What's College For?

At the Daily Beast, Megan McArdle sees college as the American middle class’s last desperate bet for economic security in the fast-shifting global economy:

If employers have mostly been using college degrees to weed out the inept and the unmotivated, then getting more people into college simply means more competition for a limited number of well-paying jobs. And in the current environment, that means a lot of people borrowing money for jobs they won’t get.

But we keep buying because after two decades prudent Americans who want a little financial security don’t have much left. Lifetime employment, and the pensions that went with it, have now joined outhouses, hitching posts, and rotary-dial telephones as something that wide-eyed children may hear about from their grandparents but will never see for themselves. The fabulous stock-market returns that promised an alternative form of protection proved even less durable. At least we have the house, weary Americans told each other, and the luckier ones still do, as they are reminded every time their shaking hand writes out another check for a mortgage that’s worth more than the home that secures it. What’s left is … investing in ourselves. Even if we’re not such a good bet. [...]

In Academically Adrift, their recent study of undergraduate learning, Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa find that at least a third of students gain no measurable skills during their four years in college. For the remainder who do, the gains are usually minimal. For many students, college is less about providing an education than a credential—a certificate testifying that they are smart enough to get into college, conformist enough to go, and compliant enough to stay there for four years.

When I read McArdle’s reflections above, I can’t help but think of the Confucian guilds of China 500 years ago, by which rigorous exams were used, not to locate talent for economic growth, but to identify in a tight job market the smartest and most obedient managers for perpetuating a stagnant system.

Are we boxed in as 21st century educators? Can the purpose of college be different than this? How might we think of what we do as a nonzero sum game?

My vote: think of ways for teaching and promoting entrepreneurship, expanding the economic pie. If many students can't readily win good jobs, perhaps in college they can still pick up the basic skills for making their own jobs--for starting small businesses.