Ivory tower blues : a university system in crisis / James E. Cote and Anton L. Allahar.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [201]-244) and index.

Introduction -- Canada's world-leading university system: Image versus reality -- Who should read this book? -- 1. Troubles in paradise -- The disengaged student-- Higher expectations, lower effort -- Credentialism and grade inflation-- Credentialism and academic disengagement -- Roots of student disengagement -- The new functions of higher education -- Sorting, weeding, and cooling -- The obsession with high grades: Grade inflation up close -- Conclusion -- 2. The professor as reluctant gatekeeper -- How the new functions have affected the interpersonal dynamics of teaching and learning: faculty disengagement -- The growth of education as a business -- Life in the credential mart -- Deskilling of the professoriate -- The cult of self-esteem and other sources of the sense of entitlement -- Learning to live with student disengagement -- Awareness of the issues: Sliding standards -- Perceptions of student engagement: Institutionalized indifference -- The downward spiral: The new normal -- Job satisfaction and job stress: Being thick-skinned -- Student evaluations: Necessary evils? -- Sharing the blame -- Conclusion: Higher education as a big business -- 3. The student as a reluctant intellectual -- The hazardous passage to adulthood -- The millennial generation -- The gamut of student engagement -- Voices of disengagement -- Student empowerment -- The retreat of faculty -- Grade inflation and the democratization of education -- Education as a commodity -- Standards and criteria -- Edubusiness: University as corporation -- Conclusion: System failure of students 4. Parents as investors and managers: The bank of mom and dad (BMD) -- Education as an investment -- Setting the right goals -- Estimating costs -- Baby boomer parents and the experiences of their children -- The mini-me and the helicopter parent -- In defence of the helicopter parent -- How parents influence and support their children -- Aspirations -- Finances: The bottom line -- Conclusion -- 5. Policy implications: So what is university good for? What is added beyond alternatives? -- Credentialism revisited: A brief history -- You can lead them to water, but ... -- Grade inflation revisited: Underlying causes -- The science of grade inflation and the route to reform --- The university graduate revisited: What is added beyond other trajectories to the workplace and adulthood? -- Show me the numbers: What science says about the high end of benefits of higher education -- Monetary rates of return -- Looking beyond statistical averages: What science says about the low end of the benefits of the university education -- Underemployment revisited -- The accessibility issue -- The relative merits of soft and hard sorting systems: Dealing with accessibility --Conclusion: The idea of the university - Education versus training.