did not show significant improvements in learning during their first two years of college, and 36 percent did not show signi_cant improvements over four years. We can hope these findings don??t apply in Canada, but I wouldn??t count on it. In its 2010 throne speech , the Ontario government said that 70 percent of all new jobs will require postsecondary education; it is therefore aiming to ensure that 70 percent of the province??s population has postsecondary education. The throne speech didn??t say what proportion of that 70 percent should be university graduates. But it isn??t at all clear how much higher the percentage of university-educated people can be. Suppose our federal government decides that 50 percent of all new jobs need an undergraduate degree. Will we just continue to send higher proportions of young people to university? I used to tout the benefits of university education for job preparation, and I still think that??s true for the strongest and most motivated students. For the rest, I am worried that universities perform, as Richard Vedder argues, primarily a gate-keeping function. Many jobs need a certain minimum level of reading skills, an ability to defer gratification and the capacity to keep to schedules. A university diploma in 21 st -century North America certifies that its holder can, more or less, meet those standards. So there??s a moral question here. What do these observations suggest about the responsibilities of faculty members? As a larger and larger share of the population attends university, we