Education

The Day the Purpose of College Changed

From The Chronicle: “California still boasted a system of public higher education that was the envy of the world. And on February 28, 1967, a month into his term, the Republican governor assured people that he wouldn’t do anything to harm it. … ‘But,’ he added, ‘we do believe that there are certain intellectual luxuries that perhaps we could do without,’ for a little while at least…Reagan was staking out a competing vision. Learning for learning’s sake might be nice, but the rest of us shouldn’t have to pay for it. A higher education should prepare students for jobs…Those two theories had long existed in uneasy equilibrium. On that day in 1967, the balance started to tip toward utility in ways not even Reagan may have anticipated.”

View the full article from The Chronicle.