[rjf72]

I'd completely agree with you here about the ideal of education being meant to expand your mind and teaching one to think critically. But this is where we might begin to diverge a bit. Is this really happening in modern times? Do you associate fresh graduates with anything like critical thinking and breadth (let alone depth) of views and understanding?

We could blame this on our educational institutions of course. And I'd agree that our institutions have changed. But this gets into the question of why have they changed? And I think there we get back to the initial issue. As we see vastly more people pursuing post-secondary education, it means that the demographic of your average student is changing. Systems that worked and produced a certain tier of student when dealing with top e.g. 2% of society, cannot reasonably be expected to achieve the same or comparable results when dealing with more than 30% of society.

This is what made me ask the question. In principle I cannot disagree with the notion that an educated population is a good thing. But in practice, universities are seemingly giving it their all to make me rethink this view.