Viewpoint: Dishonoris causes Available to Purchase

A disturbingly large number of US degrees are ‘virtually meaningless’, while higher education in that country is punch‐drunk following the publication in five months of three adverse reports. The first was from the National Institute of Education, with a series of warnings that the quality of undergraduate education was declining. Then William J. Bennett, at that time Chairman of the National Endorsement for the Humanities and now Secretary of Education, called for the restoration of coherence and vitality to undergraduate programmes in the humanities. Finally, the Association of American Colleges produced a report which claims that in the colleges: Fads and fashions, the demands of popularity and success, enter where wisdom and experience should prevail.