According to a study reported in the May 14 Wall Street Journal, “America’s leading colleges and universities have largely abandoned the idea that there exists some common body of knowledge and skills that all graduates ought to master.” Most of the 50 universities studied by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni “continue to pay lip service to the idea of a liberal education. But in practice a liberal education has come to be defined by a ‘smorgasbord approach’ that undercuts that mission.”
Cornell University in New York boasts, “there is no course that students must take, and there are nearly 2,000 from which they may choose.” In these types of universities, a student “can satisfy her literature requirement equally with a course in Shakespeare or ‘Writing Tibet’ ….”
Who will provide young people the direction they need when some of the world’s greatest educational institutions refuse to do so?