[50CNT]

American Universities do seem like they are playing dress up in the clothes of the older aristocratic systems whilst having dropped the key features that made these systems desirable.

As an example, take analytical reading, writing, and discourse. They used to be a key component (the trivium of Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric) of higher education, and they are still valuable skills. Being able to dissect, evaluate and challenge an argument is the basis for making informed choices. The clashing of dogma that stretches from politics to tech discussions might just be down to us not knowing how to argue. So we lob things past each others heads like that makes sense.

As of now, it's been relegated to being touched gingerly at the end of highschool, and taught hush-hush on a need-to-know basis during graduate studies.

It's a pity because we could fit that in and a dozen other things. Cut the fat. We go through 12 to 20 years of education at tremendous costs. I sincerely believe that we could get an order of magnitude better value. We retained the means of higher education but lost sight of its ends.

[sotojuan]

American college students are plagued by mediocre and high-school level courses universities like to call "the core". It's a huge waste of time and money not because of the stuff taught but because of it's level. Rarely anyone takes the core seriously and most try to get out of it.

[fu9ar]

And legions of STEM graduates with poor critical thinking skills believe that is the norm for the liberal arts and post ceaselessly with poor grammar and qualitative reasoning about the superiority of their academic discipline. It is like an underwater basketweaving major taking one requires remedial course and declaring that all of Mathematics is blow off easy stuff.