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2010. “Students… have a sense of entitlement…. And today's students are more materialistic than they used to be.”
Corwin P. King, Professor Emeritus of Communication, Central Washington University
1977. “The general affluence of the American public inflates the total costs of attendance, which seems luxurious to those who attended school two or three decades ago. This ‘inflation by affluence’ is contributing to the ‘crisis’ among middle-income families, and one must questioin how far the federal government should go to subsidize such outlays.”
Mary Frances Berry, Assistant Secretary for Education
1943. Graduates are urged to forego the “maddening pursuit of things,” since “our lives consist not in the abundance of things possessed!”
President Charles Wesley of Wilberforce University
1891. A “falling off in college attendance” is blamed in part on “the materialistic temper, with its desperate appetite and quest for wealth, which has fastened upon the American people since the civil war [sic].”
President E. Benjamin Andrews of Brown University
1870. “As long as study is valued for the money or position it procures…so long will the true university be unknown among us.”
Noah Porter, professor at and later president of Yale University
Resources
1. Andrews, E. Benjamin Educational Review I “Time and Age in Relation to the College Curriculum,” (February 1891): 144.
2. Berry, Mary F Memo to the Secretary, “Subject: Rising College Costs,” August 2, 1977, Page 3. National Archives and Records Administration II, Record Group 12, Office of the Department of Education. Office of the Assistant Secretary for Education, Program and Subject Files, 1977–1980. Box 13, File “Student Assistance–General Aug '77.”,
3. King, Corwin P (2010) “College Students Today: Overconfident or Just Assured? Regardless, They Are Our Future.”. Christian Science Monitor, February 22
4. Porter, Noah (1969) The American Colleges and the American Public, pp. 279. Arno Press & The New York Times, New York.
5. Wesley, Charles H “The Pursuit of Things.”. Negro College Quarterly 1 3:September 1943, pp. 77. 86
Lara K. Couturier is a PhD candidate in history at Brown University and a consultant specializing in higher education policy. Lara previously served as the interim principal investigator and director of research for the Futures Project: Policy for Higher Education in a Changing World.
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