Quote for the Day

From Randall Collins, "Credential Inflation and the Future of Universities," in The Future of the City of Intellect: The Changing American University, ed. by Steven Brint (Stanford Univ. Press, 2002), p. 29:

The combination of ideologies favoring education -- technological progress plus democratic opportunity -- also operates as a protective ideology for those who make their livings in the educational system.

* * * Credential inflation is the dirty secret of modern education; if everyone admitted it publicly -- worse yet, if it became a topic for political discussion -- it would force us to face head-on the issue of class inequality and indeed growing class inequality, in part directly tied to the expansion of credentialing.