<a href="http://edge.org/conversation/geoffrey_west-why-cities-keep-growing-corporations-and-people-always-die-and-life-gets" rel="nofollow">http://edge.org/conversation/geoffrey_west-why-cities-keep-g...</a><p>Tldr; Universities used to be structured like cities, or be an extension of a city. Cities are so far essentially immortal. In keeping with modern doctrine, universities have been transformed into commercial corporations. We know that as a form, corporations have a limited lifespan. The average lifespan of a company in the s&p 500 has decreased over the last century from 67 years to around 15.<p>If you turn a university into a corporation, you limit its lifespan and should expect it to die after a few decades. The evidence is clear.
While I think that many of the world's higher education systems are moving towards optimizing throughput rather than focusing on truly engaging with students, it is wrong to assume that this trend only affects the humanities.<p>As a researcher in a STEM field (at US university) for only ~7 years I have often posited that many of the ideas which appeal to administrators result in a degraded academic experience for students. In turn, this can negatively impact research efforts.<p>I understand that this must be more frustrating to those in the humanities, as funding is more abundant in STEM, but my guess is that these same trends are harming the quality of research in all fields.
The UK universities are considered by many others in europe as degree factories; i think they're the ones who invented the business.<p>Universities were once respected as the bastions keeping humanity's precious knowledge. There is no reason for that anymore, we need more online and freely accessible courses, data corpuses, libraries, and education material, funded by national governments. Education should be a fundamental human right, and it is not up to some startup or non-profit to fix that.
Couldn't agree more. I got my BS in Comp Sci from a traditional university. Got out, got a job, did okay, got promoted out of day-to-day development & eventually lost my ability to dev. Now, in my 40s I've decided to get back to my tech roots. With all the great free resources & contributors online, as well as shops like Udemny (& others) I am getting better & more practical instruction than I originally received at a university.
The counterpoint is that at no other point in history has it been that (1) having a higher education was crucial to success and (2) the middle class (or what used to be the middle class) had access to higher education.<p>That having been said, most people in the broader economy still need to fill roles with practical value as opposed to e.g. working at a think-tank. The critical skills the author describes are nonetheless important, and one of the terrifying things about this whole education business is that large parts of the middle and upper classes lack this, in spite of said higher education. But I digress.<p>The point is that we have more people going to university. So you put that together with the needs of the students and of course there will be an overall de-emphasis on ivory-tower activities. But I wonder if the total amount of such activities hasn't changed much, with regards to the size of the country or economy.<p>That said, we still need a place for those sorts of things to happen. And it does feel like it's been pushed off into "grad school," whereas undergrad has become a career mill much like how high school has become a college mill.<p>What I'll give the author credit for is the value of the mill. He's right that there isn't that critical thinking, and isn't that what we needed to begin with in the creative economy? And I do remember what that was like in school, and even today. People like the idea of creativity and critical thinking until you make them do it.
Eagleton used the same exact phrase twice about teaching and research. So much for his great writing skills.<p>I stopped reading after that.<p>This rant is like anything else that could be posted to Crooked Timber. "Oh no! Humanities professors have to work like anyone else, with measurable results. The university is dying!"<p>I do respect the humanities, but there's only so much you can do with them. Whereas the knowledge, technology, wealth, and all-around good stuff gained from electrical engineering, astrophysics, materials science, etc. is as limitless as the universe.