For half a century, American higher education sold a simple promise: go to college, get ahead. The promise was never quite true, but now it is visibly, measurably breaking down — and no one can agree on what replaces it.
The American university is being asked to do more than it was designed for and less than its tuition justifies. What four years of higher education actually delivers — and to whom.
Higher education sold a generation on the idea that a degree was a guaranteed return on investment. The data has come in, and it is more complicated than the sales pitch.