College is not a commodity, writes AAU president

Hunter Rawlings, President of the Association of American Universities (AAU), writes in The Washington Post that it makes little sense to speak of PSE as a typical commodity. Rawlings argues that its value is determined instead by the efforts of individual students, meaning “the courses the student decides to take (and not take), the amount of work the student does, the intellectual curiosity the student exhibits, her participation in class, [and] his focus and determination.” For Rawlings, the biggest threat is the notion that education can simply be purchased, making students more likely to become upset when faced with difficult tasks or challenging ways of thinking. Washington Post