A Guide to Reading—Or Rather, Mis-Reading—“The Real World of College”

When authors finish writing a book, they hope that the book is as clear as it can possibly be. And should they be fortunate enough to have good editors—then the authors have every reason to expect that their messages and their intentions will come through clearly.

Would that it were so simple!

In the summer of 2021, we completed the manuscript of “The Real World of College;” nine months later the book appeared. We believed that the organization of the book could speak for itself:

A. What We Did and How We Did it (Part I)

B. What we Found (Part II—The Individual Learner and Part III—The Campus Culture)

C. What’s to be Done (Part IV—From Is to Ought)

Since the publication of the book, we have had ample opportunity to speak about the book in public forums. And the book has also received a reasonable number of reviews, chiefly in the sector of higher education. In addition, there are the reviews on Amazon and occasional tweets, in response to our presentations or to blogs like this one.

As is the case for almost every book—and particularly works of scholarship aimed at a broader public—reviews have ranged from quite favorable to highly critical. We expected and accept this state of affairs. What we had not expected was the extent to which the book has been misunderstood or, unhappily, prejudged.

Here we address the most common misunderstandings, prejudgments, and critiques.

1. Scope of our work

Misunderstanding: We are studying all of higher education.

Our book is principally about four-year colleges that are not vocational in orientation, and that promise students an education in the liberal arts and sciences—typically using that phrase or a variant thereof.

Unfortunately, our interviews of over 2000 individuals associated with ten colleges, show that most of the constituents in colleges cannot define “liberal arts”; indeed many have not even heard the phrase.

Only two of our schools do not fit into this category. One is a two-year community college—Borough of Manhattan Community College—optimally attended enroute to completion of a bachelor’s degree at a four-year institution in the City University of New York (CUNY) system. The other is a vocational school—The Olin College of Engineering—which prides itself upon also offering a liberal arts education, either on campus or courtesy of offerings on two nearby liberal arts colleges (Wellesley College and Brandeis University).

Some of the participating schools in our study are part of state universities (e.g., University of New Hampshire, California State University at Northridge, The Ohio State University). Others are private universities that contain colleges (e.g., Duke University, Tufts University, DePaul University). A few institutions are separate self-standing colleges (e.g., Kenyon College, Queens College). Only one institution has an explicit religious mission (DePaul University) and even that Vincentian mission is not widely known or understood on the campus.

As part of our study, we visited many other campuses as well and some of our findings from those visits are reported in the Appendix to our book.

2. Critiques from political/social progressives:

Misunderstanding: Failure to report and organize our work around demographic categories.

We made a deliberate decision not to report results in terms of the demographic backgrounds of participants (e.g., race, ethnicity, first generation, SES, sexual orientation). We did this for both practical and philosophical reasons.

Practically, it would have been almost impossible to carry out lengthy interviews with several thousand subjects who encompass the range of demographic profiles—the number needed to perform statistical tests. It would have taken at least a decade and huge amounts of research support.

Philosophically, we believe that college should be a unifying experience—it should bring people together rather than silo them. Even well-intentioned efforts to see the different perspectives of individuals representing different demographies almost inevitably lead to targeted treatments and concomitant silo’ing—as evidenced by some of the practical applications said to emanate Howard’s concept of multiple intelligences.

For elaboration of this strongly held though controversial perspective, please see two separate blogs on this issue, the first which details our research approach, and the second, which encourages a single mission for everyone.

3. Critiques from political/social conservatives:

Misunderstanding: Colleges should serve their clients; if the clients want job preparation (and other perks—ranging from major athletic teams to selective fraternities to junior year in exotic settings), that is precisely what colleges should provide.

Because of the schools that we selected, and the reasons that we selected them, we take the position that four-year colleges should not be primarily vocational or job oriented. Not only are most faculty ill-equipped to be job preparers; but the tradition in American four-year colleges has been a provision of the opportunity to explore widely and, possibly, to be transformed in the process.

Furthermore, the job landscape changes so quickly that any claims that one has prepared students for more than a few years of work at most are vacuous.

Our critics emphasize that colleges are businesses—albeit most are still non-profit. To stay in business these organizations need to please the customers—and if securing the best possible job is the goal for the family, so be it. If individuals want to study obscure topics or disciplines, or to settle for a low-paying job, that’s their prerogative.

To be sure, we recognize that the need to secure an adequate livelihood is an imperative for all, except the affluent. And if individuals choose a vocational school, or go directly into a trade, a start-up, or some other job that does not require a bachelor’s degree, that’s their choice. But if colleges are genuinely to live up to their claim to offer and build their education around the liberal arts, they need to make that claim the centerpiece of their offerings. If Google or Goldman Sachs or the Mayo Clinic want to open their own colleges or universities, so be it.

Misunderstanding: Colleges are places that brainwash students—frequently in destructive ways.

We recognize, and are very concerned, that many Americans—and especially registered Republicans—are critical of colleges—both because of cost and because of their presumed leftwing proclivities. These are issues that cannot—and should not—be swept under the rug.

We note, however, that Americans are not critical of universities per se. Indeed, if they reflect on it, most Americans are very pleased that we lead the world in research—in scientific, medical, computational, and technological areas. And indeed, when they see world rankings of universities, or hear about the winners of Nobel prizes, our citizens expect the United States to be dominant. They may even take pride in cellist Yo-Yo Ma (Harvard University) or novelist Toni Morison (Howard University, Cornell University, Princeton University).

In contrast, we suspect that many Americans (and many state legislatures!) would like to shut down our four-year colleges and just leave open the universities, with their strong emphasis on scientific and technological research.

Indeed, this is in effect what has long been the case in most of the rest of the world—where, following secondary school, young people in search of higher education, proceed directly to professional schools (University of Oxford and University of Cambridge are well-known quasi-exceptions).

We believe—though we cannot prove—that a significant part of the reason why American science has been of such high quality is precisely because our doctorates in science typically have received a good four-year liberal arts education, at schools like Princeton University, Macalester College, Barnard College, Spelman College, or Franklin and Marshall College. Were we to close down our liberal arts schools, we would need to radically strengthen our secondary system. Note that in many parts of the world, young people are tracked by the ages of 10-12, so only the academically strongest youth attend high standard gymnasiums, lycées, or United World/International Baccalaureate Colleges (which, despite their name, are actually secondary schools).

4. Time boundedness of the book

Misunderstanding: Our book describes a time that has past and may not be relevant for today.

We collected data from 2013-2018 and analyzed data for the succeeding two years. Roughly half of our data collection occurred during the Obama administration, the other half during the Trump administration.

Fortunately for our study, all data collection had occurred prior to the onset of the pandemic. Obviously, our study—if it could have been carried out to completion at all—would have been vastly different and vastly difficult to execute and to publish.

It’s reasonable to wonder whether our findings would be different if the study had been carried out more recently (say, 2019-2023)… or, for that matter, ten years earlier.

We believe that youth change—and colleges change—but not that quickly. And should the pandemic disappear altogether, we believe that many of our findings would continue to hold. As just one example, when we began our study in 2012, we had no idea that mental health would be the single greatest challenge reported by all constituencies on all campuses. What might seem like a new phenomenon had been lurking all along.

At the time of our study, neither social media nor online learning stood out on the radar screen. We suspect that social media were already very important, but students took them for granted in conversation—they felt no need to single them out, unless there had recently been a flameout on campus. Same for other constituencies.

As for online learning, clearly, we are all much more used to that form of education and communication than was the case a decade ago. And the quality of online education is improving, though not at the speed that many would like. But given the opportunity for face-to-face learning, most college age students and most faculty would prefer it. And that is not even to touch on the problems afforded by online educational offerings—ranging from students tuning out to students cheating on examination.

Conclusion

Even though we do not endorse these critiques, we take them seriously. And we learn from them as well. If we were to repeat the study, we might well have instituted some changes—perhaps studying some different schools, posing different questions, selecting subjects in other than a convenience way (only possible if participation were mandated). Similarly, were we to re-write the book, we might well have addressed the critiques directly—seeking to “head them off at the pass,” as it were.

What ‘s important to stress is that we want the best for the sector, and that includes all of the eight constituencies to whom we spoke. And we are happy to join efforts to improve the sector, in ways that strengthen its traditional mission while taking into account the ever-changing conditions.