What Is College For?

- “If one function of a college like Swarthmore should be to create a good elite, another should be to give young people a taste for the life of the mind understood as an end in itself.”

As colleges lost their monopoly on information, college became less about learning and more about signaling. Whatever value they once provided is diminishing. Peter Thiel argues that college has become an expensive insurance policy for upper middle class parents who don’t want to see their children fall through the cracks of society.

Many people heralded the ubiquitous access to first rate educational materials as a ‘college killer’. Indeed, some people still think that MOOCs will replace colleges in the future. But, according to Ray, “people don't generally don't go to college for the content. They go to for college for almost everything except the content.”