In What’s the idea of College?, historian Johann N. Neem offers a new method to take into account the major questions facing advanced schooling today, from online education to disruptive development to how college students really find out. As commentators, reformers, and policymakers demand dramatic change and new educational models, this assortment of lucid essays asks us to pause and take stock. What is a university education said to be? What kinds of organizations and procedures will greatest help us make it happen? And about What’s the idea of College?: Looking for Purpose in a day and time of Reform which virtues must universites and colleges cultivate to sustain their preferred ends?

During this time period of drift, Neem argues, we have to moor our colleges once more to their primary purposes. By evaluating reformers’ goals with regards to the specific items that a college should give to learners and society, What’s the Point of College? connects public policy to deeper moral questions. Exploring how exactly we can ensure that America’s schools remain locations for intellectual inquiry and reflection, Neem does not simply provide answers to the big questions surrounding higher education-he gives listeners a guide for how to think about them.