The Functionality of a College Education

There has been an undeniable shift in priorities throughout Higher Education during the 21st century. As schooling gets more and more expensive, the pathways to making a good return on that investment grow increasingly steeper so students prioritize prestige and certification over education. At the same time, the competition among universities to recruit the best researchers and achieve the highest rankings marginalizes the importance of teaching.

William Deresiewicz is an award-winning essayist, critic, speaker, and the author of several books, including Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life, The Death of the Artist: How Creators Are Struggling to Survive in the Age of Billionaires and Big Tech, and his newest work, The End of Solitude: Selected Essays on Culture and Society.

William and Greg discuss Williams’s background, the heavy emphasis on research over teaching in Higher Education, and how one can get cut off from academia. They talk about the ways in which educational institutions are lacking and why receiving good instruction may not be a top priority for students anymore. William reveals what he thinks is at the root of the main problems in higher education and also how the invention of the smartphone has exacerbated the situation.

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Episode Quotes:

Is inequality the fundamental problem in everything?

45:27: The more we sort society into a few big, big, big winners, and a lot of losers, the more parents are understandably going to want to get their kids into the few schools that seem to guarantee theirs are going to be one of the winners. If we had a robust middle class, if you could support a family and send your own kids to college with one middle-class salary, I think there would be much less of this mania. So that's obviously a very big thing to do, but it would also make everything else better. To me, this inequality is the besetting sin. It is the fundamental problem of just about everything in American life, including all of our political pathologies. That's what I believe.

Students aren't choosing a school based on how good they think the teachers are

13:25: Students are not picking their university or college based on how good the teaching is or how good they think the teaching is. They're picking it mainly—if we're talking about selective colleges and universities—they're picking it based on the name.

Can you still thrive in today’s academic world?

40:02: If a student is really a seeker, cares about learning, and is less worried about accumulating credentials, they can do it. But it's harder because college costs more because everything costs more. Some people still make that choice. And are happy having made the choice, even though it's a struggle, but it's a struggle that they're willing to put up with because they can stand their lives.

People are looking for humanistic education

55:02: There is a tremendous hunger among young people for guidance and among adults for this kind of humanistic education. This kind of wisdom, but not wisdom where someone's imparting it to you. Wisdom in the sense of, let's open this text together and see what it has to say to us. People want that.

Show Links:

Recommended Resources:

• Jonathan Zimmerman book The Amateur Hour
• Specialization from Adam Smith

Guest Profile:

• Speaker’s Profile on ABP Speakers
• William Deresiewicz’s Website
• William Deresiewicz on LinkedIn
• William Deresiewicz on Twitter
• William Deresiewicz on TEDxMtHood

His Work:

• The End of Solitude: Selected Essays on Culture and Society
• Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life
• The Death of the Artist: How Creators Are Struggling to Survive in the Age of Billionaires and Big Tech
• Essays in The Atlantic
• Articles on The American Scholar

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