Abra, I believe there are universities which function this way. The
question here is not the freedom of choice of the student - a student
can choose to go to another university. There is also the freedom of
the university to influence the 'value' (market value, social value,
etc) of their brand. Ultimately finances tend to play a role in these
decisions. You have HR people who recognize the degree from one
university to be worth more than another - and the quality of 'ensured
well roundedness' of the students adds value to the degree.

I meant 'function that way' - as in the way you describe, Abra.

Abra, I agree with you in many ways. First when it comes to "higher
education", university/college there should be total control of choice.
However part of the responsibility of the college has to be to maintain
some kind of data base that show what employers would expect someone in
a particular postion of hire are expected to know. In this way a person
could choose thier classes based on somekind of requirement for employ
that they might be seeking later. One of the reasons Tech schools
became so huge was that they offered a way for non-educated adults to
learn, within their schedule, a skill that would promote them in the
working world. It has worked extremely well and continues to grow.

The thing is by the time people get to tha higher education, we would
hope that they have been prepared to be clear thinking, well rounded,
considerate and interested adults. This means that we have to find the
avenues that allow this to happen. That is why the school systems have
instituted mandatory classes. I personlly think they go too far in
these pre-requisit classes and as someone brought up, more money is
spent on sports as extra-cirricular than ever before. This is funding
taken away from those kids who would benefit from having the choice to
explore 'thier' talents, non sports related, other fields, such as the
arts.

In this thought I think it would be a great idea to make some kind of
education in theology a 'mandatory' class for the elementary level
through high school. Maybe not every year, but we have to have the
ability mold the civil and social minds of these children to include a
broad range of theologies and phylosophies. At least this is what I
would expect of the the current school systems.

Now, if we could completely change what is in place, instead of only
modify it. I might have a completely different view. As you said, and
I agree, the school system is completely wrong, but sometimes we can
only work by changing the structure that already exists.