HERE I STAND.  Let us not issue meaningless degrees and pretend that we are educated.

We too would be interested to know what President Obama thinks truly educated people should know, and how colleges should teach them. One thing is certain; sending more students to college won’t make the United States the best-educated nation. It may not even make us more competitive globally. As Peter Wood wrote

It could, however, accelerate the decline of many ordinary colleges and universities. That’s because the flood of new students would mean drastically lowered academic standards, a further erosion of the quality of campus life, and an over-abundance of people holding college degrees.

Why sacrifice quality for quantity? Higher education should be marked by rigor, thoughtfulness, hard work, an earnest search for true knowledge, and a certain gravity. Pumping up the size of enrollments to meet the 2020 goal will spread these qualities thin like too little butter on a giant slice of toast.

The article refers to numerous elaborations on the argument.