Delicate Cutters

By Matt Reed. Last week, I was in a meeting with several colleagues, two of whom are Boomers, and one of whom is a fellow Gen X’er. As the meeting wound down, the discussion shifted:
Boomer 1: Remember when all the local banks used to recruit here? They’d hire all the liberal arts grads?
Boomer 2: Yes!  Or the big retailers like [name of dead chain] and [name of other dead chain].
B1: That’s right.  And then they’d put people in their management training programs.
(pause)
B1: When I graduated, I had four job offers before I finished.
(pause)
Me: What color is the sky on your planet?
X’er: (snarf)
B1: Blue.  That’s just the way it was.
Me: On behalf of generations X and Y, [colorful, if affectionate, expression of frustration]
X’er: When I graduated with my Master’s, I got a job at Subway.
I was reminded of that conversation yesterday in reading back-to-back articles in IHE about making aspects of college free. One addressed the growing use of Open Educational Resources as a substitute for the buy-your-own-textbook model, and the other addressed an argument for making public higher education entirely free. Read more...