College and University education is coming under more and more scrutiny, and well it should. Today I came across Phi Beta Cons, a National Review blog with the subtitle, "The Right Take on Higher Education." It's excellent, and deserves frequent visits. Below is a sampling taken almost at random.
High School and College
[Carol Iannone 03/27 01:40 PM]I agree with both George Leef's Watered Down remarks (that the college degree has become a form of credentialling, more than a sign of real education) and Peter Wood's Majors for Minors remarks (that rather than encouraging all students to go to college, we should concentrate on giving them a good high-school education). But as long as employers require the college degree, or at least some college credits, and these therefore do correlate with higher income, it seems the universities and colleges have assured themselves of a continuing stream of customers. Perhaps as efforts to improve lower education yield results, the high-school degree will guarantee more capability and employers will see that they do not need to require (and often pay for) expensive college credits. . .
What started out as a well-intentioned effort to extend access to college to anyone who wanted it, had the unintended consequence of making college a practical necessity, thereby dumbing down both college and high-school curricula. (As Wood remarks, knowing that college admission is almost guaranteed meant that high schools didn't have to work as hard to prepare students properly.)