Absurd is the word.

• Author: Bresler, Robert J.
• Position: STATE OF THE NATION

THE DECLINE of higher education is part of a larger and troubling picture. Our economy, culture, and standing in the world are in sharp contrast to what they were some decades ago. The growth of the economy is below its historic rate and real median family income is lower than it was in 1998. Labor force participation has been on the decline for 10 years. More disturbing is the reduced productivity of those who do work with the annual per-capita economic output down from two percent to 0.7%.

The problem is moral and intellectual. Our high schools, once places of rigor and discipline, are producing students with skills in reading, mathematics, and science far below those in other advanced economies. Universities and colleges, once dominated by tough-minded professors and with a challenging core curriculum, give students a cafeteria of courses, from the trivial to the absurd. Would any parents in their right mind want to spend $50,000 a year so their children can take a freshman seminar in "How and Why do Birds Sing" or "Reality TV"? I gather some do.

Colleges at one time provided students with a structured path to adulthood. Those who finished college were likely to have developed the capacity for self-discipline that could put them on the way to a promising career and to the acceptance of family responsibilities. There was a clear distinction between the maturity of a college senior and freshman. Seniors, for the most part, had survived a demanding four years of study, kept their noses to the grindstone, and avoided the pitfalls of drugs and alcohol. They served as an example to the lowly freshmen of what it took to complete a college degree.

Standards for college behavior are now so low that it is considered an accomplishment that binge drinking among students has declined from 42% in 2004 to 37% in 2012--or, according to a recent study from the University of Portland (Ore.), that those who had sex weekly or more declined over a 10-year period from 65.2% to 59.3%. This behavior comes at a cost. A study in The Journal of Sex Research finds a strong link between casual sex and stress among students.

The indifference by most leaders of higher education reflects the loss of their serf-assured authority and the moral dimension of their mission. Leaders of colleges and universities at one time were uninhibited in telling students how to lead proper lives. One should avoid romanticizing that era. Binge drinking and sexual promiscuity were not...