In an essay published in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Charles Dorn, professor of education and associate dean for academic affairs, shares a personal account of his family’s encounters with the question: “What, exactly, is college good for?”

Against a backdrop of higher education’s occupational advantages, Dorn explores other aspects the college experience has to offer, including the pursuit of self-improvement, and that of becoming useful citizens.

Read Dorn’s essay, “What Is College Good For? (Hint: More Than Just a Job).”

Dorn is the author of the book For the Common Good: A New History of Higher Education in America (Cornell University Press, 2017), in which he argues that we can’t understand what’s going on with colleges and universities today until we examine where they have come from, why they were founded, and how society has viewed their function at different points in time.