NAS Blog

In this week’s Pope Center Clarion Call, I review the new book by Rutgers sociology professor Jackson Toby, The Lowering of Higher Education in America.

Toby makes much the same case I have — we’ve badly oversold higher education by making it easy (and seemingly imperative) for just about anyone who graduates from high school to go to college. The change he advocates is to make the federal college loan system meritocratic. Instead of blindly promoting “access,” we should make eligibility for federal loans depend on demonstrated academic ability. I think that’s at least a step in the right direction. I’d like to see the feds get out of education entirely and the arguments Professor Toby makes will help that cause. He also says a lot of “the emperor is wearing no clothes” kinds of things about higher education that need to be said.