Let's upgrade undergrads to first-class citizens

By Alan Shepard. It’s a “tsunami”! Or a “Copernican revolution.” So say the president of Stanford and other university leaders. Not since the turn of the last millennium have so many people rung the doomsday alarm. This time it’s not the end of the world we’re worrying about, but the disintegration of undergraduate university education as we know it. To which I say – maybe. It’s clear we’re in a collective frenzy about the future of higher education, and the frenzy is likely to accelerate. Governments seek more accountability for the billions of tax dollars we all contribute. Students still seek transformative educations as well as job skills. Families seek access. Faculty seek meaningful engagement with students in an era that has opened up university education to the greatest percentage of any population in history. In our own ways we all seek “value for money,” that awful phrase that lays bare the economics of one of the most profoundly human of experiences – the joy of getting an education. Read more...