For nearly two decades, pundits have been predicting the demise of higher education in the United States. Our colleges and universities will soon find themselves competing for students with universities from around the world. With the advent of massive open online courses ("MOOCS") over the past two years, predictions that higher education will be the next industry to undergo "disruption" have become more frequent and fervent. Currently a university's...

As the commercialization of American higher education accelerates, more and more students are coming to college with the narrow aim of obtaining a preprofessional credential. The traditional four-year college experience-an exploratory time for students to discover their passions and test ideas and values with the help of teachers and peers-is in danger of becoming a thing of the past. In College, prominent cultural critic Andrew Delbanco offers a...

The liberal arts are under attack. The governors of Florida, Texas, and North Carolina have all pledged that they will not spend taxpayer money subsidizing the liberal arts, and they seem to have an unlikely ally in President Obama. While at a General Electric plant in early 2014, Obama remarked, "I promise you, folks can make a lot more, potentially, with skilled manufacturing or the trades than they might with an art history degree." These messages...

"This book offers a counterpoint to the critical thinking that characterizes much of the discourse in the humanities. The author asks readers to rethink how we teach the humanities, addresses why we should, and argues strongly that we have lost touch with "generous thinking," the author's term for the ability to create, empathize, and build rather than simply tear apart. Thinking creatively and cooperatively is a hallmark of humanistic thinking that...

Are undergraduates really learning anything once they get to college? The answer is no. As troubling as their findings are, the authors argue that for many faculty and administrators this conclusion will come as no surprise and is the expected result of a student body distracted by socializing or working and an institutional culture that puts undergraduate learning close to the bottom of the priority list.

"Arguing that college-level reading must be theorized as foundationally linked to any understanding of college-level writing, editors Patrick Sullivan, Howard Tinberg, and Sheridan Blau continue the conversation begun in What Is "College-Level" Writing? (2006) and What Is "College-Level" Writing? Volume 2: Assignments, Readings, and Student Writing Samples (2010). Measurements of reading abilities show a decline nationwide among most cohorts of students,...

As a professor at Yale, Bill Deresiewicz saw something that troubled him deeply. His students, some of the nation's brightest minds, were adrift when it came to the big questions: how to think critically and creatively, and how to find a sense of purpose. Excellent Sheep takes a sharp look at the high-pressure conveyor belt that begins with parents and counselors who demand perfect grades and culminates in the skewed applications Deresiewicz saw firsthand...