An Analysis Of Ryan Craig's College Disrupted

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EDHE 6710 Final Exam Ryan Craig begins his book, College Disrupted, discussing the state of American higher education and why it does not align with the needs of employers or its students. He spends the majority of the book making a sales pitch. The main claim of the book is that universities have lost sight of their teaching mission and are now focused on what Craig calls the four Rs: rankings, research, real estate, and rah (sports). The four Rs lead to isomorphism towards elite institutions rather than embracing the diversity of institutional types that has made American education great. Craig refers to how the California Master plan showed how different institutional types allow colleges to excel in their particular mission rather …show more content…

The majority of his argument aligns with studies of the current condition of higher education. The crisis of affordability states that the cost of higher education is growing at an exponential rate (Craig, 2015). States have shifted their priorities, leading to the privatization of higher education (McClendon & Mokher, 2009). To survive, institutions have raised sticker price. The higher sticker prices and lack of need-based aid reduces accessibility for low socioeconomic status and minority students. Other factors in the affordability crisis include lost opportunity costs from not working full-time and increased cost and time for students that lose credit after transferring schools (Archibald & Feldman, 2011; Craig, 2015; Winston, …show more content…

Merit-based aid contributes to increased stratification of minority and low socioeconomic status students, especially in selective institutions (Craig, 2015). In the past, need-based aid offered opportunities for students of income levels to attend college. The shift to merit-based aid allows institutions to “craft a class” of students that improve the quality of the student body. While having high quality students is not necessarily a problem, it makes it very easy for institutions to maintain stratified diversity in terms of socioeconomic status and race. Minority students and those with low socioeconomic status tend to have fewer resources available to them, so it becomes more challenging for them to compete with students who do (Stevens, 2007; Weisbrod, Ballou, & Asch,

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