Does America Need Liberal Education More Than Ever?

By Jenna A. Robinson

That’s what Wesleyan president Michael Roth suggests in his new book, which George Leef reviews here.

Leef finds that the argument Roth lays out in defense of liberal education in Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters, is unconvincing:

The problem is that Roth, who seems to be “preaching to members of the church of the liberal arts” (as Peter Wood writes in his review of the book in the fall 2014 issue of Academic Questions), never produces a scintilla of evidence that the sort of education he favors actually produces such wonderful results.

But Leef finds another part of Beyond the University more compelling — Roth’s discussion of online education and MOOCs, which he came to embrace after designing one himself. That course, The Modern and the Postmodern, is available on Coursera.

But in the end, Leef finds more to pan in Roth’s book than to praise. You can read the whole review here.

Jenna A. Robinson is president of the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy.