Keen On

What’s the point of going to college? There used to be an obvious answer to this: to acquire the knowledge to get a better job. But in our AI age, when smart machines are already challenging many white collar professions, the point of college is increasingly coming into question—especially given its time and financial commitment. According to Caroline Levander, author of the upcoming InventEd, the American ‘tradition of innovation’ can transform college today. Levander, who serves as Vice President for Global Strategy at Rice University, argues that colleges must transform themselves from museums into startups. Indeed, the ideal of failure, so celebrated in Silicon Valley, must become a pillar of reinvented universities. And students too, who Levander has suggested have become increasingly conservative in their attitude to personal risk, must also learn to embrace not just innovative technological tools but also the messiness of personal disruption. That should be the point of college, Levander says. To learn