[elefanten]

But there are other, more ephemeral things that you want people to at least have been introduced to and grappled with a bit. Arguably a lot of the unrest in democracies right now has to do with people not being very critical thinkers. You don't have to have an undergraduate degree, but having some well of knowledge in history, politics and economics to draw upon is pretty important to understanding and interpreting civic life around you.

So there has to be some middle ground between "everyone must get a bachelor's!!" and "start shop class at 15, you'll be fine"

[geodel]

How come then there is so much unrest in universities nowadays? And univ students seems to be on forefront in making feelings based arguments instead critical thinking based arguments.

[elefanten]

The short answer to both of your observations is that they're misperceptions.

1. Universities have long been tied to visible activism -- the fact that we're at the high point of a wave now isn't particularly meaningful. There is no systemically disruptive "unrest" in universities -- classes go on, degrees are being earned.

2. The feelings thing seems like your perception. Yes, more visible and provocative and simply unusual speech occurs at universities. By gross volume, there may be more feelings-based reasoning that you perceive in universities. But compared to the cultural mainstream, critical thinking is much more visible and prevalent at universities -- it is, in fact, required a lot of them time.