"Perhaps if our leading colleges encouraged more humility and less hubris, college-bashing would go out of style and we could get on with the urgent business of providing the best education for as many Americans as possible."
This is the concluding sentence from a thought-provoking essay by Andrew Delbanco, a professor of American Studies at Columbia, which appeared in the New York Times Thursday. Entitled, "A Smug Education," the essay looks at the history of the US's great institutions of higher education and their origins as affiliates of religious traditions. Hence Harvard, Yale, and Princeton are cited as educational institutions established by our earliest Protestant settlers. And Delbanco reviews the early history of such colleges, in the same way that David Ricci does, reminding us that the ideal graduate was one who was not filled with self-pride and the ambition to leverage the degree to make millions. Rather, the early ideal was to recognize, with gratitude, one's humble place in the universe, a universe filled by untold secrets even for the most knowledable. So, despite the huge rebuttal to Rich Santorum's calling President Obama a snob for recommending college for most young people (he didn't recommend a four-year degree for all), Delbanco finds an element of truth in Santorum's rant among America's most elite institutions of higher learning. Their students, he says, have too often strayed from the core message of their founders: learning is a privilege and not a ticket to a life of luxury. The real learned among us know this in their bones: what we know is a tiny fraction of what we don't know. And that kind of knowledge is cause for humility, not hubris.
Here's the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/09/opinion/colleges-and-elitism.html?src=me&ref=general
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I agree with the article in the way that it states that some people take college for granted. I see a lot of people around the campus who have been granted a diversity scholarship or a football scholarship who just do not care about going to class or doing their work. I wouldn't be so upset about it but I see it in almost every single class that I am in. Also, kids whose parents pay for their college do not value it as much because they do not have to pay back the loans themselves. Most of us have to work hard so we can get good jobs after college so that we can pay back these loans in a reasonable amount of time. However, I'm not sure if that leads college students to become haughty. Of course there will always be "those people" that think that they are better than others, but I believe that they would feel that way about themselves with out without a college degree. A college degree will make me feel better about myself, and I will know that I know more than others on my particular major and minors. But, there is a vast amount of information out there that I know little about and people that do not go to college may know more about.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with the article and many of the points that Elise makes. Nothing frustrates me more than knowing that students that have less academic merit than me are here paying less money than me because they are "diverse" or an athlete. While the school does not give out scholarships to athletes, I have had many tell me that coaches have literally told them they would be able to get them a few more thousands of dollars. To me, this is crap. Why should my academic merit be less desirable than a person's athletic merit? It makes me question if this college is really focused on teaching. The people at the elite colleges should definitely not feel superior to anyone. Most of them were born into a life of privilege. Those that worked their way up and actually deserve a position there should feel good that they made it, but that they are better than those who could not?
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