Andrew Delbanco writes this book College: What it was, is, and should be to highlight
many critical problems that today’s society is facing with college education. And fundamental
principles that have been tough in the past, which is being challenged in the present, and should
be essential in the future. In fact, Delbanco’s vision related in this book is supported by Plato
with the Socratic philosophical theory, and philosophy essentially impacts Delbanco’s way to
express how college should mentally and morally to the students.
In College, Delbanco discussed important points about college. He starts by expressing
his idea of college to the students. According to Delbanco, college is the main key to prepare
students to success in United States. But, unfortunately many people misunderstood the idea of
college with university. “ The former is about to about transmitting knowledge of and from the
past to undergraduate students so they may draw upon it as living resource in the future. The
latter is mainly an array of research activities faculty and graduate students with the aim of
creating new knowledge in order to supersede the past.”
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Delbanco acknowledges to the students
the big difference between those two faculties. Focusing on the primary goal: College, where
young students navigates different experiences between adolescence and adulthood.
However, Delbanco thinks college should play the main role of transmitting excellent
“qualities of mind and heart.”.
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The qualities: of a healthy skepticism of the present, motivating
more students to ask and answer themselves. Here is where, education becomes essential for
many students to be able to answer many of those questions society is wondering today; the
ability to connect phenomena that seem disparate; the purpose of understanding nature world
with science and art; last, but not least the ethical responsibility. Therefore, grades or exams will
1
Andrew Delbanco, College: What it was, is, and should be (Princeton University Press 2012), pg. 2
2
Delbanco, College, “What is college for?” pg.3
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not revealed such qualities but only through “the way we live our lives.” Delbanco thinks that
each quality is unique and they cannot be obtained by any limited source, but require an
excellent education.
In fact, Delbanco is quick to analyze the social progress, where it is going down caused
by racial discrimination, and the economic inequalities. Nevertheless, low income students are
facing other challenges to attend to elite colleges. Tuition rate is constantly increasing, since
many of the colleges are more preoccupied with enrolling more students, and to maintain their
prestige.
Schools have changed in the past two-thousand years. “… this expansion of freedom has
been the most obvious change in college life.”
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However, some of the methods of teaching are
still the same since the days of Socrates. Delbanco compares the earliest colleges in many ways
to highlight important aspects as philosophical, and historical. “ The types he had in mind
