The Future of Academia: A Tougher Place for Generic Ph.D.s & A Candy Store for Creative Entrepreneurs
by John Rubino
To understand how close many U.S. universities are to catastrophic failure, let’s start with the story of Robert (not his real name, but all the rest is true).
He’s 19, a freshman at a state university, a smart kid with eclectic interests but no sense of what he wants to be when he grows up. His favorite class, which he had to battle to get into, is an upper-level creative writing seminar taught by a successful author in which six students, all serious about the subject, submit original work and critique it each week. He’s also taking “computer science as a career” taught by a disgruntled professor who shows lots of videos while never missing a chance to tell the class how little he cares about the subject, and weight lifting, which operates on the honor system; Robert promises to lift weights and the school promises to give him an A.
What’s notable about this menu is that the two fluff courses cost the same as the much more serious and harder-to-duplicate creative writing seminar. Robert’s parents, appalled by the difference between his tuition bills and theirs of two decades ago, are aware of the varying
Short URL: http://www.adjunctnation.com/?p=5196
That true. No Money No Life
I am not sure I agree, if anything a PhD required in higher education, in most institutions. So far, all the colleges I’ve applied to ask that candidates have a PhD (in hand) at the time of hiring. The more high quality teachers schools higher, the higher student achievement will be. Now, will these schools have the money to be able to afford a person with a PhD, that’s another story.
If I ever read an article by a person whose religion is the free market, it is that one. And I don’t believe most of it.