The business major debate

Ok, today's effort to get out of the union vs. administration bubble for a larger issue: the controversy surrounding undergraduate education in general and business majors in particular. It may be of some relevance given the argument that our administration, and indeed higher education administration in general, has grown too fond of the business model. For if business education is one of the weak links in higher ed, then it would be rather ironic were the business model guiding our administrators.

Here's a joint NY Times/Chronicle of Higher Education article on the business major, and here's a little NY Times debate follow-up (mainly defenses of business education). This debate is the latest ripple emanating from the publication of Academically Adrift (University of Chicago, 2011) by Richard Arum & Josipa Roska, who summarized their argument in a January Chronicle article (you'll need to be on campus, or log on via the library or VPN to make the Chronicle link work).

While as a classicist I'm perfectly happy to see people trashing business education, my main worry is that this controversy will result in greater supervision of academics by politicians--at precisely the same time they are slashing funding for education. Here's less money, and give us the results we want rather than the education you say you are delivering. Swell.