work that is at best minimally adequate."

Opinion

The Stone: What Is College For?

By GARY GUTTING

Published: December 14, 2011

Our views on the "failure" of higher education may be based on a basic misunderstanding of its essential function.

 http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/what-is-college-for/

Intellectuals and Politics

We discussed something similar in Health Economics on Thursday...

NYT Opinion
The Stone: Intellectuals and Politics... Good politicians don't need to be intellectuals, but they should at least have intellectual lives.
By GARY GUTTING Published: December 7, 2011


"It’s often said that what our leaders need is common sense, not fancy theories.  But common-sense ideas that work in individuals’ everyday lives are often useless for dealing with complex problems of society as a whole.  For example, it’s common sense that government payments to the unemployed will lead to more jobs because those receiving the payments will spend the money, thereby increasing demand, which will lead businesses to hire more workers.  But it’s also common sense that if people are paid for not working, they will have less incentive to work, which will increase unemployment.  The trick is to find the amount of unemployment benefits that will strike the most effective balance between stimulating demand and discouraging employment.  This is where our leaders need to talk to economists."  (emphasis added)

Link to full article:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/intellectuals-and-politics/