While every sector of American life has been affected by the difficult financial times, higher education is experiencing a profound crisis that threatens the very foundations of education and the meaning of intellectual endeavor. The impact of the financial downturn has been both economic--in the form of lower enrollments, rising tuition, and…

Many studies and reports in recent years have argued that there's an important "expectations gap" between the skills students are typically bringing to college and what college teachers think students should be bringing with them to college. This article, presented in the form of an open letter to first-year high school students, is an attempt…