U.S. Department of Education
Jan. 17, 2023
Kevin Carey was cited in an article by Big Think about how liberal arts majors can save higher education.
One of the shocking things I discovered, writing this book, is how much of what we read and hear about education is simply not true. Mainstream media turn to business leaders, politicians, tech moguls, for “expert” opinions. They’re more likely to accept a press release from a billionaire-funded think tank or foundation than ask an educator, so they perpetuate the narrative of higher education as a “broken fiscal model” that needs to be transformed, to be made more like business.
They feature attention-grabbing stories of admissions scandals, athletic scandals, snowflake students, “cancel” culture — “if it bleeds, it leads” — stories that highlight what’s wrong with higher education, but have little relevance to the experience of most undergraduates. The media give disrupters inordinate air time. Kevin Carey, author of The End of College, and Ryan Craig, author of College Disrupted, advocate doing away with “bricks and mortar” colleges and “unbundling” higher education into online learning and workplace-directed programs. For them, as for [Bill] Gates, the “value” of higher education is measurable and monetary, training that yields maximum return on investment.
One of the shocking things I discovered, writing this book, is how much of what we read and hear about education is simply not true. Mainstream media turn to business leaders, politicians, tech moguls, for “expert” opinions. They’re more likely to accept a press release from a billionaire-funded think tank or foundation than ask an educator, so they perpetuate the narrative of higher education as a “broken fiscal model” that needs to be transformed, to be made more like business.
They feature attention-grabbing stories of admissions scandals, athletic scandals, snowflake students, “cancel” culture — “if it bleeds, it leads” — stories that highlight what’s wrong with higher education, but have little relevance to the experience of most undergraduates. The media give disrupters inordinate air time. Kevin Carey, author of The End of College, and Ryan Craig, author of College Disrupted, advocate doing away with “bricks and mortar” colleges and “unbundling” higher education into online learning and workplace-directed programs. For them, as for [Bill] Gates, the “value” of higher education is measurable and monetary, training that yields maximum return on investment.
Read the full article here.