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Cracks in the Ivory Tower: The Moral Mess of Higher Education

Source: nalert.blogspot.com - Thursday, January 31, 2019
Here's an important book to read in 2019 from Oxford University Press. Here's what's the publisher has to say about this blockbuster: Ideally, universities are centers of learning, in which great researchers dispassionately search for truth, no matter how unpopular those truths must be. The marketplace of ideas assures that truth wins out against bias and prejudice. Yet, many people worry that there's rot in the heart of the higher education business. In Cracks in the Ivory Tower, libertarian scholars Jason Brennan and Philip Magness reveal the problems are even worse than anyone suspects. Marshalling an array of data, they systematically show how contemporary American universities fall short of these ideals and how bad incentives make faculty, administrators, and students act unethically. While universities may at times excel at identifying and calling out injustice outside their gates, Brennan and Magness contend that individuals are primarily guided by self-interest at every level. They find that the problems are deep and pervasive: most academic marketing and advertising is semi-fraudulent; colleges and individual departments regularly make promises they do not and cannot keep; and most students cheat a little, while many cheat a lot. Trenchant and wide-ranging, they elucidate the many ways in which faculty and students alike have every incentive to make teaching and learning secondary. In this revealing exposé, Brennan and

Source: Breaking News

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