It was once far more common for young Americans who wanted marketable skills to learn them on the job, and for those who wanted deeper learning in an academic field and an appreciation for our civilization’s values enrolled in college. Now, many students who go to college do so because they believe they need to get a degree to get a job. As for learning our civilization’s values, students are far likelier than they once were to learn how terrible our civilization is.

Since we’re at a turning point with higher education, leaders need to think about what they’re trying to accomplish. So argues Joe Pitts in today’s Martin Center article.

He begins, “On this we all agree: Higher education is in crisis. Rolling protests, rising tuition, and growing distrust have compelled elected officials to speak seriously about reforming our nation’s postsecondary education system for the first time in a long time.”

Pitts looks back at Allan Bloom’s criticism of higher education, which as far back as 1987 had largely succumbed to Marxist attacks on western values and taught students that truth is relative. How can we escape from that? And for Americans who look to college for job skills, it has obviously become a bad deal for many.

Pitts asks:

So why is higher education broken? Is it because it’s becoming a more dubious economic investment for students? Or because universities and the people who inhabit them no longer consider themselves engaged in the task of moral education — in educating free people and self-governing citizens?

Both.

What we need, he argues, is to unbundle higher education so students who want a “Bloomian” education can get that and those who want job skills can get that.