Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track

14. The College and University Experience

Universities have become extensions of the traditional high school, and post-school education has become an extension of university education. All the failings we have discussed earlier apply as much to universities as to K–12 schools. The student experience in college is no more supportive of their individual development, creativity, curiosity, eagerness to learn, and acquisition of collaborative learning skills than was their earlier experience.

College appears to be serving the primary social function of keeping young people out of the workplace for an additional four years and enabling them to continue to exist without the need to participate as full members of the larger adult society. The extent ...