Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I am a former college professor who left academia a year ago, in large part because I did not care for the trends I was seeing in higher education. So when I had the opportunity to review this book, I was eager to do so, especially given the background and expertise of the author, Jeffrey Selingo, who is the Editor at Large of the The Chronicle of Higher Education. I was hoping to find a balanced and nuanced review of the changes taking place in colleges today. Instead, this book--other than the obligatory criticisms of the high tuitions and large debt loads families are assuming these days to put their children through college--presents a largely glowing portrait of where college is heading. Take, for example, the topic of online classes, which occupies a large part of Selingo's book. This is a hot trend in colleges today for two main reasons: Colleges make a bucketload of money off them, and students love them. Selingo obviously loves them, too, and he waxes eloquently at great length about their promise for delivering convenient and inexpensive courses to students. He notes on p.99 that "a vocal slice of professors and administrators remain skeptical" of online classes, even though "every new study of online learning" arrives at essentially the same conclusion that students perform better in online courses that traditional courses. This is only one small example of sweeping statements that Selingo makes without offering any supporting evidence, and it seriously distorts the actual state of the pedagogical research, because it is emphatically NOT true that every study supports the superiority, or even equality, of online classes compared to traditional classes. For example, the Community College Research Center at Columbia University has produced multiple studies showing that community college students who enroll in online courses are much more likely to fail or drop out compared to traditional classes. Another study following over 50,000 students in Washington found that students who took more online courses were less like to transfer to four year colleges or obtain degrees. This research is not mentioned in Selingo's book, nor does he address the issue of cheating on online classes. While there are steps that instructors can take to ensure that students do the work themselves and don't cheat on online tests, these involve considerable effort on the part of the instructor (e.g., setting up webcam surveillance of the student while she/he is taking the test, or arranging for a proctored exam to be administered), and few instructors or faculty are inclined to do so. It is entirely possible for students to receive credit for online courses where they did none of the work (google "we take your class for you" for an eye-opening display of companies openly advertising to cheat on online classes). Of course, cheating takes place in traditional classes. The difference is that the online setting makes it easier to do so. Another disturbing aspect to the increase in online courses is that, too often, they are less rigorous than traditional classes. This is, in fact, a major reason so many students like online courses so much: They often require much less time and effort than a traditional course. I've had students tell me that they've completed an online course in two days, by going straight to the quizzes and searching the readings/lectures for key terms in the questions. It is possible to design an online course that is rigorous, not susceptible to cheating, and offers the same intellectual challenge and exchange of ideas with faculty and peers that you can find in a traditional classroom. But such course are the exception, not the norm. And the enthusiastic endorsement of the online revolution without acknowledging these weaknesses is, in my opinion, a major flaw of the book. The future of higher education, as Selingo sees it, is a system where students receive a more customized and flexible experience, with most students obtaining a degree through some combination of online courses, credentials offered for completing MOOCs or other "life experience," transfers across institutions, and internships. While I agree with the author that such a system would likely result in a larger number of students receiving an undergraduate degree, I don't agree that this is a future to be desired. On p. 24 the author argues that there has been a "systematic dumbing down of college campuses" and that "while the price of a degree is increasing, the amount of learning needed to get that piece of paper is moving in the opposite direction." I agree with this sentiment strongly, actually, but I also don't see the solutions embraced by Selingo as improving matters any. That being said, the author writes well, and he does an excellent job of capturing the changing face of higher education. In particular, the first section of his book ("How We Got Here") is an excellent if disturbing summary of where higher education has gone wrong in recent decades. I just wish that the rest of the book had taken a more critical and balanced look at the unintended consequences and disadvantages of the changes he endorses so enthusiastically.