College is not a commodity. Stop treating it like one. - The Washington Post - 32 views
www.washingtonpost.com/...dity-stop-treating-it-like-one
college commodity highered teaching waspost article socy201 socy402
shared by smilex3md on 18 Jun 15
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What truly makes an education valuable: the effort the student puts into it.
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Unlike a car, college requires the “buyer” to do most of the work to obtain its value. The value of a degree depends more on the student’s input than on the college’s curriculum.
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Yet most public discussion of higher ed today pretends that students simply receive their education from colleges the way a person walks out of Best Buy with a television.
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If colleges are responsible for outcomes, then students can feel entitled to classes that do not push them too hard, to high grades and to material that does not challenge their assumptions or make them uncomfortable.
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This point is made succinctly by an apocryphal story about a university president who said this to new freshmen each year: “For those of you who have come here in order to get a degree, congratulations, I have good news for you. I am giving you your degree today and you can go home now. For those who came to get an education, welcome to four great years of learning at this university.”