http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2827/university-bubble
It has become glaringly apparent that the college tuition bubble is about to burst. At a time of financial exigency, the cost of $250,000 for a four-year education at a private college is beyond the means of most middle class parents. That story is now very much front page news. What may not be front page news, but is itself a related bubble, is the excessive commentary surrounding the liberal arts.
If one speaks to an academic immersed in the academic culture, he is likely to glorify the virtues of the liberal arts curriculum. The liberal arts, however, have been injected with foreign steroids that have ballooned the number of offerings and weakened the meaning of the curriculum. If one were to rely on the Matthew Arnold standard of “the best that is known and thought as a guide,” the current curriculum is anything that will fit, or whatever you can get away with.
The absurdity of the offerings, from the Occupy Movement to Film Noir, represent little more than outcroppings of the contemporary imagination. So absurd are many of the college level courses that it is even impossible to caricature them. The university has let itself become a feast for those bursting with “expression.” Rather than distinguish between the worthy and the ridiculous, scholars refuse to distinguish at all.