Book Review: Churchill, M. L. (Ed.), (2025). The Conversation on Higher Ed. United States: Johns Hopkins University Press

Abstract

Higher Ed is at a crossroads, as the collection of essays entitled The Conversation on Higher Ed claims, and, as the Foreword explains right from the beginning, the current situation has come under the microscope. Various topics of interest are taken one by one and analyzed by expert academics and journalists. The compendium is basically a collection of essays on higher education topics written by professionals and surveyed by editor Mary L. Churchill, who also added her own ideas as a writer in Part I. Organized in seven chapters, with a Series Editor’s Foreword and a Preface, the book is addressed to the general public. It emphasizes the value of higher education and does an excellent job when it elucidates the idea that parents and students need to understand what it takes to succeed in college today. In doing so, the project covers broader challenges that students will have to face in college: debt, affordability, belonging, the future of college education, as well as issues related to learning conditions and career outcomes.