| I think the proper way to characterize the situation is as follows. The university were founded largely for the sake of teaching the liberal arts, that is, the free arts (as opposed to the servile arts). I am using the traditional meaning of "liberal arts", and not the tragedy we have now. The university was supposed to educate the man, to mature him intellectually, to free him to be able to pursue the truth and to do so effectively which meant also the ability to draw from and participate in the tradition. The feverish mission to push everyone through college is a fool's errand. It is not for everyone. The result is that universities had to change to make this possible, thus failing their founding mission. But at the same time, they aren't good at vocational training. So for most people, it's a waste of time and money. We would be much better off with a system of vocational schools and apprenticeships. This would unburden universities and free them to pursue their original mission, and it would enable vocational schools/apprenticeships to provide excellent training for workers. Primary education is, frankly, in an awful state as well, as it, too, is supposed to educate the man, and it is here where the vocational stuff is still not necessary to learn even for those who will eventually enter the vocations. We're seeing some interesting developments in both primary education (with the spread of classical education) and the founding of small colleges that aim to avoid the failure of the university. Some try to combine intellectual formation with an apprenticeship program to try to reconcile the desire to form the man with the need to find a job. Apprenticeship is also used to cover at least part of the costs of the education. Ballooning costs are a symptom of corruption and bloat. The mission is lost, so it's a numbers game now. There's no reason a university education should cost anywhere near what it costs today, especially given the mediocrity of the education. I don't really see much will to change the status quo among those in power, so we'll probably see a combination of hamfisted maneuvers like debt cancellation to maintain the status quo, but ultimately, probably a collapse of the system. |