Harvard President Misses What College Really Is in Most of the Country

Harvard President Faust on federal college ratings, campus sexual assault and more – The Washington Post.

I commented.

“I have read Pres. Faust’s speech. I read it as a former professor, (I taught at Wash. U. in St. Louis.) As it is, it is highly misleading – probably due to a lack of Pres. Faust’s experience.

The speech should be titled “The Case for College – As It Should Be”. But to say, for example, that “…College can offer you the satisfaction of hard, intellectual work…” is misleading.

Most of what Prof. Faust says flies in the face of the facts. In “Academically Adrift”, Arum and Roksa show that students in the 60’s had to study 25 hours a week to learn what was required. Now it is 13. More importantly, the increase in critical thinking has dropped from one sigma (above what students came in with) to almost zero.

Much more can be said, and it is , on my blog inside-higher-ed . There, I document incidents that show that, If “The Case for College” really is the case for college, then Pres. Faust is talking about something totally different than what is really out there that calls itself “college”.”…more