On balance and higher education

In this work the author concerns himself with the underlying conditions and forces which keep higher education from realizing its “higher” possibilities. He asks and attempts to give answers to such questions as: What effects do “important’ exams have on the learning process? What qualities are being measured? What qualities do they ignore, or suppress? Who are the failures, and why have they failed? What are the “ends” of American higher education, how do universities relate to the society in which they function? What effects do the current “explosions” of facts, techniques, and sophisticated terminology have on the life of the individual student? Does the intensely competitive atmosphere of the university ever give the individual the time to reflect on the “whole” of things, or to search for and discover that which is intrinsically meaningful?

The material in this book has its foundations in and draws its substance from Mr. Robbins’ own first-hand experience as a high school student, an undergraduate, and a graduate student. The book will be of interest to those people who are concerned with the problems that beset American higher education and which manifest themselves in present day student alienation and revolt. It will be of particular interest to individuals who have been through and disenchanted by “the mill,” or who are currently undergoing the process of “education” and find that somehow they have been left out of the scheme of things; who, like the author, are questioning the process, are trying to get to the roots of “why” things are they way they are, and who are themselves on a road in search of meaning.