epiminondas writes:
It is becoming increasingly evident that we are putting the cart before the horse. We have great colleges BECAUSE we’re wealthy…not the other way around.
epiminondas writes:
It is becoming increasingly evident that we are putting the cart before the horse. We have great colleges BECAUSE we’re wealthy…not the other way around.
Personally, I’m not a big fan of Tamny over at Forbes, but he’s probably more or less right about this.
LikeLike
The back-asswardness of the higher ed/prosperity correlation was thoroughly, convincingly, proved a decade ago by Alison Wolf in the UK. Of course no one listened. I’ve reviewed her book here.
LikeLike
If Forbes is going to have a two-step process to reach the site, at least it could be an ad. What is the point of the Forbes thought of the day, other than annoying me?
LikeLike
Hopefully, your journey was worth it.
LikeLike
America and Britain have great universities because we won the Big One, WWII. The losers, whether Germany in 1945 or France in 1940, made their ancient universities less elite after WWII as penance for the Old Ways. Open admissions and all that. Britain and the U.S. kept Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, and Yale intact and even fortified:
http://www.vdare.com/articles/the-college-paradox-not-everyone-gains-by-higher-education
LikeLike
When you say “elite”, do you mean in the sense of an elite “class” or elite “scholarship”. The two are different. Also, US universities underwent quite a change in their professoriat as well as curriculum after the sixties. Elitism seems to have migrated out of the humanities, that’s for sure.
LikeLike
Most famous Continental universities shifted over to something like open admissions after 1945 (the small French ecoles being the main exception), wrecking their prestige. In the U.S., the only well-known college to go open admissions in response to the 1960s was CCNY, with predictable results.
LikeLike
Just free-associating … Euro universities and colleges aren’t as preoccupied/dominated by sports as ours are. I wonder how that affects the experience they offer and the education they deliver.
LikeLike
That has been a disaster for higher education.
LikeLike