Liberal schooling must therefore reject, inflexibly, every try to be understood in instrumental phrases — be it economic, civic, or social. But regardless of how useful, these advantages can by no means be its supposed final purpose with out forfeiting its very nature. And this requirement is, we should candidly acknowledge, in tension with the scholar it goals to liberate.
The Credential Society
As long as it remains taboo to acknowledge that school is intellectually too demanding for many young individuals, we’ll proceed to create crazily unrealistic expectations among the many subsequent generation. If “crazily unrealistic” sounds too sturdy, think about that more than 90 p.c of high school seniors expect to go to varsity, and more than 70 percent of them expect to work in professional jobs. If the only people we needed to fear about had been those who are on college campuses and doing moderately well, this place would have something to be mentioned for it. It doesn’t handle the problems of whether or not 4 years makes sense or whether a residential facility makes sense; however, faculty as it exists is not an intrinsically evil place for the scholars who’re there and are coping academically. However unintentionally, we have made one thing that is still inaccessible to a majority of the population—the B.A.—into an emblem of first-class citizenship. We have accomplished so at the similar time that other class divisions are becoming extra highly effective.