Purpose as a unifying goal for higher education

Given the challenges of contemporary life, it’s understandable that, across the political spectrum, policy-makers, leaders, and prospective students frame the value of higher education in economic terms, focusing on graduates’ personal earning power and value to the labor force. ...Instead, I’ll focus on some promising directions in the field of college and character that I think could create new synergy between developmental and economic conceptions of college and between the pursuit of self-related goals and commitments to the common good.