Chapter 2. College Then and Now

The college admission system is broken. By “system,” I mean K-12 education and the time one spends applying to college and earning their degree. To understand college today and the current toxic culture around parental involvement in higher education, this chapter provides some background on the history of higher education and addresses the following topics:

• • College vs. university
  • Origins of the university
  • In loco parentis
  • California: when and where things changed
  • The useful degree
  • Why attend college?
  • Low-income families, students, and college
  • Who gets into college and does the school matter
  • What is college today?

Much has been written on the history of higher education by experts in the field.¹ This chapter will present a brief background on higher education for those less familiar with its evolution in order to provide some context for the later chapters. In the next chapter, the focus turns to what I perceive to be the disconnect between what college should be and what it has become. That chapter concludes with what I call “problems to solve” or barriers to success for many students. The final chapter in this section is a discussion and defense of the liberal arts and sciences. My focus throughout the book is on institutions within the United States.

Why do I believe the system is broken? Modern technology, social media, and the economy have all played a role in changing the landscape of modern-day higher education. The history of in loco parentis and its demise also played a role.² Not that I think in loco parentis was good nor do I think we should return to it, but someone must watch out for college-aged students who in today’s society are no longer viewed as adults. That responsibility went from the students themselves (in the very early years), to the universities, and now, it seems at times, to parents and guardians. At the heart of the issue is whether 18- to 22-year-olds are considered adults by society (not just the legal system).

College vs. University

In my role as a higher education administrator, people often ask me about the difference between a college and a university. I would argue that, for the most part, colleges no longer exist. Traditionally, colleges focused on undergraduate education, while universities were larger research institutions with graduate and professional programs. The word “university” has Latin roots; it comes from the word universus which means whole or entire. So, think of a university as a small town or city where people live, study, and work. The President of UVA described the institution this way because, in addition to being a place where people live, study, and work, the university includes student and faculty housing, dining, live theater, sporting events, a health care system, a police force, a transportation system, and more.

Over time, some colleges expanded and changed their names replacing “college” with “university.” For example:

Table 1. Colleges that expanded and changed their names.

Origins of the University

According to the Guinness World Records, the oldest, continually operating college is the University of al-Qarawinyyin, which was founded in 859 AD in Morocco.⁴ The University of Bologna, Italy, founded in 1088, is the oldest college in Europe⁵, likely followed by Oxford University which may date back as far as 1096.⁶ In the United States, early colleges and universities include:

Table 2. Earliest colleges and universities in the United States.

Who attended these first colleges and universities? Wealthy white landowners and clergy. Harvard University, for example, is named for the Puritan clergyman John Harvard who determined that there would be a need to train clergy for the new Commonwealth of Massachusetts given the Puritan migration to New England. William & Mary was founded in 1693 by the royal charter of King William III and Queen Mary II of England and has yielded a lengthy list of presidents and leaders:

“The list of patriots who studied at William & Mary is long and distinguished and includes three American Presidents, Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, and John Tyler, sixteen members of the Continental Congress, four signers of the Declaration of Independence, four justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, including John Marshall, and many members of Congress, cabinet members, and diplomats. Additionally, George Washington received his surveyor’s license from William & Mary and after his Presidency served as William & Mary’s Chancellor.”⁸

Thomas Jefferson, who founded UVA in 1819, expanded educational opportunities for wealthy, white males in the South. While other universities allowed for only one of three areas of study—religion, law, or medicine—Jefferson opened new areas of study at his university including architecture, philosophy, and political science.⁹

From the original goal of training clergy and educating white men in law and medicine, colleges and universities have come a long way. Their fundamental goal has remained education for those able to attend. Through the decades, the liberal arts and sciences expanded (see Chapter 4), and college ultimately became the path to a better career, a higher income, and a better quality of life—at least in theory. Attending college became a way out of poverty for those who could afford to attend without incurring additional debt.

Community colleges date back to the mid-1800s. These schools were originally called junior colleges or two-year colleges, and their roots trace back to the Morrill Act of 1862 (also known as the Land Grant Act).¹⁰ As their numbers increased, these schools opened more doors to higher education, functioning as both terminal degrees and steppingstones to four-year institutions.

A March 21, 2024 article in The Chronicle of Higher Education¹¹ outlined how some community colleges are now seeking permission to offer baccalaureate degrees, in contrast to the Associates degree typically awarded. Why? The article states it is because, “Employers are in desperate need of skilled labor, and workers need faster, cheaper ways to advance in their careers.”¹² In Idaho, many four-year schools pushed back, saying it would result in duplicative degrees that could “cannibalize limited state resources..”¹³ For me, the most powerful line in this article is:

“Taken together, the two recent decisions illustrate a blurring of the lines between the two- and four-year sectors that is taking place not just in Idaho, but nationwide, as colleges struggle to overcome enrollment declines and skepticism about the value of a bachelor’s degree.“¹⁴

In addition, two schools are now pushing a three-year degree. Brigham Young University-Idaho and Ensign College are offering new 90-credit degrees which is 30 credits short of the typical 120 credits required.¹⁵

The University of Virginia tried pushing a three-year degree, though not by decreasing the number of credits required for the degree. The State wanted the university to strongly encourage students coming in with AP or dual enrollment credits to finish in three years. A small note still exists on our school website about this.¹⁶ We also created “3+1” and “4+1” pathways where students may start taking graduate courses in their final year, earning the BA or BS degree in three years and allowing them to earn their MA or MS in the final year.

I understand the need for these options and certainly understand the financial advantage of finishing college in three years, especially when a student plans to attend graduate or professional school. But the downside is that the “rush to completion” could result in the student missing other opportunities like study abroad, a leadership role, independent study work, or writing a thesis. It can also lead to what I call a “check the boxes” mentality where students plow through their course work to finish their degree quickly without really digesting and processing the material and the experience.

The Role of In Loco Parentis

In loco parentis in Latin translates to “in the place of a parent.” Up until the 1960s, colleges and universities operated as in loco parentis. Legally, this phrase meant that institutions could enforce discipline, regulate speech, and take disciplinary action with little to no regard for student rights.¹⁷

Philip Lee described the early history of this status as follows:

“From the mid-1800s to the 1960s, American colleges assumed this responsibility over their students’ lives that went well beyond academics. During this time, constitutional rights stopped at the college gates—at both private and public institutions. In his inaugural address as the first President of Johns Hopkins University, Daniel Coit Gilman (1876) stated:

“The College implies, as a general rule, restriction rather than freedom; tutorial rather than professional guidance; residence within appointed bounds; the chapel, the dining hall, and the daily inspection. The college theoretically stands in loco parentis; it does not afford a very wide scope; it gives a liberal and substantial foundation on which the university instruction may be wisely built (para. 24).”¹⁸

Lee states that, for the most part, the courts upheld in loco parentis in their rulings for cases between students and universities.

Brian Jackson’s 1991 article¹⁹ is of interest here because he describes the origins of the American university system and their early faith-based origins. Jackson²⁰ confirms this by noting, “The earliest American colleges, whether located in Virginia or Massachusetts, sought to ensure that their communities maintained a common religious faith and system of moral values.” Students were required to study both Latin and Greek, and they received a solid foundation in Christian principles.

The 1960s brought relatively rapid cultural changes across the United States and with that the eventual death of in loco parentis as it pertained to the university environment. Lee argues that Dixon v Alabama was the turning point.²¹ He writes:

“In the seminal case of Dixon v. Alabama (1961), Alabama State College summarily expelled a group of African American students for participating in a civil rights demonstration after they were refused service at a lunch grill located in the basement of the Montgomery County Courthouse. The college expelled the students without any notice, hearing, or opportunity for appeal–in other words, without respect for due process rights. The students challenged their expulsions as in violation of their constitutional rights to due process.”

The Fifth Circuit Court ruled on Dixon v. Alabama and argued for some protections for the students including:

“1) The students should be given notice containing a statement of the specific charges and grounds which, if proven, would justify expulsion;

2) The students should be given the names of the witnesses against them and an oral or written report on the facts to which each witness testifies;

3) The students should be given the opportunity to present their own defense against the charges and to produce either oral testimony or written affidavits of witnesses on their behalf; and

4) If the hearing is not before the Board of Education directly, then the results and findings of the hearing should be presented in a report open to the students’ inspection. (Dixon v. Alabama, 1961, p. 158-59).”²²

The Civil Rights Movement, protests for free speech, and the anti-war movement, Lee argues, led to a huge spike in student activism cases. By the late 1960s, the idea of in loco parentis was essentially defunct.

What came next were conversations around what role a college should play in the management and supervision of young adults.²³ Lee describes what he calls the “University-as-Bystander and Relationship-Based Duty.”²⁴ A 1979 case, Bradshaw v. Rawlings, contributed to the end of in loco parentis because the ruling determined that, not only was in loco parentis no longer applicable, but colleges were deemed to not always be responsible for what happened to students on or off campus. If the institution was not responsible, who was? Who is responsible today?

One could argue that since most students attending a university are between 18 to 24 years old (or older), they are adults and responsible for themselves. However, I do not believe this plays out in the real world of higher education. Universities bear some responsibility (for example, creating safe environments), but cannot promise that every student will be safe. Who filled the void with the end of in loco parentis? Parents and guardians. Perhaps parents became more involved because of modern technology such as cell phones and tracking apps or social media. The increased cost of a degree perhaps made this intervention seem more urgent. What I have seen over the past 30 years is a dramatic increase in calls and emails from parents and guardians each year and, anecdotally, the requests have become more demanding, even absurd. While some are valid — expressing real concern about a student not responding to calls, texts or emails for a reasonable amount of time (more than 20 minutes!) — most are not. They are calls about something the student could and should be handling such as laundry, roommate issues, class enrollment, etc. The outcome? It has become increasingly difficult to focus on education in college as more and more support services are poured into non-academic areas.²⁵

Rita Koganzon’s recent article, “The Coddling of the American Undergraduate”²⁶ discusses the current trend of colleges trying to assert almost total control over student’s lives and why this is problematic. This control includes acceptable language, roommate behavior, classroom discussions, etc. I highly recommend her summary of this issue.

The Concept of the “Useless” Degree and When Things Changed

A 2015 article by Dan Berrett in The Chronicle of Higher Education notes February 28, 1967, as the day the reason to go to college changed and became more centered on getting a job.²⁷ California had a stellar higher education system, but then governor Ronald Reagan oversaw a state facing economic crises and he perceived higher education as a luxury. Others fought back, but Reagan argued (as stated by Berrett) that, “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.” Berrett follows by saying, “Once prized as a worthy pursuit for all, liberal education that day in 1967 became pointless, an indulgence, a joke.”²⁸

Fast forward a bit and the idea of the “practical” or “useful” degree takes hold. In my opinion, another wrong turn in the history of higher education. The common thought became, “College is expensive; to make it worthwhile you must have a ‘worthwhile’ major.” In the eyes of my parents, archaeology was certainly not useful for anything. This lack of understanding of what college is, what a major is, and of what a college education means remains today. This is especially true for arts and humanities majors, and several social science majors, as discussed in Chapter 4.

In my position as both Assistant and Associate Dean, I have had hundreds, maybe thousands, of conversations with students over 30+ years who say, “I love x, but my parents will only pay for college if I major in y,” or “I really love z, but I don’t know how I would find a job with that major.” Hearing these statements evokes sadness because (1) any individual aspiring to attend college (or attending college) should be able to study what they love; (2) it shows a lack of understanding of the value of knowledge for knowledge’s sake; and (3) every academic discipline offers great value to the student who will that take that knowledge and information out into the workplace and into the world. In addition, college (and every major) teaches you how to continually learn, how to work in teams and individually, how to problem solve and how to be creative. We often cannot solve new problems with old ideas. We, as a society, need to constantly think, create, and innovate to stay current and to move forward. Again every major teaches you how to do these things.

My discipline (anthropology/archaeology) took a direct hit, one of many over the years, when Rick Scott, Governor of Florida, said in 2011, “If I’m going to take money from a citizen to put into education, then I’m going to take that money to create jobs. … Is it a vital interest of the state to have more anthropologists? I don’t think so.”²⁹ And in 2014, then President Barack Obama had to apologize for his comment about art history majors after saying, “…folks can make a lot more, potentially, with skilled manufacturing or the trades than they might with an art history degree.”³⁰ These naïve statements show complete disregard for the value of knowledge and education and the skill someone brings into the world of work from either of these majors. While a potential employer likely will never ask an applicant “Who painted Girl with a Pearl Earring?” or “What is the myth of the mound builders?”, college graduates will use and apply not only the knowledge, but the skills they gained from studying these things. Many college majors do go on to work in “skilled manufacturing” jobs and various trades and they will be more educated with a college degree which will help them be successful in those jobs too. These college graduates will work as plumbers, electricians, chefs, construction site managers, hairdressers, business owners, CEOs, etc. They will use their degree in ways they probably cannot articulate.

The disconnect between the following two statements is hard for me to reconcile:

1. If you are going to college, you must major in something worthwhile (per many parents/guardians).
2. Employers do not care about your major; they want college graduates who can function in the workplace (per most employers and college career centers).

Yes, if you want to be a nurse, you need to go to nursing school. If you want to build bridges, you need to study engineering. But you can succeed in many areas of work with any major from a liberal arts program; you can also go to medical school or law school with any major. And, with any major, you will be prepared for your first, second, and last career. A liberal arts and sciences degree is not a pre-professional degree.

Search for the question, “Is there such a thing as a useless degree?” and you will find numerous articles that support my belief that the answer is a hard “no.” While many students will tell you years later that they are not using their major because they are not in the career named by their major (e.g., they are not historians, sociologists, biologists, etc.), what they almost never realize is that they are using all the skills they learned from that major such as writing, communication, research, innovation, teamwork, etc. You will also find articles by those who believe there are useless majors, and I would encourage you to ignore those as I do not find them accurate or reliable.

Regarding the second item two paragraphs above, that employers do not really care about your major, Julie Lythcott-Haims talks a bit about what employers want and value in her chapter entitled, “Prepare Them for Hard Work.”³¹ She references Alexa Gulliford who is a managing director at a corporate search firm.³² Gulliford looks for motivated young people who can do “grunt work” and high-level work, and who can think ahead. She quotes Gulliford as saying, “We teach our kids to wait for cues. To wait for instruction. That’s what keeps them from having the type of mind-set employers want to see.”³³ Nowhere does she say something like, ‘We really want students who majored in x.’ ”

A 2024 job outlook survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) showed that 78% of employers stated that the top three skills they are looking for in a potential hire are communication, teamwork, and critical thinking.³⁴ All three of these skills can be learned and practiced from every major and program. Both new graduates and employers rank communication as the top skill. Variation exists in the ratings of student proficiency of career readiness competencies as shown in the figure below.³⁵ The survey analysis suggests that,

“Sometimes, the gap is quite large, as in the case of professionalism, where 84.6% of students and just 50% of employers perceive students to be ‘very or extremely’ proficient in this competency. ‘This general disconnect may occur because many students do not understand the connection between the knowledge and experience they gained in college and the competencies. Therefore, students cannot effectively articulate this to employers on their resumes or during interviews,’ VanDerziel [NACE’s president and chief executive officer] says.’ “³⁶

A more recent article from Inside Higher Ed on March 28, 2024, notes the following:

“The most important skill a graduate can hold is adaptability and a willingness to learn (89 percent), according to HR respondents. Other top-rated skills are strong work ethic and reliability (87 percent), communication (81 percent) and teamwork (78 percent). Human skills, also called soft skills, outranked more technical skills a professional could hold, including project management, multilingual abilities and leadership.”³⁷

Again, communication skills consistently rank high. Employers know they can teach a new employee the hard skills needed for a new job. The soft skills (like interpersonal relationships, willingness to work, respect, etc.) are harder to teach. Employers expect new employees to arrive with them.

The lack of understanding about what a liberal arts major is and can do does not surprise me because I have long felt that, while college and universities do a good job at educating students, they do not adequately help them understand how to translate the knowledge and skills they learned when they leave college, begin interviewing, and enter the workforce. To that end, my school created a program called Catalyst (see Chapter 3) that is designed to help students translate their liberal arts degree into relevance in the workplace. Regardless of a student’s major, they should be able to provide a list of reasons for why they selected that major and what they will bring to the workplace.

Why Attend College?

I am going to backtrack a bit here and address the question, “Why go to college?” Ideally, in my mind, the answer is to become an educated person. Thomas Jefferson is credited with the notion of an “educated citizenry” though this quote cannot be pinned down. He is often cited as saying, “An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people,” but this exact quote is not in any of Jefferson’s writings.³⁸ Researchers at Monticello, Jefferson’s home, acknowledge that the quote reflects Jefferson’s views on education. I agree with the sentiment.

That is the ideal, but it is far from simple and it becomes more and more complex every year. I will discuss some of the reasons for this in the next chapter and I will talk more below about why one should attend college.

A component of this book is to address what I believe the goals of a college education should be for young adults because I think it would help reduce the amount of helicopter and snowplow parenting. To that end, I review a few of the many reasons why college can be an important aspect of a person’s life. This indirectly connects to why a students should “own their education.”

The quote below summarizes well one of the main reasons for attending college:

“One important answer to this question is more opportunity. As opposed to generations of the past, high school graduates today are unable to obtain the number of high-paying jobs that were once available. The U.S. has been transformed from a manufacturing-based economy to an economy based on knowledge, and the importance of a college education today can be compared to that of a high school education forty years ago. It serves as the gateway to better options and more opportunity.”³⁹

Is this still true? According to Paul Tough, maybe not. In his 2019 book, How College Divides Us, he describes the results of his research that shows a system still focused on the wealthy while creating divides and roadblocks for those who are not wealthy.⁴⁰ He argues that while college does open doors and helps those with a degree move up and out of poverty or lower incomes, lower income families are not getting their children to college. Tough addresses other issues such as the difficulty of succeeding in a system you do not understand (see the discussion of the hidden curriculum in Chapter 4), one in which you owe a great deal of money and may often take on more debt, and one in which you never feel as if you belong.

College can still be hard to navigate and much too expensive for too many families. Students graduate with a degree, but some will then spend years (and years) paying off the debt they incurred. The website Student Loan Debt Statistics tracks debt and as of July 15, 2024,

“… student loan debt in the United States totals $1.753 trillion; 2023 was the first time this number decreased. The debt accumulation rate is slowing, and recent analytics indicate that consumers responsibly manage their student loan debt.”⁴¹

The site also presents the following statistics:

• The outstanding federal loan balance is over $1.620 trillion and accounts for 91.2% of all student loan debt.
• 42.8 million borrowers have federal student loan debt.
• The average federal student loan debt balance is $37,853 while the total average balance (including private loan debt) may be as high as $40,681.
• Less than 2% of private student loans enter default as of 2021’s fourth financial quarter (2021 Q4).
• The average public university student borrows $33,362 to attain a bachelor’s degree.⁴²

It is not clear whether the above statistics include debt for graduate and professional school, but with or without those numbers, these figures are astounding.

On February 21, 2024, President Biden “announced the approval of $1.2 billion in student debt cancellation for almost 153,000 borrowers currently enrolled in the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) repayment plan.”⁴³ Many people did not support this move, but the cost of attending a college or a university has increased dramatically and federal support has not, so help is essential. A White House Fact sheet illustrates this point:⁴⁴

“Since 1980, the total cost of both four-year public and four-year private college has nearly tripled, even after accounting for inflation. Federal support has not kept up: Pell Grants once covered nearly 80 percent of the cost of a four-year public college degree for students from working families, but now only cover a third. That has left many students from low- and middle-income families with no choice but to borrow if they want to get a degree. According to a Department of Education analysis, the typical undergraduate student with loans now graduates with nearly $25,000 in debt.”

The data on gender and race/ethnicity is also telling and alarming. The website educationdata.org reports the following information:

Student Loan Debt by Sex or Gender

• 56.5% of student financial aid recipients are female.
• 58% of all student loan debt belongs to women.
• Parents of male students are more likely to take out loans on their behalf.
• 16% of women have undergraduate student loan debt.
• 8% of women have postgraduate student debt.

Student Loan Debt by Race or Ethnicity

• Black college students are the most likely to use federal loans, with 49.4% borrowing, while Asian students are the least likely to receive federal loans at 62%.
• 30% of black college graduates with student loans default in the first 12 years of repayment.
• White students are the most likely to receive private loans, with 7.1% borrowing privately; American Indian and Alaska Native students are least likely to borrow privately at 2.6%.
• Four years after graduation, 48% of Black students owe an average of 12.5% more than they borrowed.
• White and Caucasian borrowers owe 54% of the national student loan debt balance.⁴⁵

A March 4, 2024, article by Emily Peck entitled, “Show this chart [see article] to anyone who tells you college isn’t worth it” is a bit more optimistic and asserts that a college education is worth it.⁴⁶ I agree. She asserts that even though trust in higher education is decreasing, “the age gap between recent college and high school grads has been widening for decades, and grew even more last year, per new data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.”⁴⁷ The chart from the article shows this clearly by illustrating a $24,000 gap in median annual wage.⁴⁸

Nevertheless, as I say here and as others state as well, trust in and desire for an undergraduate degree are dropping. The above article includes some other interesting data points and from this article and many others, I would still argue that a college degree is very much worth it.

Low-Income Families and College

Most of the eligible population in the United States is not college educated. Data from the US Census Bureau, showing labor force participation by level of education: no high school; high school or equivalent; some college or associate degree; and Bachelor’s degree or higher, confirm this.⁴⁹

Why is this the case? The barriers to college include access, navigability, cost, and family. For the parents of some first-generation college students, the notion of sending their child to college is frightening. They may need their college-age children to take care of younger siblings or aging grandparents, to work in the family business, or to work to support the family. There is also a fear of losing their child emotionally because once they are college-educated: they may never come home, may think they are better than their parents, etc. I believe this attitude was part of my father’s anti-college mentality. When he was angry, he would often say things to me like, “You think you’re so much better than me because you went to college.” But I truly never did. For me, college was not about being better than anyone—it was all about wanting to study something I loved, archaeology.

Hope Chicago

Hope Chicago aims to provide 30,000 scholarships to college and vocational programs over the next decade.⁵⁰ Pete Kadens, who created Hope Chicago, said the following in his 60 Minutes interview:

“I used to think that college and going to college was the great equalizer. In truth, what we’ve come to find out; college is the great stratifier in this country. It furthers the gap between the haves and the have nots.”

As his interviewer Scott Pelley stated, “… the richest country in history has not found a way to educate all its children.” Kadens also commented, “I just think that, fundamentally, there is a misunderstanding in this country that college is accessible to everybody. And the fact is, no, it is not.”⁵¹ Ideally, the United States will, at some point, figure out how to make it affordable for anyone who wants to attend..

What about attending college and earning a degree simply for the love of learning? For the desire to pursue something more in depth? What about the drive to innovate, create, invent, and work with other smart and driven people and a cadre of bright and inspiring faculty? For many low-income and first-generation students, this opportunity is a luxury. How can one justify studying something that is not perceived by those around them to be “useful”? While the above reasons should be sufficient enough for attending college, they are often dismissed because, if you are going to go to college, you must earn a “useful” degree. I hope one day the myth of the useful major will end as every major is useful.

Who Gets Into College and Does the School Matter?

Many high school students from high-income families feel pressure to get into a school that has a high-status name, that has caché, and that people will recognize when their parents say, “Oh yes, Sally had to choose between Harvard, Yale, and Princeton and she chose Harvard.” Some students clearly also care as they try to earn bragging rights and gain access to the networks Ivy League schools offer, which can be extensive.

However, every school offers networks and opportunities. Much of this next section is based on the work of Frank Bruni, specifically his 2015 book, Where You Go is Not Who You’ll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania⁵² and and a recent article by Jonathan Wai et al. from Humanities & Social Sciences Communications.⁵³ While the article by Wai et al. makes some valuable points, and saying one went to Harvard certainly carries weight, it must also be stated that getting into the “best school” is often not an option for many students due to cost, accessibility, grades, high school counseling, etc. It may not be related to intelligence. I worry that an article like the one by Wai et al. will cause some future students to give up and ask themselves if they cannot go to an elite school, should they bother going to college at all. This, I strongly believe, is not true. There is a school for everyone. So while graduates of elite universities certainly have and wield power, a college degree is worth a lot. I will also add that people define success in very different ways.

Wai et al. state that they “found exceptional achievement is surprisingly strongly associated with “elite” education.”⁵⁴ They state that “attending one of just 34 institutions of higher education out of the roughly 4000 in the U.S. appears to be a critical and surprising factor separating extraordinary achievers from others in their fields.”⁵⁵ They discuss the limitations of their study and while I do not disagree with much of what they found and say, I, as stated above, worry about what people might take away from this study.

Another view, expressed by Bruni early in his book, asks whether the school you attend determines who you will be ⁵⁶. The clear answer early on is no, partially because “the admissions game is too flawed and too rigged to be given so much credit.”⁵⁷ It is likely unclear to an applicant how many prospective admit seats are truly open. Bruni did an analysis to try to determine what percentage of an applicant class is truly open after legacies, athletes, special admits, friends of the university, faculty children, children of political leaders and/or CEOs, board members, etc. are admitted. He estimates that about 55% of the available spots in an incoming class could be spoken for with these populations of students.⁵⁸ He concludes, “… if you’re a parent who’s pushing your kids relentlessly and narrowly toward one of the most prized schools in the country and you think that you’re doing them a favor, you’re not. You’re in all probability setting them up for heartbreak…”⁵⁹

The fact is that much of the admission process is out of the applicant’s control. Bruni also discusses the school that needs a volleyball player, a student from a certain state or country, students who express interest in a certain major, etc. It is a numbers game, a gamble to some extent. He advises, and I agree, that applicants should not become too invested in getting into any one school.

And what happens when every student applying is special, excellent, and brilliant, with a resumé filled with accomplishments? Schools have a maximum number of students that they can admit. So many of these excellent students will not be admitted. It reminds me of something I shared with parents every summer at orientation. Almost the entire incoming class at UVA comes from the top 10% of their high school, but at the end of the first semester, 50% of the students will be in the bottom 50% of the first-year class. While they may be excellent students with stellar GPAs, half of them will be in the bottom half. That is just the math!

Bruni also looks at former presidents, vice presidents, CEOs, and the 30 under 30 lists. Many graduates went to public universities and many graduates attended schools that are not well known. For the 30 Under 30 lists, Bruni says several went to “state schools like the University of Where-They-Just-So-Happened-To-Live-At-The-Time.”⁶⁰

Additionally, in my experience, prospective students do not always consider the programs offered and general education requirements of the schools to which they apply. Over the years, I have had many conversations with new students about their intended majors, and I am often surprised by how frequently they choose fields that our institution does not offer, such as journalism, fashion design, or nutrition. Others mistakenly assume they can pursue a major housed in a different school within our university, even when access is restricted. Many students are also unaware of their school’s general education requirements. For instance, students in my school, the College of Arts & Sciences, are often surprised to learn that they must complete four semesters (or the equivalent) of a world language.

So, “Does a prestigious college make you successful in life? Or do you do that for yourself?”⁶¹ Bruni asserts, and I agree, that you can do that for yourself, yet we cannot seem to break free of believing otherwise. Yes, more affluent schools may provide some opportunities that other schools cannot, but, in the long run, I do not think that is what makes someone successful in life. Similarly, in my observation, some students with low GPAs have been far more successful in the job search, while those with high GPAs were unable to land good jobs right after college. Why? It is not always about your college GPA.

The college access and admissions “game” is a very complex and ever-changing puzzle. It is also rapidly changing with the introduction of AI. A February, 2025 article from ECampus News: Innovations in Education and AI notes the following:

“Integrating AI into higher education can make the whole process more systematic and streamlined. Already, the technology is being tasked with evaluating application materials and screening everything from transcripts and test scores to letters of recommendation and essays. With the number of applicants now on the rise, increasing by 32 percent between 2020 and 2023, automation can shoulder much of the administrative load.
The problem is that the DNA of the data being fed to AI is biased. Data comes from people, and people are inherently biased. Even an unconscious bias can cause AI models to drift, unintentionally introducing prejudices toward certain groups or perpetuating biases and thus leading to greater disparities among gender, race, and ethnicity. So, how can we use AI in college admissions most effectively to ensure the process is equitable?“⁶²

As AI drives more decisions in higher education, including admissions, a careful examination of the data and programming must be required. In an ideal world (that may not exist) college should become more navigable, accessible, and affordable.

Does College Equal Upward Mobility?

A related question is whether a college degree leads to upward mobility. Is it a way out of or into poverty? My colleague at UVA, Chad Wellmon, discusses this topic in his April 2021 article entitled, “The Crushing Contradictions of the American University” (that title is followed by “Our blind faith in the transformative power of higher ed is slipping. What now?”). One of the opening paragraphs asks the following questions:

“What must one believe in to be willing to borrow tens of thousands of dollars in order to pursue a certification of completion—a B.A.? What would a college have to promise in order to compel someone to do that? What would a bank have to believe to extend this person credit? Or the U.S. government, to guarantee such loans en masse—now roughly $2 trillion? And what would a society have to believe to sustain the system that keeps it all going?”⁶³

So, what does a college degree offer and what it should offer? At the most basic level, it offers an education. As I always tell parents and students, if students take full advantage of the many opportunities that a college has to offer (i.e., exploring a wide range of majors, faculty connections, study abroad, getting to know other students well, leadership roles, career centers, etc.), the student should graduate as a different person—older, wiser, more knowledgeable of the world around them, and prepared to enter a global workforce.

Wellmon goes on to say that the belief that colleges and universities could make one’s life better and “generate rising incomes and social equality was hard won.⁶⁴ It is still what we, more or less, believe today as a society, though trust in higher education has dropped. Employers still value a college degree from any school. A degree is better than some college courses, which are in turn better than no college. We still want, I think and hope, an educated public.

In terms of trust in higher education, several recent news stories detail the declining trust that the public has in higher education. A Gallup poll showed that “Americans confidence in higher education has fallen to 36%, sharply lower than in two prior readings in 2015 (57%) and 2018 (48%).”⁶⁵ While Gallup did not investigate the reasons for the declines, the article cites the rising cost of a degree as being a significant factor.⁶⁶ In addition, “previous Gallup polling found that Democrats expressed concern about the costs, while Republicans registered concern about politics in higher education.”⁶⁷

A Forbes article by Michael Nietzel added the following information (the four bullets below are all from the same article):

• Political Identification: The largest drop is among Republicans; confidence also declined among Independents and Democrats.
• Education: Confidence declined among adults without a college degree, but it also dropped “among those with an undergraduate degree (-10 points) and those with a postgraduate degree (-17 points).”
• Gender: Both males and females (the only two groups listed) showed similar declines.
• Age: The biggest decline is with adults 55 and older—a 24% point drop from 2015.⁶⁸

In a US News & World Report article, Sarah Wood dug a bit deeper and pointed to political division, cost of attendance, and access issues as being key.⁶⁹She also addressed ways to try to restore confidence in higher education such as transparency in cost, more grant and work-study programs, and the value of the degree when one enters the workforce. In the final paragraph, she notes:

“People just don’t have the luxury of sitting around and thinking good thoughts. We have to talk about the ways in which that’s not what college does today. We’re actually preparing students with the skills that will help them in a world in which the challenges that we’re facing, from COVID-19 to global warming, require the capacity to apply the liberal (arts) learning that they get in college.“⁷⁰

In the fourth and final example here, Jessica Blake writes about increasing doubts among the public that a college degree is “worth the time and the money.”⁷¹ On the positive side, Blake notes that, while confidence is declining (even in pre-pandemic times), benefits remain and many acknowledge those benefits. For example, among high school students, 81% cite the ability to make more money, 80% reference job security and 74% reference preparation for life. Among non-college enrolled individuals, 71% cite the ability to make more money, 65% reference job security and 60% reference life preparation.⁷² More data may be found in the article. The solution, Blake asserts, is to change the narrative. Specifically, in the concluding paragraph, she writes:

“Four of the report’s top six suggestions for colleges moving forward involved giving prospective and current students expert advising in academic, financial and postgraduate career success. The other two included eliminating the accrual of student debt for anyone attending community college programs and providing more dual-enrollment opportunities to help students save time and money.”⁷³

A 2018 Gallup report entitled “From College to life: Relevance and the value of higher education” discusses the “consumer” in higher education—the student.⁷⁴ The article states, “…some in the field may be wary of the term “consumer.” I am one of those people.⁷⁵ My issue with this kind of study is it looks to directly link course work and a major to a job. Many of us in higher education know it is not about the facts one learns, but the skills and the ability to learn that are of value from each and every course and major. I encounter many former students who tell me they are doing well, but they say they are not using their major. I argue they are because it was that major, all of their courses, and the completion of the degree that taught them to read, write, think, learn, etc. So, the English major working as a CEO may say “I am not using my major”, but I will always argue that they are. If we do not help students understand this, their dissatisfaction with their degree will likely continue.

Graduation rates are a key factor for rankings and top schools hit the high 80% to low 90% range for their graduation rates, though some regional campuses of major schools are close to being as low as many for-profit schools. The table below shows some of the highest graduation rates:

Table 3. Colleges and universities with the highest graduation rates.⁷⁶

It is hard to find a reliable source for colleges with the worst graduation rates. A CBS news article lists 13 schools with a graduation of zero.⁷⁷

Employers’ expectations of an applicant’s college degree can become complicated when that degree is from the “for-profit” institution. A degree from one of these institutions often carries less weight and is of less value. Many students attending these schools do not graduate and the graduation rates for non-profit schools are much lower.⁷⁸

Why retention and graduation rates are so low across the United States is a difficult issue to address. Cost clearly plays a significant role in retention and leads many students to leave before completing the degree. It leads one to wonder why a college education is so expensive in the United States. Where did we go wrong? Several countries offer free or affordable degrees such as Germany, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.⁷⁹ I often wonder whether the United States will ever reach a point of offering free attendance to anyone who wants a degree. And I ask again, then, is a college degree worth it? I think the answer is still yes, but we need to make it easier to get there and stay there to earn a degree.

What is College Today?

A good place to start is with this series of quotations plastered across social media platforms and various websites, mugs, and tote bags. I was in a meeting with colleagues from a range of disciplines several years ago when I first heard someone say, “We need to think of the students as our customers.” My immediate reaction was “No, we absolutely do not.” And I was not alone. The room erupted; people, especially the faculty, were angry. While universities do have service units (e.g., housing, dining, parking, and transportation), student education itself is most definitely not a product for purchase. Despite this, I frequently hear from students and/or family members, “I am/we are paying you a lot of money; my child should have an A.”

If a university is a business, then it is the business of education. But paying tuition is not the same as buying a new house, car, or appliance. Students get out of college what they put into it. Paying tuition, in-state, out-of-state, or private, does not entitle them to an A grade average. Again, I often hear students and/or their parents say, “You do realize I am paying out-of-state tuition? I/she/he/they should have received an A in this class.” Students do not buy grades in college through tuition, they must earn them. That said, while students have responsibilities, they also have privileges such as the right to all the resources their school can afford and the right to good academic advising.

These issues were made even more clear by the onset of COVID-19 and more than three semesters of online-only learning. Some universities cut tuition; mine did not. UVA did cut the activities fee for students who chose to stay home and study remotely. What many people fail to realize is that online education done well may cost more money, not less. The planning, organizing, and technology needed to do it well is expensive. The other problem is that “online” means many things and comes with a dizzying array of possibilities. For example, I could simply post reading materials on my university’s learning management system (LMS), record some or all of my lectures, and tell students to read what I posted and submit their work (essays, quizzes, tests, précis, etc.) by the various deadlines. We came to call this an online asynchronous class. I could turn on Zoom and lecture as I would in class, logging off when I finished; this would be on online synchronous class where students would take the mid-term and final in the LMS also. Or I could spend hours (as many of our faculty did and some still do) planning engaging classes with lectures, discussions, PowerPoint presentations, podcasts, guest speakers, and breakout rooms of varying sizes. COVID challenged higher education in ways none of us could have imagined, as it challenged everything everywhere. The impacts are discussed a bit in Chapter 6.

So what is college today? At its very best, it is a place for one to gain an education and, if they are a traditional-aged student (ages 18 to 22), to grow, learn, evolve and develop. For those able to get over the admissions hurdle and enroll and remain in college, I still believe it is one of the most amazing opportunities for everyone and anyone.

References