Delight Springs

Thursday, August 22, 2024

“What Are You Going to Do With That?”

"Does anyone believe in college education anymore? "

Thus begins Erik Baker's "disillusioning" Harper's essay, not exactly the inspiration I'm looking for as another semester is about to begin. Baker continues:
Republicans certainly don't—a mere 19 percent of them expressed "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in higher education in a Gallup poll last year. But we already knew that. More striking is that Democrats' confidence is down to 59 percent. Men, women, young people, the middle-aged, and the elderly range from ambivalent about to decidedly wary of today's colleges and universities. Of college graduates themselves, only 47 percent were able to muster more than "some" confidence in the institutions that minted their credentials. No wonder fewer students are enrolling in college after high school and fewer students who matriculate stay on track to finish their degrees.

On campus, the atmosphere of disillusionment is just as thick—including at elite schools like Harvard, where I teach. College administrators have made it clear that education is no longer their top priority...
But I say reports of the death of higher education and the humanities are greatly exaggerated. I can't do much about administrators, but I'm pretty sure I can persuade at least a few students that reading and learning are good for them, for their democracy, for their humanity. Some of those students will have their lives altered positively and permanently when they learn to love learning. 

What are they going to do with that? They are going to flourish, they're going to be good and they're going to be happy. And we're all going to be the better for it.

So I do look forward, again and perennially, to Opening Day



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