AKA Review - 10.18.2024

From Chicago Booth Review
An Argument for Less Debate
By Jane L. Risen
Long a touchstone of academia, free and lively debate is not always the best way to share ideas or discover truth. Instead, the author argues, dialogue, with the goal of understanding one another, is often preferable to debate, which seeks to persuade. And as her research bears out, dialogue may even be more effective than debate in convincing others that one’s view is correct. In one study, participants who engaged in dialogue were more likely to change their opinion on a point of disagreement than were those who debated the same issue. Read this article

From Inside Higher Ed
Have Americans Actually Lost Faith in Higher Education?
By Jessica Blake
Media reports often link sinking public trust in higher education with current enrollment declines. Not so fast, says think tank New America in a policy brief that points out the difference between trust and value. Conflating the two oversimplifies highly nuanced public opinions of higher ed as well as the complex factors that impact college enrollment. This insightful article examines New America’s case along with opposing views that emphasizes other forces that may drive declining trust and enrollment, such as political polarization, cost, and outcomes. Read this article

From The Chronicle of Higher Education
Customers in the Classroom
By Beth McMurtrie

The stereotype: Students today view college as a transaction and are cynical about its value for intellectual growth. Faculty are discouraged by disengaged students who demand better grades/less work. The study examined here diagnoses the forces driving this: enrollment-starved institutions that pressure faculty to keep their “customers” happy; student frustration with repetitive coursework, bureaucracy, and high costs; declining public support for higher ed in favor of tuition funding; and a society that prioritizes immediate economic returns over academic exploration. Read this article

From The Atlantic
We Need Supply-Side Education Policy
By David Deming
“Skills-based hiring,” which eliminates degree requirements for vast numbers of federal jobs, is very popular with voters. But the real barrier, argues this economist, is not degree requirements but the lack of other ways for workers to prove their qualifications. Skills are hard to verify and our current patchwork of non-degree programs is confusing to employers. Instead, a federal skills-certification program for high-demand fields would provide the nationwide credibility to create more jobs for the majority of Americans without a four-year degree. Read this article

From The New York Times
A Recipe for a Striving America
By David Brooks
America’s shift away from manufacturing and embrace of an information-age future of ideas and services has contributed to society’s vast inequalities and polarization. Now, growing awareness that a just society must reward a diversity of skills is spawning bipartisan support for a new industrial policy that includes highly focused manufacturing. In this critical look at industrial policy, the author highlights its failures and successes and offers five principles to guide a modern industrial policy that would create a dynamic, striving America for all. Read this article