College on the Cover: Doom and Gloom Through the Decades

By Andy Thomason. Behold the cover of next month’s issue of The Atlantic, unveiled on Thursday.
Questions like “Is college doomed?” are loaded. The Atlantic cover qualifies its bold query by stating in the subhead that “college” refers to “traditional universities.” And “doomed” would more accurately convey the point if it was joined by “… to be disrupted.” It’s an effective hook, summing up the current moment of disenchantment brought about by higher education’s least attractive qualities: student debt, a sexual-assault epidemic, and steadily increasing tuition, to name a few. More...