In last week’s edition of the US government’s favorite game, “Kick the can down the road,” President Joe Biden announced the cancellation of $7.4 billion in student debt for 277,000 borrowers. 

In a world without consequences, this would not be a problem. However, $7.4 billion (and $153 billion total in loans canceled) is hardly an inconsequential amount. 

Outright cancellation of student debt does more than create an unwarranted tax burden for American bystanders. It allows colleges to be absolved of all wrongdoing despite their pivotal role in orchestrating this financial mess. 

For decades, far too many universities and colleges have refused to look inward and address their rising tuition costs. 

From 1970 to 2020, tuition and fees at public non-profit and private institutions increased by 2,580% and 2,107%, respectively. Average income has grown at a much slower pace, creating a scenario where, as of 2020, public university students must work six times the amount of hours as their 1970 counterparts to afford tuition. 

At many schools, tuition is not even raised out of necessity. It is a status boost. 

In a 2012 interview with The Atlantic, former president of George Washington University Stephen Trachtenberg said, “People equate price with the value of their education.”

Trachtenberg highlighted his other status-enhancing moves like ice cream socials, $2,500-per-minute laser shows and keeping campus in a constant state of construction. 

People like Trachtenberg are polluting the upper echelons of America’s top universities at an alarming rate. 

Schools like Yale University are rapidly expanding administrations. Nationwide, instructional spending and administrative spending now account for almost the same percentage of university expenditures.

In his recent paper, Todd Zywicki, a law professor at George Mason University, said, “The interesting thing about the administrative bloat in higher education is nobody knows who all these people are or what they’re doing.”

For-profit universities like Yale are the worst offenders. Despite enrolling roughly 10% of the higher education body, for-profit schools now account for 50% of all student loan defaults. 

Higher education has become a business model courtesy of a conglomerate of Trachtenbergs who hardly care if students default on loans. 

And why should they care? The financial downside is limited. The upside of getting someone to pay your university 50 to 60 grand a year is obvious. 

Canceling student debt does nothing to incentivize colleges to rein in this irresponsible financial behavior. 

Instead of relying on bailouts, which create long-term economic issues and only add to the absurd $34 trillion national debt, the focus should be on holding colleges accountable. 

Solutions should start with loan cosigning between the government and schools. Increased financial liability forces institutions to prioritize student success and allows taxpayers to shoulder less of the burden from larger entities covering a portion of potential losses. 

To induce greater accountability, offer financial incentives for schools that avoid excessive and unnecessary costs. Determining these costs may be tough, but it could force colleges to re-evaluate their resource allocation. 

Any solution should force the government to reconsider its involvement in student loans. 

Varadarajan V. Chari, a director of graduate studies in economics at the University of Minnesota, said to address its role in the dysfunctional student loan market, the federal government should scale back its intervention and instead focus more on offering grants, which are much harder to play accounting games with. 

“The federal government, by essentially nationalizing this entire industry, has ensured that there is no market discipline on any of these activities,” Chari said.

There is another critical factor in this debate: majors. 

Before telling 18-year-olds to forgo their dreams and become electricians or plumbers, consider the perspective of universities with archives of post-grad financial data on each major, giving them a pretty good idea of who can successfully pay back loans.

Christopher Phelan, an economics professor at the University, said too many universities hardly consider this. 

“I don’t see why universities shouldn’t have skin in the game, because they have a lot better information about which particular courses of study are going to put you in a position to pay the loans back,” Phelan said. 

Telling a financially insecure 18-year-old to take out a loan, go through a degree program and spend money on your university despite knowing they will struggle to pay it back is borderline criminal. 

Perhaps not all universities are acting in bad faith when it comes to loans, but there is a well-documented tendency of administrators whose primary concern is money and prestige. 

Instead of involuntarily signing up a generation of people for even more debt, why not address this widespread issue within our schools? 

College can be extremely valuable, but it is becoming an increasingly questionable investment for a reason. 

In only a few years, Gen Z has already begun to leave its mark on the enthralling and surely fulfilling world of corporate America. 

Labeled “The workers who want it all” and “Generation Work-From-Home” by BBC and The Atlantic, Gen Z has been at the forefront of campaigning for a more hybridized style of work, allowing them more time in the comfort of their homes instead of a cubicle. 

For them, workplace flexibility is no longer a perk. It is a requirement — much to the chagrin of corporate higher-ups and experienced professors nationwide. 

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon has referred to working from home as an aberration. Elon Musk called it “morally wrong” for people to work from home while service workers have to show up. During a pre-recorded internal company Q&A, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told employees that staying remote “probably wouldn’t work out well for them.”  

In his 2021 book “The Future of the Office,” Peter Cappelli, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, said remote work diminishes a young professional’s commitment to their organization and career advancement opportunities. 

Speaking at a Wall Street Journal CEO Council Summit, Scott Galloway, a marketing professor at NYU Stern School of Business, said “You should never be at home. That’s what I tell young people. Home is for seven hours of sleep and that’s it. The amount of time you spend at home is inversely correlated to your success professionally.”

Unsurprisingly, Galloway, like the rest of these individuals, had Gen Z up in arms with his statement. But that did not stop him from doubling down, saying young people should go outside, meet people and “risk awkwardness, embarrassment and rejection.” 

Some feel our crusade to rewrite the rhetoric around working from home will represent a turning point in workplace culture. 

In a 2019 New York Times article titled “Young People Are Going To Save Us All From Office Life,” Ana Recio, the executive vice president of global recruiting at Salesforce, argued Gen Z’s demands for flexible work environments will revolutionize the job market entirely.  

Like Recio, many young people tend to think we can “change the system” or “escape the matrix” and bypass the burnout, unhappiness and endless striving that encapsulate office life. 

We hear TikTok success stories and advice dumps from people who started businesses or handled two side hustles while working from home. 

But before you write off office life, consider your personal goals.

Do you want to build a career for yourself? Do you want to have money? Options? Do you want to achieve personal fulfillment?

Corporate jobs can provide you with a lot of these things. Personal fulfillment is another conversation, but those people have probably sacrificed some of their preferences to get where they are. 

By sacrifices, I do not mean skipping family or social outings. 

Instead, sacrifice your innate desire to avoid the cubicle and go into the office as much as possible. 

Building strong relationships with coworkers and accelerating your career directly correlate with spending more time in the office. 

There will likely be times when your team has a deadline approaching, everyone is forced to work weekends and is understandably miserable. 

Citing his experiences consulting different working environments, Adib Birkland, a senior lecturer at the Carlson School of Management, said he has witnessed workplaces bond through difficult times by working side-by-side.

“There is something about going through a difficult experience with others. It actually changes how you feel about that bad experience,” Birkland said. 

Regarding career advancement, researchers at the Stanford School of Business found that remote employees often struggle to receive promotions due to underdeveloped relationships and managerial skills, a lack of opportunities to demonstrate those skills and a lack of face-to-face connection between promoters and remote employees. 

An often overlooked variable in this conversation is the mental impact of working from home. 

Gen Z loves to talk about prioritizing mental health and often cites remote work as a way to protect it, but the evidence paints a different picture. In the UK, 80% of workers feel working from home has damaged their mental health. In the U.S., we are in the midst of a loneliness epidemic. 

It is as if many have forgotten that we are inherently social animals.

Being in the office contributes to our need for belonging and connection. As Scott Galloway said, it exposes us to embarrassment, rejection and awkwardness, which are crucial for personal and professional development.

Sitting in a tiny at-home office, you rob yourself of those little social interactions — catching up at the coffee pot, lunch table banter or working on a difficult project together —  which can improve your well-being. Zoom and in-person conversations are two very different things. 

Office culture can provide you with more exposure to mentorship, conversation topics beyond work, exposure to ideas and the ability to learn simply by overhearing other conversations. 

Is work from home an aberration, as Solomon suggested? No. It can work well for plenty of people, depending on their job. 

Calli Fillippini, who has more than a decade of experience in the marketing world, advocated for the benefits of a more hybridized work environment.

“Working from home actually gave me a lot more capability to be able to hop from meeting to meeting,” Fillippini said. “It’s like we’re readily available at all times, and it’s all at our fingertips. What makes it worthwhile for me is having the flexibility to be able to, on a Friday, go pick my kids up at school. To be here one day a week when they get off the bus.” 

Plenty of workers can benefit from workplace flexibility. 

But when you are young, without your family and launching your career off the ground, why not immerse yourself in your work and try to learn as much as possible?

Ketchup as a fruit, beer as a substitute for water, 99-cent ramen and frozen chicken pot pie: everything a growing college student needs to operate at a high level.

The average nutrient-devoid college student meal plan is bad enough to make your local 7/11 sound like a Michelin star restaurant. The plight of college students concerning high-quality food options is nothing new and is even romanticized by our culture. 

As of the past decade, 95% of American college students still fail to eat the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables. 

You have probably heard the term Freshman 15 because it happens to so many people. 

At the University of Minnesota, dining halls have a lack of quality choices and are widely considered subpar. Students complain but are presented with no real solutions. 

On our campus, once students inevitably switch to either the already overpriced apartment lifestyle or decide to live in a house, they are confronted by a campus-wide food desert. The only form of an oasis is a lackluster Target in the heart of Dinkytown.

It is as if improper nutrition is another collegiate rite of passage with zero benefits. 

Ellie McDowell, a social worker involved in North Hennepin Community College’s food distribution, said she wonders why this is the case. 

“Why are we romanticizing the fact that people are hungry? Why is that being normalized? From a societal standpoint, that is where the issue may lie,” McDowell said. 

Many people have some idea of how food insecurity (insufficient access to proper quality and quantities of food) or poor nutrition negatively impacts their cognitive function. However, for college students, there are added correlations between food insecurity and academic performance, emotional health and the formation of poor lifelong eating habits. 

These poor habits do not always disappear after graduation. 

A 2023 study of almost 12,000 students from 31 different universities in China cited a consistent correlation between poor eating habits and obesity, the prevalence of infectious diseases and other chronic diseases. 

A researcher who participated in this study emphasized a need to address the formation of these long-term health concerns by providing students with a proper food environment, according to ScienceDaily. 

Despite numerous calls to action and archives of publicly available information documenting our understanding of the relationship between food and our well-being, many universities seem reluctant to invest more in their students’ nutrition.

People often advocate for educating all college students about processed foods, harmful and unnatural ingredients or the meaning of specific packaging labels. While this is useful information, education may not do much to fix the problem. 

Everyone knows having Doritos and frozen pizza is bad for them. But when you’ve got homework, jobs, interviews or other college activities to balance — and don’t have the financial flexibility to spend six dollars on organic eggs — affordability and convenience take priority. 

So, what can be done to address these issues?

To credit our university, there are at least a few options for individuals with high food insecurity. We partner with the government in offering students access to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which provides students with financial assistance and food options that fit their budget. 

James Sellers, a member of The Food Group, a local food bank, said expanding this program should be a top priority, especially considering SNAP’s successful track record.

“Expanding SNAP would at least give more freedom and choice for individuals. When we’re talking about food, we’re talking about a lot of variability between individuals,” Sellers said. “People in the upper echelons of higher education need to provide more resources for students to have access to these things.”

Alongside SNAP, the University also gives students access to the Nutritious U Food Pantry at Boynton. The pantry offers quality food options provided by a variety of local food banks, which have information available on Boynton’s website. 

The website also provides links to other local, affordable and healthy food options such as Kitchen Coalition, Brightside Produce and other meal kit services. Although not necessarily cheap, these options are time-effective. 

Though the Nutritious U Food Pantry is a great resource, it has limits. Students can only visit the pantry twice a month, and only one time per week. The pantry is also only open during the second and fourth week of each month, giving students limited use options. 

Like SNAP, the expansion of Nutritious U’s capabilities could significantly benefit students. If the University truly cares about student nutrition, it should be willing to divert a few grand a semester away from the Board of Regents’ passion projects and instead allow for critical resources like Nutritious U to increase their availability. Or, at the very least, put more effort into marketing food resources than just links at the bottom of a website or a few emails each year. 

Instead of poorly facilitating the construction of unreasonably priced apartments like Identity, which has an attached liquor store, McDonald’s and Subway, why not address the campus-wide food desert by implementing an easily accessible grocery store with healthy options? 

Or, more importantly, why not try to expand helpful resources (like SNAP and Nutritious U) that are addressing a critical issue like food insecurity?

If the University is not going to do its part, perhaps the government can do more to address collegiate food insecurity issues. 

The effectiveness of subsidies in influencing healthier food choices is well-documented. In a higher-tax state like Minnesota, it begs the question of why our government will not allocate more towards college student nutrition, especially considering how many people struggle with such an important issue.

As college students, there is not much that can be done outside of hoping that University officials reject their historical precedent of prioritizing the financial bottom line and actually work to address food insecurity issues. 

Allocating time for meal prep, not spending as much money on eating out, or utilizing meal kit services to save time can be helpful practices, but they are not applicable in the same way for each student. 

The only thing we can do is continue to voice concerns. Proper nutrition affects every single student on campus. It is time we treat it as such.

It’s 6 p.m. on a Friday after a long week and you finally made it home after sitting in gridlock traffic for nearly an hour. Earlier today, your boss chewed you out for something that wasn’t your fault. All you want to do is put your feet up, sit on the couch and take the edge off with a few drinks. After all, you’ve earned it.

Right? 

For far too many people, it doesn’t matter whether they have earned it or not. They are going to have a couple of drinks anyway. 

In situations like this, we often succumb to the opportunity to experience the euphoric feeling provided by alcohol with little regard for its impact on our minds and bodies. 

Unfortunately, our culture’s view of alcohol as a necessary tool for happiness and relaxation only compounds issues with alcohol consumption. Almost 30 million Americans aged 12 (12!) and older had an alcohol use disorder in 2022. 

It doesn’t help that alcohol is advertised in all major media, offered at sporting events and celebrations, sold at basically every supermarket in the country and a fundamental part of social life in the U.S. 

Worse yet, many of us rely on alcohol to make basic parts of our lives easier. If talking to people makes you nervous, why not drink until you no longer feel anxious? This activity is fun, but wouldn’t it be more fun if you and your friends were all drinking? 

Mo Nakamura, a graduate student in the Department of Psychology at the University of Minnesota, said a big reason why alcohol is so normalized is the substance’s role in emotional regulation.

“Because our society normalizes drinking alcohol as a part of regulating our emotions, whether that’s increasing our positive affect or dampening our negative emotions,” Nakamura said, “we believe alcohol isn’t as bad as other substances.”

In social settings, people often view drinking as a social activity and whoever is not participating is not “socializing” with the group. 

For many, college often jumpstarts a lifelong unhealthy relationship with alcohol. Regular binge drinking in college is a rite of passage accepted by adults and students alike. When kids finally get their hands on the previously taboo substance, they have no idea how to moderate it. 

Among students at the University, alcohol consumption increases from 38.4% of 18-year-olds to 82.1% of 21-year-olds, according to Boynton Health’s 2021 College Student Health Survey Report. 

However, what is particularly odd is many college students view drinking as more of a chore than a fun social activity. 

Four studies conducted in 1993 by psychologists at Princeton University found college students exhibited widespread evidence of pluralistic ignorance regarding their attitudes toward drinking and how they evaluated the opinions of their peers. 

Not only did participants mistakenly believe they were more uncomfortable with campus alcohol usage than their peers, but a large group of them (predominantly men) shifted their behavior toward what they believed to be normal alcohol usage. 

The studies also highlighted how many students mistakenly thought they would be ostracized for failing to adhere to mostly non-existent expectations surrounding their drinking habits. 

While it may not be revolutionary to suggest peer pressure occurs on college campuses, these studies about alcohol usage are critical because of how they translate to adulthood. 

Once you graduate college, the expectation that you will continue drinking for fun does not dissipate. In 2020, 24.5% of Americans ages 26 and older reported binge-drinking tendencies, according to the same 2021 College Student Health Survey Report. 

Corporate America often continues these unhealthy relationships with alcohol by serving as an extension of the drinking culture created on college campuses. 

At my previous summer job, there were multiple occasions each week when I overheard a significant number of my coworkers in their mid-to-late 20s discussing either “getting hammered” the night before or planning to do so right after work. Many of them seemed trapped working a job they hated and getting drunk to compensate for it with no other hobbies to help them get out of it.

Despite what you may think, grown adults often feel unwanted pressure to drink.

A 2020 Niznik Behavioral Health survey of over 1,000 U.S. workers found that nearly 30% of respondents felt pressured to drink if their coworkers were, while 20% felt similarly if their boss was drinking. Nearly half of respondents reported concerns about facing ridicule if they skipped out on company events with alcohol. 

The way so many Americans rely on alcohol to address everyday tasks and feelings is not just concerning, it’s incredibly sad. Why is something that is effectively poisonous and causes a considerable amount of avoidable pain and suffering each year such a necessary part of our culture? 

As someone at the tail end of my college career, I won’t pretend like I don’t completely get it. Some of the most fun experiences of my life involved alcohol and, honestly, I wouldn’t trade them for anything. 

I am not here to tell you to stop drinking entirely. It may be the best possible thing for your health, but completely cutting it out of your life may prevent you from making new friends and creating long-lasting memories. 

Especially as a college student, one of the best things you can do to keep your relationship with alcohol in check is to have hobbies that don’t involve drinking. 

While discussing ways for struggling students to maintain a healthy relationship with alcohol, ThanhVan Vu, a licensed alcohol and drug counselor at Boynton, said there are a wide variety of campus activities and student groups available to anyone. 

“Build a supportive community of friends and connect with people who share your interests so not all the people you hang out with are engaging in or abusing substances,” Vu said. 

We should not be living in a world where people are so consistently uncomfortable with how they feel sober. 

I can not speak to actual substance abuse issues or alcohol-related illnesses, nor do I understand what it is like to be an adult balancing work, family and happiness. I only want to encourage people to seriously consider how much they are relying on alcohol to have fun, relax, celebrate, communicate or do other basic things. 

It may be more than you think.

While watching the camera cut to black during the final episode of “Succession” — arguably the last original show worthy of weekly appointment viewing — an unfortunate realization crept into my head: television is in the midst of a dark age. 

Hollywood used to believe it could build brands and networks around carefully crafted original programs. 

Since 2000 alone, HBO has given us masterpieces like “The Sopranos,” “The Wire” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” Even “Game of Thrones,” which aired two consecutive bleach-your-eyes-worthy final seasons, had our culture in a stranglehold for eight years. 

HBO was far from the only network pulling its weight. AMC gave us “Breaking Bad” and “Mad Men,” ABC had “Lost,” NBC had “The West Wing” and “Law and Order,” and even Fox produced “24” and “Arrested Development.” 

Compare this lineup of all-time great shows to the conglomeration of spinoffs, unnecessary franchise extensions, live-action adaptations and sputtering dramas we have now. 

Some of the most critically acclaimed shows, like “Succession,” “Better Call Saul,” “The Crown,” “Ted Lasso” and “Barry,” have all ended. Outside of that group, the current roster of Emmy-nominated or culturally relevant shows — “Stranger Things,” “Yellowjackets,” “Euphoria,” “The White Lotus,” “Yellowstone,” “The Morning Show” or whatever “Star Wars” or “Marvel” spinoff Disney puts out — leaves much to be desired. 

The ability of Hollywood to create bold, original shows that challenge viewers and address the complex nuances of life is fading. 

Studios and streaming services no longer need high-quality programming to capture viewer attention. They only need watchable content. Why else would they force reboots and IP extensions like “That ’90s Show,” “Velma,” “Secret Invasion” or “Squid Game: The Challenge”? 

Worse yet, despite the influx of new shows, shorter seasons and shrunken writers rooms, now called “mini-rooms” within the industry, created a paradox of fewer jobs. 

In the early 2000s, the average writers room for a network series consisted of up to 20 writers. Streaming services have shrunk it to six to eight, giving shows less creative support. 

The issue of quality versus quantity was one of the main talking points of the recent SAG-AFTRA strike. Although likely prioritizing profitability over fairness, executives seem to have gotten the message, given the 40% decrease in adult scripted series ordered by networks and streaming services since 2019.

Even Bob Iger, the man helming the most notorious recent offender (Disney), has acknowledged how quantity has destroyed quality in television. 

Perhaps studios have finally recognized the poor state of the television industry. The question now becomes whether we can trust them to fix it. 

Streaming service consolidation ramping up is a good sign. Alongside recent HBO Max/Discovery+ and Showtime/Paramount+ mergers, industry rumors suggest NBCUniversal is exploring potential integrations of Peacock and Paramount Global or Warner Bros. Discovery. 

On top of financial benefits, fewer streaming services will hopefully subject us viewers to fewer low-effort releases from subscriber-hungry studios. 

There are still plenty of areas of concern, though. 

Rachel Canoun, head of the Entertainment, Media, and Arts Law Club, said AI and IP/brand protection issues within the industry, which were two other SAG-AFTRA strike talking points, will continue evolving.

“These are just very basic rules,” Canoun said. “This agreement expires in 2025. We could be living in a whole new environment when it comes to AI and the speed it’s changing.”

Artificial intelligence raises a host of cost-cutting questions for studios. 

Consider their response to SAG-AFTRA’s request for residual payments. Ethan Drogin, one of the writers behind the recently popular “Suits,” made only $259.71 for his role in writing five episodes, and consulting on numerous other ones, despite the show obtaining the record for most viewed minutes (3.7 billion) in a week last July.

Ethan Drogin is merely one example. With residuals, studios demonstrated an inability to treat their writers and actors fairly. Why should we expect them to handle future issues around AI any differently? 

While there are plenty of reasons to be pessimistic about the future, at the very least, we have not been completely deprived recently. “House of the Dragon,” “The Bear” and “The Last of Us” look poised to satisfy audiences for the next few years. 

Perhaps, as Minnesota Film Critic Alliance member Joe Botten said, there is a cyclical nature to quality programming. 

“It takes one or two really good quality shows … it’ll come back around, but you just, unfortunately, have to wait through a couple seasons of ‘Old Sheldon’ to get to that,” Botten said. “Old Sheldon” refers to the currently unnamed “Young Sheldon” spinoff in the works.

As someone who has seen enough of “The Big Bang Theory” cinematic universe, I implore any TV fans to consider the impact of what they decide to watch. 

As viewers, we have a substantial influence on content decisions in Hollywood. If our cultural bar for what is considered great television remains at a level where shows like “The White Lotus” get 23 Emmy nominations, what incentive is there for studios to try and raise it? 

When we allow for lower quality, lower substance storytelling to gain such a strong cultural pull, we effectively rob ourselves of the bold, original and challenging shows that dominated the 2000s and early 2010s. The next time you hate-watch a show like “Velma,” consider how a subscriber-hungry streaming service might react. 

Perhaps this sounds like the pretentious ramblings of a wannabe entertainment critic. But I am not trying to tell you what you can and can not watch.

I say this from a place of someone who loves being a part of the cultural zeitgeist that surrounds excellent television.

Shows like “The Sopranos,” “Breaking Bad” and “Mad Men” gave people more than a water cooler conversation every Monday — they forced them to consider complex ideas about themselves and their lives. 

It is hard to say the same about many of the shows we now consider prestige television. 

Tinker toys, coloring, Excel, picture books and third-grade math.

Ask the average non-Carlson School of Management student what they think business classes consist of — they would likely respond with some variation of these activities. 

While business students are an easy target for such jokes, there is perhaps not a single group parodied more than the finance bros. 

Having spent the past three and a half years among their ranks both in the classroom and, unfortunately, in social settings, I can attest that most of your assumptions are somewhat justified. 

While it would be easy to poke fun at the predictable social behavior of a finance bro, I instead want to address the lectures, assignments and curriculum they partake in. 

Contrary to what the campus-wide stereotypes say, finance and other Carlson students are capable of thinking critically. However, there are issues, which apply to almost all college classes, hindering their ability to do so.

Let me set the scene for those unfamiliar. 

In the typical finance lecture, there is an abundance of computer screens displaying either daily crossword puzzles or sports gambling odds. When students are not focusing on either of those, they can often be found overthinking or even forgetting the answer to a rather basic question.

Upper-level required and elective courses often span only seven to eight weeks, giving students limited time to develop an extensive understanding of a particular concept. Final grades are mostly determined by one midterm and one exam, which, with a few days of cramming, are easy to obtain solid grades on.

The most critical issue is the lack of useful practical applications. 

These courses spend considerable time discussing overly broad theoretical concepts and teaching students how to do calculations, which every financial institution in the world has software for. Simple concepts are over-complicated, and students are inadequately prepared for both internship interviews — which may ask about concepts that the curriculum has yet to cover — and entry-level roles. 

In a field such as finance, this is a problem. 

Frank Beil, a senior lecturer in finance and accounting, said theory in finance is not always based on practice and therefore does not always apply. 

“In finance, you have a lot of formulas right now, but it doesn’t teach you to think critically in a situation,” Beil said.

Obviously, giving students a theoretical basis for the concepts they learn is essential. 

“I do think you need to cover the theoretical basis before you can get to the point of extending it to a real-life situation, which tends to have a lot of subtlety and a lot of complication as part of it,” said Lisa Kline, a senior lecturer in finance. 

This should be done at the very beginning of the curriculum, though. Instead of rehashing foundational principles through lecture slides filled with bullet points, students should be taking the theoretical basis and hardening their understanding through consistent practical application. 

The optimal method to do this, both in a business school and in most fields, is the case study approach.

Former Harvard Business School Dean Nitin Nohria said case studies teach students how to apply theory to real scenarios as well as extract theory from real scenarios.

Nohria said preparation, discernment, bias recognition, judgment, collaboration, curiosity and self-confidence are seven vital meta-skills (long-lasting abilities that allow someone to learn new things more quickly) acquired from these assignments. 

Case studies also force students to be actively involved in lectures, which is currently a challenge for many professors at Carlson. 

To address this, Carlson should focus on hiring or exposing students to industry professionals who have exposure to various situations and challenges. Industry professionals turned professors can apply their experiences and solutions in a way that career academics cannot, enabling them to better respond to the spontaneous nature of in-class case discussions.

Above all else, case studies prepare students for the unpredictability of on-the-job situations.

Beil, who has accumulated decades of experience in the financial world, advocates for this teaching style.

“The market doesn’t behave like a theory,” Beil said.

Of course, there are certainly caveats to this type of learning. It is also important to note that this viewpoint is solely mine, and, as with every student, the extent of the benefits of college heavily depends on the effort given. 

Upon reflecting on my experiences as a nearly graduated finance student, there are certain aspects of my Carlson education I wish would have been different. 

Unfortunately, 56% of Americans feel similarly, according to a Wall Street Journal and National Opinion Research Center poll. They feel like the cost of a college education is not worth it. 

Determining valid criteria for whether college is actually “worth it” is almost impossible. Considering the vast resources of the internet, which now gives everyone free access to entire curriculums with the click of a few buttons, if students are not given opportunities for practical application or gaining relevant job-oriented experiences and connections, then it is hard to say it is worth the money. 

The curriculum should offer students unique learning opportunities that cannot be replicated outside of a college environment. In Carlson, and specifically within finance, there is a glaring need for such opportunities.