From pre-K to major universities, education is being disrupted. The tipping point, of course, is COVID-19.
But way before that, there had been no shortage of critics attacking the education status quo. Those included dissatisfied consumers such as my Lost Generation of Humanity Scholars. After years of doctoral studies, we entered a market for college professors in which demand had tanked. That was the 1970s.
Now, though, more and more often, powerful media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal are publishing major features on just-in-time developments in education. At all levels.
This week in WSJ, the issues are the financial hits higher education is taking because of the shutdown of campuses, outrage about online education, and uncertainty about enrollments for the 2020 - 2021 academic year. Also, this week in the WSJ is a video focusing on the bleak job prospects for the Class of 2020.
Simultaneously, articles detail the joblessness faced by the JD Class of 2020. Law school education is big business. The combination of undergraduate education and law school puts the Class of 2020's average student loan debt at $145,550.
So, it's predictable that the bible of the public relations industry - O'Dwyer PR - would establish a new category for its own reporting. As its Editor in Chief Kevin McCauley announces in today's article, the top agencies involved in that category include Edelman, Finn, APCO, and Lambert. Right now, there are 31 agencies in that niche.
Obviously, the best public relations agencies representing education have to create a fresh message. What had been, since the GI Bill, was almost a blind faith in education as a multi-dimensional tool. It could be used for every objective, be it civilizing the masses or struggling for upward mobility.
Now, what has replaced that is what might be thought of as the barbarians at the gate. Those heretics vilify what is. Yet, there is no solid platform for constructing alternatives.
The majority of the barbarians are mighty sophisticated.
Some may recall venture capitalist and co-founder of PayPal Peter Thiel recommending skipping the whole college experience.
Way back in 2016, The Economist published the article "Why Doing a PhD Is Often a Waste of Time."
And, from the get-go, influential Abovethelaw railed against investing the time, money, and hope in attending law school. Here is yesterday's article on that. Me? I regret giving up a good communications job in my early 40s to matriculate at Harvard Law School. No, being burned in my 20s hadn't gotten me to shake off the reverence for education. (But, fortunately shake I did and left as a 1L to ghostwrite a book on regulation and return to corporate communications.)
No one can anticipate what the questioning of education will generate.
Could it be another of the dark ages which tend to follow plagues?
Or will policy makers cave to the need for critical thinking to be the number-one objective of education? If that were the situation now, no one would contend he or she is going to law school to "learn to think critically."
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