What's the Point of College?: Seeking Purpose in an Age of Reform

by Johann N. Neem

Before we can improve college education, we need to know what it's for. In our current age of reform, there are countless ideas about how to "fix" higher education. But before we can reconceptualize the college experience, we need to remember why we have these institutions in the first place―and what we want from them. In What's the Point of College? , historian Johann N. Neem offers a new way to think about the major questions facing higher education today, from online education to disruptive innovation to how students really learn. As commentators, reformers, and policymakers call for dramatic change and new educational models, this collection of lucid essays asks us to pause and take stock. What is a college education supposed to be? What kinds of institutions and practices will best help us get there? And which virtues must colleges and universities cultivate to sustain their desired ends? During this time of drift, Neem argues, we need to moor our colleges once again to their core purposes. By evaluating reformers' goals in relation to the specific goods that a college should offer to students and society, What's the Point of College? connects public policy to deeper ethical questions. Exploring how we can ensure that America's colleges remain places for intellectual inquiry and reflection, Neem does not just provide answers to the big questions surrounding higher education―he offers readers a guide for how to think about them.

Genres: Nonfiction, College, Education

1 pages, Audio CD

Published March 1, 2021

Reviews

[SundayAtDusk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since I majored in humanities a few decades ago, I often agreed with Dr. Neem while reading this book. With me, he was preaching to the choir. Other times, though, I felt like he was ignoring issues, such as dull as dirt classes being taught by tenured professors, who are bored out of their minds or sleepwalking. Or professors who have personal problems or prejudices that interfere with their teaching. That’s not even counting more serious issues, such as professors sexually harassing students, something that was not even acknowledged decades ago. Students end up paying, both financially and emotionally, for all those professor problems. For some reason, I think those things are far more likely to happen in the humanities departments, too. But maybe not.

Nevertheless, Dr. Neem made many good points, such as the importance of physically going to college, and being a bit sheltered from the outside world in a way that facilitates learning, in a way that encourages critical thinking. He wisely stated that simply learning how to think critically is not how one ends up being a good critical thinker. No, thinking critically about a wide range of subjects is how that happens. Hence, reducing or eliminating required humanities courses for students might not be a good thing. It also might be a bad thing, in my opinion, for many students, not to get away from their families, their hometowns, their old crowds. It’s amazing how that first year of college can so alter one’s views of life and the world.

Do any or many students these days, without family money or full scholarships, major in the humanities? If so, I admire their courage. I would never do so today, not with the thought of having crippling debts after leaving college. Money can’t buy happiness, but it does buy food, clothes, homes, privacy, security and a future with more choices. Deep debt often leads to drudgery and creates never-ending worries. Dr. Neem pointed out various times in this book that something needs to be done about the costs of attending college. Lots and lots of others have pointed that out, too. Yet nothing seems to be turning that tragedy around. What’s the point of college? I think a more important question to ask is what’s the point of college becoming a racket, a racket that turns students into customers, and leaves countless of them drowning in debt for decades?

P.S. It's interesting to note, too, that this book's current pre-order price for the Kindle edition is almost $22! Oh my, is it going to be used as a college textbook? Why else would it have such a high Kindle price? That's one of the most obvious signs of the racketeering going on in colleges--outrageous prices for books required for classes.

(Note: I received a free ARC of this book from Amazon Vine.)

[Rod Reed · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book contains a provocative set of essays calling the American college to embrace its liberal arts calling and reject the utilitarian temptations or the current call for new paradigms. While I appreciated many of the author’s arguments, I see no way for actual universities to do what he says (e.g., eliminate all professional programs and the emphasis on job preparation). I love learning for its own sake, but we also have a sacred task of preparing students for effective professional lives.

[Dan Graser · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this slender but potent volume Johann Neem advances a virtue ethics centered argument as the necessary telos of collegiate study and liberal education, as opposed to the oft-bandied pragmatic and utilitarian challenges the academy is faced with every election cycle. I think he does a fine job summarizing the challenges and makes a very passionate case for what is actually a conservative, liberal education, one with which I would agree (note that neither "conservative" or "liberal" are being used politically).

There are some bold points and challenges to "new norms" such as his complete dismissal of the idea behind the bachelors degree in business, or the "business major" more generally. This may have some rolling their eyes at the ivory tower blowhard but I assure he is neither of those things and his case is well made, even if the concluding recommendations seem drastic.

The culminating suggestions for universities are what you would imagine from the preceding information, that universities need to embrace the liberal education tradition and shy away from rubber-stamping of ever-quicker "degrees" that may give qualifications for a specific job but have done nothing to impart knowledge and ways of thinking to their graduates. Reading this at a time where universities are being asked to put all of these experiences into online formats certainly reinforces, for me, the need for the collegiate environment. Even the finest online classes are not an adequate substitute and many students around the nation right now are angered at the idea of paying the same price for a delivery mechanism they don't want as a part of their education.

It is certainly the case the vocational training, job training, and community colleges perform vital roles which individuals should choose because they best suit their needs and future desires. But the idea that all universities and academic departments should perform all of those roles and shove the Humanities into the real of obscurity, making time for the genuine telos of collegiate education "when they can as scheduling allows," is one that needs counteracting, which Neem does admirably here.

[James Lovaas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Let me start by saying I wanted to like this book. I enjoyed the early chapters. The author shared insightful thoughts on recent disruptions and innovations. However, around chapter six, the author appears to shift into a defense of traditional liberal art colleges for the sake of traditional liberal arts colleges.

At chapter six, he appears to identify business as an inappropriate major for college studies and seems to lay much of the blame for recent college woes at the feet of business. However, much of the charges against business could just as easily be charged against majors such as elementary and secondary education. These majors are highly vocational and aimed at careers that are expected to commence shortly after graduation. Yet, not a word is written in regards to these other majors.

There are many questionable assumptions from this point on in the text. The author seems convinced that the only justified collegiate atmosphere is the traditional college campus focused on liberal arts studies. He criticizes most forms of adult education primarily because they do not resemble traditional eduction. One argument is that students acquire critical thinking from studying these topics in classrooms. (Also, his views on critical thinking are unclear and hard to follow.) He only makes passing reference to the fact that many of these classes may be taught by inexperienced professors and or grad students just earning credit themselves. He also seems to doubt that adults could learn such things in other locations and in other circumstances.

It is equally frustrating that he seems to advocate that all students should pursue education in the traditional format while not actually wrestling with some of the issues he mentions briefly. He offers no reasonable solution to the financial question as to how everyone should finance this type of education. He offers no real solution as to how a working adult should tackle this traditional format without being stuck in classrooms five nights a week for six or eight or ten years. Finally, he does not attempt to address the issue that perhaps this type of educational approach was never meant to serve everyone.

Again, the first half of the book is interesting and at points insightful. From that point on, it is a defense of one form of education.

[Lance Eaton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neem's concise and insightful book guides readers into the complex elements that make up higher education in the early 21st century. He provides historical context to many of the internal challenges of collegues and universities as the issues that confuse the general public about the nature of higher education. For instance, he provides a rich discussion of understanding the difference about a college education as the battle between enrichment of the individual and seeking for the preparation of a career. He convincingly makes an argument in favor of the former given that the latter does not have the proven track record that people tend to think it does. In other places, he draws out the challenges among tenure track faculty and other institutional members and how this creates of challenges, and disconnects in higher education. His work is highly accessible to the lay reader and can help anyone who is going to be engaging with higher education (as a student, a parent of a student, a staff member, a new faculty member) to get a solid 30,000 foot view. My only caveat with his assessment is his underselling, underdefining, and misrepresenting online education, which is something he largely criticizes without geniunely looking at many of the important and successful examples and models.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This short book raises many important questions about (as the title might suggest) the purpose of college. I think the primary strength of the book is his argument about what a college's purpose isn't, or rather, what it shouldn't be. Neem argues strenuously that college shouldn't be vocational - that while the trades are worthwhile and important, that's not what college is for. Using similar logic, he launches a strident broadside against business degrees, arguing that they are much more about job training than about learning to think. Given various studies demonstrating that business majors tend to learn less in college than liberal arts and sciences and hard sciences majors, it's not hard to understand why he thinks this, radical an idea though it may seem in the 21st century, where the discourse around so much higher education is about practicality, usefulness and speed. It was a bit disheartening to realize he wrote this book before the pandemic accelerated both the demand and the accessibility of remote learning and emphasis on degree completion, rather than on the content of the curriculum.

You may not agree with all his recommendations, or think that they're particularly likely or feasible, but Neem consistently makes you think. At the very least, that's the point of this book.

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a well laid out book that discusses the purpose of colleges, how they were viewed and used to how they are now and possibly going to be in the future. It’s written in an easy to read manner so that everyone should be able to read, follow and understand his point of view. The author seems knowledgeable about the subject and seems to have taken a realistic viewpoint regarding this subject. I recommend this book to anyone who is entering college or due to enter it in the coming year as well as parents and other friends and relatives who are interested in the education of our future.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book last year after reading an excerpt in the Chronicle of Higher Education. It sat untouched on my shelf for months until I picked it up while sheltering in place.

It is an interesting time to read this book, given the uncertainty that higher education is facing. Many of the issues brought up here are being exacerbated by the pandemic, so it is good to read something that anchors us back to the way things should be. Would recommend.

[Savannah Lea Morello · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly thought provoking and robust for such a short book. I appreciate how the author was so careful not to frame his arguments in such a way that only adherents to one political party or the other could accept it. He didn’t fully define a liberal education in a way that satisfied me, but he did put “liberal education” in context of terms like “university,” “academy” and others.

[Rebecca Brenner Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

a good read with many thoughtful points from an author who knows the field very well

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting viewpoints

Great read for some alternative ideas to market to.

3/5