College

What It Was, Is, and Should Be - Updated Edition

Andrew Delbanco

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781400866144
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Higher Education

The strengths and failures of the American college, and why liberal education still matters As the commercialization of American higher education accelerates, more and more students are coming to college with the narrow aim of obtaining a preprofessional credential. The traditional four-year college experience—an exploratory time for students to discover their passions and test ideas and values with the help of teachers and peers—is in danger of becoming a thing of the past.In College, prominent cultural critic Andrew Delbanco offers a trenchant defense of such an education, and warns that it is becoming a privilege reserved for the relatively rich. In describing what a true college education should be, he demonstrates why making it available to as many young people as possible remains central to America's democratic promise.In a brisk and vivid historical narrative, Delbanco explains how the idea of college arose in the colonial period from the Puritan idea of the gathered church, how it struggled to survive in the nineteenth century in the shadow of the new research universities, and how, in the twentieth century, it slowly opened its doors to women, minorities, and students from low-income families. He describes the unique strengths of America's colleges in our era of globalization and, while recognizing the growing centrality of science, technology, and vocational subjects in the curriculum, he mounts a vigorous defense of a broadly humanistic education for all. Acknowledging the serious financial, intellectual, and ethical challenges that all colleges face today, Delbanco considers what is at stake in the urgent effort to protect these venerable institutions for future generations.In a new afterword, Delbanco responds to recent developments—both ominous and promising—in the changing landscape of higher education.

INDEX

abolitionist movement, 71, 96

Academic Duty (Kennedy), 141

academic freedom, 79, 80, 90, 141, 159

The Academic Revolution (Jencks and Riesman), 148

Adams, Abigail, 4

Adams, Henry, 51–52, 70, 72

Adams, John, 28

admissions: acceptance rates, 117, 210n32; deceptive culture of, 117; early admissions programs, 120, 146; merit and, 126, 134, 139; need-blind, xviii, 111, 112; race-conscious, 55, 108, 214n17; wealth advantage in, 118–19, 121–24

affirmative action, 55, 108, 119; for the privileged, 105, 119

African-American students. See black students

age of matriculation, 45

All My Sons (Miller), 110

alumni children, 117, 119, 121, 211n36

American Association of University Professors (AAUP), 80

American Historical Association, 80

American Mathematical Society, 80

America’s world dominance: decline of higher education and, 26; in twentieth century, 108. See also globalization

Amherst College, 71, 122, 176

Animal House (film), 152

anti-Semitism, 43, 105–6, 107, 113

Aristotle, 36

Arizona State University, 93

Arnold, Matthew, 33

Arrowsmith (Lewis), 92–93

arts, 3, 99, 148

Ascham, Roger, 45

Asian American students, 113, 147, 215–16n31

The Ask (Lipsyte), 18

athletics, 117, 121, 145–47

Auchincloss, Louis, 131

Augustine, 40, 51, 52, 60, 90, 101

Avenue Q, 152

Bacow, Lawrence, 140

Bakke case, 55

Baltzell, E. Digby, 133–34

Bard College, 173

Barnard, Frederick, 41

Bartlett, William Francis, 137

Bauer, Nancy, 194n18

Bayh-Dole Act, 141–42, 158

Baylor University, 57

Beard, Charles, 80

Bennington College, 55

Berea College, 122

The Big Chill (film), 152

black students: admissions policies benefiting, 107–8; at historically black colleges, 22, 108, 122; Ivy League schools and, 106, 107, 130; nineteenth-century b...