The Nature of Higher Education

Essay from the year 2016 in the subject Pedagogy - Higher Education, grade: 3.80, Indiana University (College of Arts and Sciences - Education Department), course: EDUC-U215 Foundations for Undergraduate Success, language: English, abstract: This essay is premised on the supposition that many of the foundational disagreements on the role of higher education in American society can be synthesized into three major themes: whether college education is a privilege or right, whether college education is a predominantly public or private good, and who or what benefits the most from the traditional college education. This essay attempts to outline a coherent conception of education that encompasses three themes and ultimately concludes that education is most effectively and fully to be understood as a largely private privilege for the individual with potentially positive public externalities if of a particular type and distribution. Potential counterarguments and insight into the theoretical shortcomings of considering higher education a public right in its diversity are presented and expounded upon.

I'm an undergraduate student at Indiana University studying Philosophy and Economics and currently working for the Institute of Ideas in London, England under director Claire Fox.