Networks of Trust: The Social Costs of College and What We Can Do about Them

Networks of Trust: The Social Costs of College and What We Can Do about Them

An eye-opening look at how parents’ mistrust of colleges has less to do with what their kids are learning than with whom they come to trust. Higher education is a familiar battlefield in today’s culture wars. The right accuses colleges and universities of indoctrinating conservative students with liberal values; the left, with failing to be sufficiently inclusive. The anxieties expressed on both sides of the political spectrum have much in common, however, and they are triggered not by colleges’ failures but by their successes. ​ So argues philosopher Anthony Simon Laden in Networks of Trust. He highlights how a college education shapes students’ informational trust networks: the complex set of people and institutions they rely on for the information they use to think about and understand the world. While the networks that colleges build for students have great value, learning to inhabit them pulls some students away from their families and communities. If many people distrust institutions of higher education, this is one reason why. Networks of Trust offers a path forward, one that preserves the value while reducing the harms of a college education. It includes concrete suggestions for how colleges and universities can educate students in a manner that inspires and deserves trust: one that bridges rather than deepens our social divides. "This book pushes past our typically vague thoughts about trust in education to explain why genuine trust across people who see the world differently is so hard to achieve and so important to strive for. Essential reading." -- Michael S. McPherson, coauthor of 'Lesson Plan: An Agenda for Change in American Higher Education' “Amid the growing skepticism of legislators, students, and citizens toward colleges and universities, there is no topic that is more timely or urgent than how to rebuild trust in higher education.  Networks of Trust  makes a critical contribution by showing us the importance of earning and sustaining that trust within our classrooms and our institutions.” -- Jennifer M. Morton, author of 'Moving Up without Losing Your Way: The Ethical Costs of Upward Mobility' "In this timely, post-COVID book, professor Laden addresses the experience of college students whose upbringing did not prepare them for higher education’s traditional approach to knowledge acquisition. His idea that faculty and administrators must recognize the information trust networks that students bring with them to college opens a fascinating discussion about how to support student learning by building trust through a culture of open-mindedness, care, and charitable thinking." -- Susan Poser, Hofstra University "This book is recommended for graduate students, faculty members, and administrators in higher education, as it will offer a unique perspective and a new way of thinking about how to regain trust for institutions of higher education." ― Choice Anthony Simon Laden is professor of philosophy at the University of Illinois at Chicago and co-directs, with Harry Brighouse, the Center for Ethics and Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of Reasoning: A Social Picture and co-editor (with David Owen) of Multiculturalism and Political Theory.