Quote:
Originally Posted by peter12
As I've said before, I really do believe that the liberal arts should be universalized as much as possible for the benefits of students, but that university is often a poor medium for teaching them until you get to advanced undergraduate and graduate school classes where the numbers of students are small enough to facilitate adequate reflection and discussion between the teacher and a student's peers.
The public school system is such a failure on every level - concerned more with the industrial churning of students out to graduation to fulfill funding metrics instead of actual education.
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I teach at a university where we try to do exactly what you're talking about, even in the 1st year. The problem is, when you create that environment it drives up tuition costs (more classrooms, fewer students per professor's salary or administrator's salary) and makes university quite expensive.
We also cater quite a bit to those with learning differences/disabilities, but this also drives up our tuition costs with additional tutoring programs, evaluations, specialized counseling, etc.
Basically, the ideal education we all hope for costs a lot, and those students that come from lower income backgrounds are those who need this ideal education more than anyone. Scholarships, grants, and other government subsidies can only do so much, and so some students never get the opportunity to learn in that environment.
The other option is cheaper, but more generalized education that isn't very effective for students both intellectually or in terms of career development. So you can create access to affordable education, but it won't do much for their upward mobility in the society.
There's no perfect solution that I can think of. Anyone who thinks they have a magic bullet answer is either kidding themselves or hasn't spent enough time looking at this issue.