University of the South
President of Sewanee: The University of the South; founder and former president of Choose Responsibility; founder of the Amethyst Initiative; President emeritus of Middlebury CollegePROFILE
John McCardell
Guest
FROM John McCardell
To the Point
Rising Cost and the Future of Higher Education Tuition and other expenses have gone up so much there's now a consensus that higher education costs too much, at the same time it's more necessary than ever. Two-thirds of students are taking out loans, and collectively owe a trillion dollars — more than the total of credit card debt. Do the loans themselves allow colleges to spend more than they need to? Why are public universities also charging much more? Will cheap, online courses now offered by Stanford, Harvard, MIT and Google transform the college experience and make campuses obsolete? We hear from educators and a graduate who owes $55,000 in student loans.
Which Way, L.A.?
Is It Time to Change the Legal Drinking Age? The acting Surgeon General of the United States says the drinking on college campuses is not the harmless rite of passage it used to be, but the cause of hundreds of thousands of injuries, rapes, other assaults and deaths. Now 120 college presidents want to lower the drinking age from 21 to 18—when kids can vote or join the military.
Recommended
KCRW Features
The art and science of fixing faulty genes UC Berkeley biochemist Jennifer Doudna and her colleagues say they can edit any organism’s DNA using an RNA-guided protein found in bacteria. This technology, called CRISPR-Cas9, could redefine the possibilities for editing human and non-human genes, opening the door to societal and ethical implications.
The 805
A Santa Barbara doctor learns to treat his own pain At the peak of his career as a palliative care doctor in Santa Barbara, Michael Kearney found himself burned out and in a state of personal suffering. Even though he had become an expert in treating the pain of others, he couldn’t treat his own. That changed when he had a revelatory experience that provided him with a path forward. Meanwhile, the November election is just days away, a look at what could happen to the Central Coast if California voters pass Proposition 10.