Book Summary
The Real World of College: What Higher Education Is and What It Can Be (MIT Press, 2022) describes an eight-year study of non-vocational higher education in the United States. The study is comprehensive: over five years, we conducted individual hour-long interviews with more than 2000 individuals across 10 disparate schools; our sample encompassed 500 incoming students, 500 graduating students, and small numbers of faculty, administrators, parents, young alums, trustees, and job recruiters. We listened carefully to their views on a range of issues—the purpose of college, experiences students should have both in and out of the classroom, knowledge, and skills students should gain, major problems on campus—as well as the books they cherish, advice for incoming students, and what keeps them up at night.
As social scientists, using both quantitative and qualitative analyses, we present the empirical evidence—”the real world”—which goes beyond the headlines and in some cases challenges them. Then, we transition to the role of advisers, offering recommendations to individual colleges, the various constituencies, and the sector as a whole.
In The Real World of College, we introduce helpful ways to conceptualize the college experience, including:
Describing four mental models of college: inertial, transactional, exploratory, and transformational. We indicate how the incidence of these models differs across constituencies and across schools
Introducing a new measure called Higher Education Capital (HEDCAP): this documents the ability of students (and members of the other constituencies) to attend, analyze, reflect, connect, and communicate; we note conditions under which HEDCAP increases and when it does not, and suggest the reasons for these contrasting outcomes;
Explicating three specific forms of belonging/alienation (to academics, peers, and the institution) and describing contrasting patterns across students and schools.
Throughout the book, we give detailed and powerful examples of what works and what doesn’t work at specific institutions and across the whole sector. We support our firm belief that higher education needs to overcome the tendency toward “projectitis”—the seemingly endless effort to proliferate initiatives.
Instead, to survive and thrive, higher education must focus sharply on its unique mission—developing the mind to the fullest. If this result is to occur, we need leaders who support and embody this mission; and equally, we need institutions that unequivocally reflect this mission —in its personnel, its programs, and its buildings. Put differently, we need a laser-like focus on the “why” of higher education, not just the “what” and the “how.” To effect this change, we introduce the notions of “onboarding'“ and “intertwining.” Should these aspirations be achieved, colleges will confirm their reason for existence and ultimately serve the wider society—preparing students for good work and for an informed civic life.