It's a great book, well worth the read.
Most people just want someone to give them a job and let them do it. Being told what to do by an authority figure is considerably easier than figuring out what to do on your own. College is a system of authority and assigned work, and that's a big part of why people like it.
I don't think the purpose of college is to provide people with education and a love of learning. Most people don't want that. The majority of people don't like to learn things. Learning is for nerds.
The purpose of college (or any form of institutionalized education) is to do all three of the things that you listed. It's a tool of our society. Changing it would only make it unappealing to the average person. People who love learning have wikipedia.
> I don't think the purpose of college is to provide people with education and a love of learning. Most people don't want that.
Your stance on this issue strikes me as one-dimensional and solipsistic. Maybe you're a very smart person who was unfairly persecuted for being different, or maybe you were persecuted for being different and placed the blame on a feature.
From my perspective, humans are learning machines, as evidenced by the totality of human output.
> People who love learning have wikipedia.
Wikipedia does not talk to you, debate your ideas, or force you to think in uncomfortable ways (`Discussion` does not count). I might be nitpicking your point, but autodidacts are well served by interfacing with people who can challenge their ideas and also help them articulate their opinions in person.
Edit: I'm getting downvoted, and I hope it's not because this comment comes across as rude. If it is, please message me directly; I tried hard on the tone.
I believe that a good vo-tech schooling should be considered as an acceptable alternative for many.
That being said, people on HN are obsessed with discussing the ROI of undergraduate education when referring to the "bubble," without really discussing the role that a liberal education should play for those who aren't engineers. I think the really interesting point the author made was that professor's incentives have goes awry, as they are better off if they assign easier coursework so that they don't get docked on student reviews at the end of the term.
Perhaps you are thinking of another article by the same author? I have read that argument before and it's obviously a good one, but it's not brought up in this article here.
1. Society is a machine that trains worker ants for roles in production which serves the goals of the society. The efficient operation of this machine requires that intellectual knowledge workers be identified, tested, corralled into specialties with a certification which is accurate and uniform so that factories can employ known quality product cogs to place in their production lines.
2. People are stupid and lazy and do not like to learn things. College forces them to learn things so they will not be so stupid no more.
3. People need specific technical skills and training to do technical jobs from nursing to product design. Colleges need to provide uniform quality vocational training to accomplish this end.
He also dismisses much of the research that shows colleges do not teach much critical thinking by suggesting that if a measurement gives a surprising result, the measurement is wrong since we know the result should be otherwise.
These are the arguments of a desperate man who does not understand humans or what education is.
This all said, I was fascinated and amazed that his three reasons for college match up with the criticism of educational reformers such as John Gatto, who argues that the problem with contemporary education is that it trains factory workers, performs vocational education and assumes people hate learning and must be forced to learn things when in fact people actually are built to learn and will pursue it naturally unless their spirit is crushed by institutionalized forced schooling.