Mark Cooper and John Marx write about universities.
A flurry of back to school stories about student data marks a renewed emphasis on the core problem of student choice. Like many on campus, we wonder how to help students make good choices.
We suspect the prevailing–and mutually contradictory–tendencies to help by either a) providing students more information than they can possibly absorb or b) invisibly constraining choices to guide students along pathways that serve institutional objectives. Option “a” emphasizes the rational actor; option “b” the biopolitical subject. Neither seems particularly good at imagining a student who likes the courses they take.