Education: part paradox, part food court
And part crash landing.
Yes, the modern university faces serious challenges—as do its students. But what about those obstacles in education that are a little more, well, odd? This week, Daniel H. Foster takes aim at the Cyclops problem in liberal arts. (Hint: even monsters benefit from Gen Ed.) Kim Nauer chats with the Center for New York City Affairs about why FAFSA keeps face-planting. And Austin Tannenbaum finally gives up on the queue for the New School elevators.
The Elevator Paradox at The New School for Social Research
Austin Tannenbaum
My first encounter with these tragicomic elevators happened during New School Admitted Students Day last spring. My tour guide, after running out of ways to fill the air while our group dawdled on the ground floor, reluctantly admitted to their “reputation.” I have since become an enrolled student and can say with confidence that this reputation is well-earned. Long wait times and cramped quarters mean you will more often than not see a cluster of lost souls milling around the lobby, praying an elevator car will deign to descend. If you’re on a floor where the call buttons don’t light up when pushed, it’s anyone’s guess whether an elevator has been summoned at all. Equally uncertain is where you’ll end up, given the arcane system of floor stops and skips. Almost invariably, one or more stragglers will enter a class after it has already begun, sighing, “The elevators … ” That straggler may be you.
The Cyclopes in the Food Court
Daniel H. Foster
Deciding where to go for a liberal arts education can seem a bit like deciding where to go for dinner. There’s prix fixe restaurants: “great books” programs that restrict diners and students to the same food and the same texts. There are à la carte restaurants with tasting menus, which offer more choice, but point diners and students towards a limited list of carefully curated core courses.
Still, if it’s choice you’re after, there’s always the food court—upscale or at the mall—which resembles the distribution requirements system—by far the most popular method for delivering a liberal arts education at U.S. universities.
Here, diners and students alike can freely choose to combine food and classes from across their culinary and educational multiverses.
But this way of classifying liberal arts education only recognizes the importance of the individual and individual choice. It neglects an element at the heart of education (and, for that matter, dining): community.
It Was Supposed to Make Getting College Aid Simpler. It Hasn’t.
Kim Nauer and Center for New York City Affairs
The good news? This new FAFSA, when it works, is a remarkable improvement on prior generations of the FAFSA. It can take less than 30 minutes to fill out online. The bad news? The rushed rollout has been botched, with both Congress and college financial aid officers getting increasingly frustrated and angry about what is happening.