Dear Peter: I want to congratulate you and political scientist and author Charles Murray on winning the debate in Chicago Wednesday against Northwestern University President Emeritus and Rasmussen College Chairman Henry Bienen and me on whether too many Americans go to college. I should not have been surprised considering Washington Post readers declared you the winners even before the debate had started.
What surprised me was how much we agreed on.
The Washington Post’s Vivek Wadhwa will debate PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel Wednesday evening regarding a subject the two have disagreed on for some time: Whether America’s youth should attend traditional colleges? Wadhwa argues that America’s next generation cannot afford to abandon the nation’s colleges and universities for customized, self-directed education. Thiel, who has offered 20 individuals $100,000 to drop out of college, argues that college has become overly expensive while providing students with few — if any — of the tools they need to become entrepreneurs.
But what do you think? Is it time to do away with the traditional college experience? Or, as countries such as India and China begin to see rapid expansion, is it time to push harder for more widespread, traditional schooling?
