In the United States, colleges and universities have traditionally undertaken the important task of preparing citizens to participate fully and effectively in the civic, political, and economic spheres of the republican system. They have done so by joining a general education curriculum--common to all students--to an area of specialized knowledge,…

Ten years ago, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) gathered data on 100 colleges from the U.S. News & World Report's annual list of "Best Colleges and Universities." ACTA questioned whether these elite institutions were requiring their students to take rigorous, college-level courses in the core areas crucial for…

ACTA's report "The Cost of Chaos in the Curriculum" reveals that the vast array of course choices given to college students is a cause of exploding costs and poor academic outcomes. And a bloated undergraduate curriculum is particularly detrimental to the success of students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. The report documents how…

The debate over the best delivery of general education, whether through a canon of Great Books, a core curriculum of specific courses and course sequences, or a distribution requirement of course types providing for greater student choice, has existed for generations. Today, the debate plays out in practice across the top-rated colleges and…

The idea of the college as a residential and instructional entity preparing students for advanced study by establishing basic knowledge in the liberal arts has a long history in Europe and the United States. The German term "Bildung" describes this function well, with its suggestions of "knowledge, culture, the power of expression,…

There is widespread concern that higher education is being compromised by being turned into a "commodity" to be "consumed". This article represents an initial attempt to explore the trends in both the UK and US, and considers how the law has responded to them. It argues, however, that there is an important distinction to be…

A study examines the place of linguistics in undergraduate curricula in the United States and Canada, the nature and structure of the curriculum leading to a bachelor's degree in linguistics, and the population served by the curriculum. The final report consists of an overview of the study, including the forms used for the survey; a directory of…