Interesting commentary in The Atlantic Monthly on the rising cost and decreasing quality of higher education:
HIGHER education has long been
growing more rational. Yet there is
a widespread feeling of discontent with
the present ideal of academic culture
which sometimes degenerates into down-
right pessimism. It must be conceded
that education costs too much time and
too much money for the kind. The col-
lege curriculum should be still further
transformed in order to bring it into
harmony with the requirements of mod-
ern life. Our average standard of at-
tainment is very low, and the reason is
plain, we have wasted our resources.
George E. Howard, “The State University in America,” The Atlantic Monthly (March 1891).