FIXING HIGHER EDUCATION REQUIRES A WHOLE OF SOCIETY APPROACH.

Some suggestions.

For liberal arts colleges, first and foremost, the classics must be put back in their rightful place in the core curriculum. Students have to be given the opportunity to step outside the confines of the 21st century. This type of education allows the world to be seen more fully, and, to be sure, more honestly.

For research universities, federal funding for student loans must be eliminated, administrative staff must be reduced, and DEI initiatives must be replaced entirely with a new system based solely on academic merit. Universities should also be held liable in bankruptcy court for former students who default on student loan debt, and standards of excellence should be set for measuring advances and innovations in science and technology.

At the high school level, the majority of graduates should no longer pursue a college degree. A college education is not the measure of all things. It’s unjust to force young Americans with a variety of backgrounds and interests into a one-size-fits-all program—rooted in post-WWII nostalgia—that burdens them with debt and poorly equips them for professional, familial, and civic life.

Vocational training and apprenticeships should be encouraged and companies should be incentivized to hire and train high school graduates directly until a paradigm shift becomes manifest throughout workplace culture.

I will quibble over whether universal college was part of the Victory Dividend, that aspiration might have come later, in part because people who should have known better started thinking of shop class as a dumping ground for burnouts, and of trade schools as for college rejects.

That noted, the outlines of that plan have a lot going for them.  Turf out the diversity deanlets?  Check.  Deconstruct the tyranny of the Minimal Publishable Unit?  Yes.  I'll even indulge their "paradigm shift".