Criticisms of Higher Education

Abstract

Especially during the past decade there has been a flood of criticism of the American college and university. Much of this has been cleverly, even brilliantly, expressed, but the criticism is often superficial, illogical, and essentially unsound. Some of it, on the other hand, has been sanely constructive and helpful. If we were to believe all that the critics say, we should inevitably be forced to the conclusion that little if anything is right with higher education today. Criticism of the American college seems to be one of the most popular of indoor sports. College aims, trustees, presidents, faculty, students, fraternities, athletics, morals and religion, curriculums, teaching methods, alumni, and general results-none have been exempt from the caustic pen of the cynical campus critics. What do they say? All of the rest of this article, with the exception of the concluding paragraph, is made up entirely of extracts from such criticisms of the last few years, taken from a wide variety of sources. No quotation marks are used since verbal changes have been made for the sake of unity and harmony in presenting these brief criticisms of the topics just listed. They say that our universities are aimless institutions that have prostituted themselves to every public whim, serving as everything from a reformatory to an amusement park; they are only service stations for the general public; they are a bargain-counter system presided over by quacks; they are places where pebbles are polished and diamonds dimmed. The trustees according to the critics are men entirely unfitted for their tasks, ridiculously conservative and fearful, controlled body and soul by Wall Street. The presidents are liars and hypocrites, academic Machiavellis, who dull the intellectual life of the colleges, cow the faculties, and