num_pages: 176
description: Has American higher education become a dinosaur?Why do professors all tend to think alike? What makes it so hard for colleges to decide which subjects should be required? Why do teachers and scholars find it so difficult to transcend the limits of their disciplines? Why in short are problems that should be easy for universities to solve so intractable? The answer Louis Menand argues is that the institutional structure and the educational philosophy of higher education have remained the same for one hundred years while faculties and student bodies have radically changed and technology has drastically transformed the way people produce and disseminate knowledge. At a time when competition to get into and succeed in college has never been more intense universities are providing a less-useful education. Sparking a long-overdue debate about the future of American education The Marketplace of Ideas examines what professors and studentsand all the rest of usmight be better off without while assessing what it is worth saving in our traditional university institutions.
language: English
title: The Marketplace of Ideas: Reform and Resistance in the American University
publisher: W. W. Norton & Company