“Should We Really Turn College Education over to the Free Market?” | History News Network

This idea that higher education should be driven by free market forces is gaining traction. And it has already had a detrimental impact on the quality of education as students and society at large value “job training” over a real education that prepares them to think critically and more broadly about the world.

The idea that institutions of higher education are and should be run like businesses is appealing . However, few Americans have really thought through the implications of this model of higher learning. As Paul J. Croce explains “education is more than a good-fitting pair of shoes; it can be a walk with towering and challenging ideas that can awaken to a mental map for understanding the world around us. Education can rouse us to support the world’s goodness and beauty, and also to tackle its problems, including those generated by the power of entrenched officeholders and the appeal of marketplace conventions.”