This book features a group of top-notch philosophers tackling some of the biggest questions in higher education: What role should the liberal arts have in a college education? Should colleges orient themselves to the educational demands of the business sector? What is the role of highly selective colleges in the public sphere? To what extent should they be subsidized directly, or indirectly, by the public? Should they simply teach students skills and academic knowledge, or should they play a role in shaping character, and if so to what end? Should highly selective colleges admissions practices give an edge to racial minorities, or legacies, or poor students? How much should the public purse subsidize disadvantaged students attending such institutions?
These questions are fundamentally about moral and political valuesquestions of distributive justice and of what constitutes valuable education. Philosophers are trained to identify value considerations in great detailindeed, often with more precision than is ever needed for practical purposes!but most disagreements about policy and practice proceed with minimal attention to the values assumed on either side, and all sides can benefit from more clarity about exactly what moral values are at play. The philosophers here, then, address some of the fundamental questions underlying debates about higher educationand in ways that are interesting and accessible to others."

Harry Brighouse is professor of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of several books, including School Choice and Social Justice and On Education, and is, most recently, coauthor of Family Values: The Ethics of Parent-Child Relationships. Michael McPherson is president of the Spencer Foundation and was previously the president of Macalester College in St. Paul. Prior to that he was professor of economics, chairman of the Economics Department, and dean of faculty at Williams College. He is coauthor or editor of several books, including Economic Analysis, Moral Philosophy, and Public Policy and cofounder of the journal Economics and Philosophy.