A Refutation of "Are Colleges Worth the Price of Admission"

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A Refutation of “Are Colleges Worth the Price of Admission?” Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus set out on a mission to answer the question of “Are colleges worth the price of admission?” They argue that colleges are taking on too many roles and doing none of them well, losing track of the basic mission to challenge the minds of young people. One of the many problems, they claim, is that students are enrolling in too many vocational majors instead of the liberal arts such as philosophy, literature and the physical sciences. Not only do they title this claim “Make students use their minds”, they proceed to further slight vocational majors by stating: “We’d like to persuade them that supposedly impractical studies are a wiser use of college and ultimately a better investment. The undergraduate years are an interlude that will never come again, a time to liberate the imagination and stretch one’s intellect without worrying about a possible payoff.” (180). This is self-contradictory in itself. If they believe that studies in the field of architecture or medical science are not intellectually stimulating, or don’t require abstract thought, then it would seem that Andrew and Claudia have failed themselves in the application of their own tenant of “liberate the imagination and stretch one’s intellect.” What do they call it when a physician must think of a new way to perform surgery on a complicated patient, or an architect creating a new building that defies previously held beliefs in what was possible? Some people, such as Andrew and Claudia, have a desire to explore the liberal arts, yet one path of intellectual desire shouldn’t become the educational norm to which all students must adhere. This type of tracking or predestination of a college plan sounds like the polar opposite of “liberating one’s imagination” to me. Andrew and Claudia’s next proposal for

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