Title: Change.edu: Rebooting for the New Talent Economy

Author: Andrew Rosen

Publisher: Kaplan 2011

Genre: Nonfiction

Pages: 240

Rating:  4 /5 stars

Reading Challenges: Dewey -- 370s

How I Got It: Library Loan

While low-income students can’t find a spot in their local community colleges for lack of funding, public four-year universities are spending staggering sums on luxurious residence halls, ever-bigger football stadiums, and obscure research institutes. We have cosseted our most advantaged students even as we deny access to the working adults who urgently need higher education to advance their careers and our economy. In Change.edu: Rebooting for the new talent economy Andrew S. Rosen clearly and entertainingly details how far the American higher education system has strayed from the goals of access, quality, affordability, and accountability that should characterize our system, and offers a prescription to restore American educational pre-eminence.

A bit of a departure from my Shakespeare and romance novels.  I was craving some thought provoking nonfiction, and I got it.  Although I mistakenly believed this book was aimed at K-12 education when I grabbed it, I came to really enjoy the examination of our nation's higher education system.  Overall, I agreed with Rosen on the large issues at play in higher education: money allocation, focus on education, displaced interests.  We have gradually gotten away from education our next generation and focused on money, prestige, and image of colleges.  We need to take a hard look at our post secondary arena and determine what we really want.  What is the purpose of college?  If we need skilled students exiting into the new technological world, we aren't fulfilling the need.  A very thought provoking book.