Ebook: The five-year party: how colleges have given up on educating your child and what you can do about it

How retention replaced education at America's colleges -- Maximizing profits at the students' expense -- How education became optional -- Party school perils -- An obsession with secrecy -- When the party ends and the tab comes due -- How parents can cancel the five-year party.;Colleges look much the same as they did five or ten years ago, but a lot has changed behind the scenes. While some mixture of study and play has always been part of college life, an increasing number of schools have completely abandoned the idea that students need to learn or demonstrate that they've learned. Financial pressures have made college administrations increasingly reluctant to flunk anyone out, regardless of performance, although the average length of time to get a degree is now five years, and for many students it's six or more. Student evaluations of professors--often linked to pro.