Are universities really educating their students?

This is an interesting question that can be answered in several ways depending on how you define education. When I look up the meaning for higher education, the definitions are skewed based on the desired end product. If you are looking for a well-rounded individual, you look for a general education that covers many areas of knowledge, ranging from science to arts to philosophy. If you define education as giving students the skills to get a job, you look at the courses that employers want. If you refer back to the 2/6/2020 post, you will see what pragmatic education might look like. I want my students to get the knowledge that they need to get good jobs. I don’t want them to pay for a class that will offer them no advantage in the “real” world.

I don’t see universities adopting this idea unless they are forced to do it. Think of all of the humanities departments that would have to lay off people if students were not required to take diversity classes or humanities classes. These university-wide requirements support entire departments, if not entire schools, within the university. What would we lose if these departments were required to downsize and become relevant? I suspect not much. If we made education appropriate to the real world, we could reduce the time to get a degree by 25% and reduce the cost of “higher education” by the same amount. Maybe it is time to get real and relevant to higher education. Maybe it is time to get the employers and those paying for a college education involved in the conversation.