Hacker, Andrew & Dreifus, Claudia. Higher Education? How Colleges are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids–And What We Can Do about It. New York: Times Books, 2010.
The authors offer an incisive critique of higher education. They start from the premise that “college should be a cultural journey, an intellectual expedition, a voyage confronting new ideas and information, together expanding and deepening our understanding of ourselves and the world.” From there, they argue that anything a college does that diverts resources from this undergraduate teaching purpose should be eliminated. From tenure to atheletics, from reliance on adjuncts to bloated administration, from marketing to lavish amenities–everything comes under close scrutiny. The book concludes with suggestions for streamlining universities to better serve the students they are meant to educate.