Christopher Orlet has written an excellent review of Education's End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life by Anthony T Kronman. Key paragraph:
AT ONE TIME the purpose of a university education was to give future leaders an opportunity -- before they shouldered the dull burdens of civic responsibility -- to explore the purpose and value of life. By instilling a strong sense of history, of reason, of logic, of the best of what has been thought and said, a background in the Humanities would prepare a young scholar for whatever may lie ahead.
This, at least, had been the belief going back to Plato's Republic.