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323What Is the Future of Higher Education? Conversation QUESTIONS Exploring the Text 1. What are some of the benefits Marilynne Robinson notes as a result of Iowa%u2019s %u201czeal for education%u201d (par. 2)? Why does she call these benefits %u201can issue of social justice and of public health as well%u201d (par. 3)? 2. Robinson asserts that %u201cthe value of education is disputed%u201d (par. 4). What factors does she see as causes for this opinion, and what negative consequences does she predict will come as a result? 3. Robinson homes in on the word %u201cliberal%u201d in paragraphs 5%u20138. What evidence does she provide to argue that advanced education is liberating? According to Robinson, how does the American higher education system help the United States stand out from other nations? QUESTIONS 2 from America%u2019s Educational Superpower Is Fading Adrian Wooldridge Adrian Wooldridge (b. 1959) is a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion . He was a writer at The Economistand is the author of several books about global politics. This piece appeared in Bloomberg Opinion in April 2023. The United States has been a leader in higher education since the Massachusetts legislature founded Harvard College in 1636, six years after the Puritans landed and established the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The Americans built the world%u2019s first mass university system with the creation of land-grant universities via the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890. They mixed the world%u2019s two most successful models of higher education %u2014 the German research university and the Oxbridge residential college %u2014 into a uniquely powerful synthesis in the 1890s. The 20th century has seen the US invent the high-tech research park, the multiversity, the commuter college and, cynics might add, the university as hedge fund. In many respects the US remains the global pacemaker today. American universities occupy 19 of the top 30 slots in the 2023 Times Higher Education Supplements%u2019 ranking of the world%u2019s universities. The US has by far the largest concentration of Nobel Prize winners. Nine of the top ten richest universities are in the US. . . . Yet behind this glittering fa%u00e7ade of Nobel Prizes and gargantuan gifts, the US university system is beginning to molder. The problem is not just a few glitches here and there. That is to be expected in a giant system. It is that vital elements in a healthy academic system are failing at the same time. Prices continue to rise: A year at Cornell now costs nearly $90,000. Administrative bloat is rampant: Yale University now has the equivalent of one administrator for every undergraduate student. Federal student debt has reached $1.6 trillion, 60% more than credit card debt. . . . The best way to reform US higher education is to take the four principles that have shaped the university sector from the very beginning and bring them back into a healthy balance. The US has taken the first two principles %u2014 democratization and marketization %u2014 too far. They need to be reined in. It has faltered in its support for the third and fourth principles %u2014 meritocracy and freedom of speech. It needs to redouble its support for the Copyright %u00a9 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.