I think this book is a necessary part of the conversation of fixing higher ed. But I had a hard time connecting to it in this post-45, in-the-midst-of-Covid era. I also had a hard time relating any of the content to my experiences as a tenured professor at a community college. (He makes one offhand comment about how CC's are totally fucked or something, I'm obviously paraphrasing, and then pretty much just dismisses them.)

YES so many issues result from lack of public funding and the idea that college degrees are worthless if they don't earn us money. But missing from this book is the right-wing takeover of boards of education. Undermentioned was the administrative bloat that commands high six-figure salaries each while replacing full-time faculty with hoards of underpaid adjuncts. Completely ignored was the effect of teaching unions on any of this.

And I could have lived without his preachy diatribe against lectures and for "mastery learning." Leave us to our own pedagogies, please. Academic freedom means I know how to run my classroom better than you do, Professor Newfield.

The best part was the discussion against MOOCs. I've been in higher ed long enough to have been through so many of the fads that are "totally going to change education" that wind up being short-lived wastes of instructional budgets. But since teaching hybrid and switching back to face-to-face (FINALLY) post-Covid, I know firsthand how poorly remote instruction serves students, especially the ones that the author is most concerned about. And yet, those administrators looking to justify their $250,000/year are going to keep coming up with new fixes that don't address the deeper issues.

Overall, worth a read. ( )

An interesting and compelling argument for rethinking why public universities are getting more expensive while diluting the learning experience especially for incoming undergraduate students. I particularly like his point about universities (rather, all education) providing for the public good - something that cannot really have a dollar amount assigned to it but is vital for the wellbeing of a society. ( )