The failing of higher education is what I call it — a 2.2 trillion dollar industry that is  probably better at making money than it is at transforming lives.

One of the essential aspects of personal development is knowledge that comes from higher education. And in this you will find the Pareto Principle rings true: that 80% of what can be termed useful information comes from just 20% of what we learn. There is so much more potential.

Is it the structure of the tenure process? For example, at a university where a professor is tenured after five years and thus cannot be fired, where is the incentive for the professor to evolve, to integrate modern technology into the teaching process? Does he or she even care if the students are engaged? Does he or she care if the information taught is useful?

When I went to the University of Cincinnati, so many of the courses consisted of sitting in a large lecture hall listening to a lecture that the professor had given numerous times before. Some were boring, some entertaining, but most were irrelevant.

By irrelevant, I mean that beneficial knowledge was lacking. Whether it was the information, or the delivery of the information, or just my own disinterest , it is hard to say. But when I am required to take a class that I am not interested in, it cannot be beneficial. If I have no interest I have no retention. Only boredom.

I was a jazz sax player and a writer. Why did I have to study the economics of the Middle East? Or the music of Brahms? Why did I have to compose counterpoint in the style of Bach when I wanted to play sax in the style of Coltrane?

Am I a better person because I was forced to remember a bunch of dates in a history book so I could pass a test? I don’t remember the dates anymore. What good was that? It was the cramming into my brain of useless facts.

The Sufi master, Inayat Khan had an interesting perspective on education: “We all are pupils, and what we can do in life is to qualify ourselves to become true pupils. It is the receptivity of our heart and the passivity of our mind, it is the eagerness, the thirst and hunger after truth, it is the direction of our whole life to that Ideal from who all light and truth come, that alone can bring us truth and the knowledge of God.”

The world will be a much better place when higher education evolves to that level: creating the thirst and hunger after truth,  giving students direction in the quest for finding their purpose in being alive, in releasing that passion that comes from inspiration.

Take a look at this video to get a first hand look at the state of higher education today from the perspective of university students at Kansas State University:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o

Let me know your opinions.