EDUCATION, OR LACK THEREOF

Cathy N. Davidson, The New Education: How to Revolutionize the University to Prepare Students for a World in Flux  (New York: Basic Books, 2017) ("In the last decade, it has become fashionable to say higher education would be more efficient and modern if it were run as a business, treating students as 'customers.' This notion could not be more wrongheaded--wrong as a business model and wrong as a mission. It turns the massive investment we must make in the next generation's future into a cash cow for the handful of people producing whatever can be sold to educational institutions. The goal of helping young people transform themselves into adults who can thrive in tough times is subverted, turned into someone else's financial opportunity. A deep conflict of interest turns educational institutions into intermediaries in an operation whose primary goal is to report growth to shareholders while secondarily selling services and goods to students. Learning doesn't seem part of the business plan." Id. at 11-12.).