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News and Public Affairs
Aspen Ideas Festival

What is College For?

The Aspen Ideas Festival is the nation's premier, public gathering place for leaders from around the globe and across many disciplines to engage in deep and inquisitive discussion of the ideas and issues that both shape our lives and challenge our times.

What is College For?

Season 1 Episode 53 | 56m 30s

At a time when traditional notions of college are under attack — in the shift to online instruction, in the emphasis on STEM fields and the denigration of the liberal arts, in the continued privatization of public higher education — it is urgent that we ask what college is supposed to be about in the first place. What happens when education is understood in purely vocational terms?

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The Aspen Institute produces the Aspen Ideas Festival in concert with its partner, The Atlantic.

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