A Ghost Town With a Quad: Is that the future of the American university?

Rebecca Schuman:

If you're planning to attend either Minnesota State University Moorhead or the University of the District of Columbia, best get in your Romeo and Juliet now--and while you're at it, you should probably learn the formulas for velocity and momentum, and study up on the Spanish-American War. Because soon, these regional public universities may have no departments of English, physics, or history--nor a host of other programs often associated with "college," including political science (MSUM), philosophy (MSUM), computer science (MSUM), and even economics (UDC).

What is confounding about these universities' plans to possibly obliterate nearly half of their departments is why both institutions, faced with budget crises, went straight for the academic jugular. And not just by cutting highfalutin artsy disciplines, but with an eye toward fields of study that are actually valued in today's cruel and fickle market. Nobody seems to notice that the structure of today's higher-ed "business" model is backwards: It's far easier to cut academics than it is to cut anything else, so that's what universities are doing. The irony that the very raison d'être of a university--education!--is also its most disposable aspect seems lost on everyone (perhaps because nobody studies English, philosophy, or French anymore, so nobody recognizes irony or knows what a raison d'être is).

Posted by Jim Zellmer at December 1, 2013 12:41 AM
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