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Sol Gittleman Higher Education

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The article “Higher Education Has Always Been a Mess” written by Sol Gittleman talks about the roller coaster of a ride that Higher Education has gone on. He starts off saying that in the mid-20th century, academia became idolized, embodying everything great about America while in good times, and yet was still demonized, and embodying everything wrong while times were bad (we still see this today). Today academia is seen as a crazy mixture of both, which in really it is. He then goes on telling the story of how Higher Education came to be in America. After WWII we enjoyed a 30 year golden age, America is still the world leader but it has been lost in the noise, culture, politics and price. Around the 30’s college life centered on football, …show more content…

The author made a lot of great points and there was a lot of information in the article that was shocking and a little robust I thought, but nonetheless great. I enjoyed the fact that he did criticize Higher Education because I think that many people believe that we have been on top since day one, which we haven’t and I appreciated the fact that he pointed out the flaws that still face Higher Education today because there are issues that still exist that are over looked. Gittleman did however paint a beautifully crazy picture of the history that anybody could appreciate, whether they are in the field or not. My favorite piece of the article was the way he brought Hollywood and their interpretation of college into the picture, because I feel that this is a large problem when it comes to college expectations. College in Hollywood is a glorified party hub that demeans the importance of education. We saw this with Animal House, any TV show that has a college setting, like Blue Mountain State, which completely undermines education and glorifies drinking, drugs and sex on the campus. The author touched upon a lot of topics and information in the timeline that showed the crazier, unorganized side of

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