Has Higher Education Fallen Down the Rabbit Hole

Most Americans believe that higher education is heading in the wrong direction. In Lewis Carroll’s Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the eponymous heroine’s tumble into a rabbit hole immerses her in a bizarre, surreal, disorienting universe. Has higher education fallen down the rabbit hole? This paper will examine the many ways that academe has become a peculiar, illogical, and topsy-turvy world where things are often the opposite of what we call them and of what we expect them to be. To restore the credibility of our education system and make it of value to most students, it must be completely re-imagined and, in fact, totally rebuilt from the ground up.