Table of Contents
Introduction: The Unsolvable Question and a Physicist’s Answer
For years, I’ve been haunted by a deceptively simple question: “What is college for?” My journey to answer it began as a high school senior, drowning in a sea of brochures and conflicting advice.
My guidance counselor, a pragmatist, presented college as a solid, predictable investment—a direct path to a stable career and a higher salary.
Lifestyle magazines and campus tour guides painted a different picture, one of a fluid, transformative journey of self-discovery, a time to find yourself and forge lifelong friendships.
Then there were the politicians and public intellectuals, who spoke of college in grand, almost gaseous terms—as the engine of national innovation, the bedrock of an informed citizenry, the conscience of society.
The problem wasn’t just the variety of answers; it was their fundamental incompatibility.
The advice to pursue a “solid” degree in engineering for its high return on investment often felt at odds with the “liquid” desire to explore philosophy or art history.
The “gaseous” ideal of critical inquiry often led to campus controversies that seemed to undermine the university’s public standing.
I followed the standard advice, got the degree, and built a career analyzing these very systems, yet the core confusion remained.
We were all talking about the same institution, but it felt like we were describing different universes.
This personal and professional frustration became a driving obsession: we lack a coherent framework to understand what college truly means.
The epiphany arrived, as they often do, from a completely unexpected domain.
I stumbled upon a technical paper from MIT’s Engineering Systems Division that had nothing to do with education.1
It used the phases of matter—solid, liquid, and gas—as an analogy to describe the architecture of complex systems.
A solid is rigid and structured, like a crystal lattice.
A liquid is fluid and adaptive, taking the shape of its container.
A gas is expansive and uncontained, filling all available space.
Suddenly, the chaos resolved into a pattern.
College isn’t one thing; it’s a complex system that exists simultaneously in three distinct states.
- The Solid State: College as a structured, predictable credential. This is the world of GPAs, degrees, and return on investment—a rigid pathway to a tangible economic outcome.
- The Liquid State: College as a fluid, transformative process. This is the journey of personal growth, the development of critical thinking, and the forging of identity within a community.
- The Gaseous State: College as an expansive, societal engine. This is the abstract realm of pure research, civic ideals, and cultural critique that shapes the world far beyond the campus walls.
This framework didn’t just categorize the old, conflicting answers; it created a new paradigm.
It revealed that the meaning of college—and the source of its profound contemporary crises—lies not in any single state, but in the volatile, often-unstable transitions between them.
This report is a journey through that new paradigm, an attempt to build a unified theory for an institution that feels like it’s breaking apart.
Part I: The Solid State — College as a Structured Credential
The most tangible and widely understood meaning of college is its function as a solid object: a credential.
It is a structured, quantifiable asset that one acquires to achieve a specific, predictable outcome, primarily economic security.
This view of college has deep historical roots and is supported by compelling modern data, yet it is also the state where the system’s most visible cracks are forming.
The Historical Bedrock: From Clergy to Career
The American university began as a profoundly “Solid” institution.
When Harvard College was founded in 1636, its purpose was singular and unambiguous: to train Puritan ministers.2
The curriculum was rigid, the student body homogenous, and the outcome defined.
This model, borrowed from Oxford and Cambridge, dominated the colonial era, with institutions like Yale and Princeton established to serve specific denominational needs.2
The structure was clear: follow this prescribed path to receive this specific professional credential.
Over the next two centuries, this purpose broadened to include the training of other elite professionals like lawyers and doctors, but the underlying principle of a structured path to a defined outcome remained firmly in place.7
However, the great “phase transition” for the Solid State came in the 19th and 20th centuries.
The Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890 were monumental federal interventions that democratized and redefined higher education’s purpose.8
By granting federal lands to states to establish public universities, the government explicitly tied higher education to the nation’s economic needs, mandating instruction in “agriculture and the mechanic arts”.8
This cemented the idea of college as a practical tool for the working classes to gain tangible skills for the industrial workforce.
This practical, economic function was supercharged after World War II.
The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, or GI Bill, funded the education of millions of returning veterans, framing college as a direct pathway to re-entry into the workforce and upward mobility.4
This era solidified the modern conception of the university’s Solid State: college is, first and foremost, a place you go to get a good job.
The Modern Economic Calculus: The ROI Imperative
Today, the Solid State is primarily understood through the language of economics and return on investment (ROI).
The data supporting this view is powerful and consistent.
A college degree is one of the most reliable financial investments an individual can make.
On average, a worker with a bachelor’s degree earns a substantial wage premium.
In recent years, the median college graduate earned about $80,000 annually, compared to $47,000 for a worker with only a high school diploma—a premium of over $32,000 per year.12
This differential accumulates dramatically over a lifetime, with bachelor’s degree holders earning an estimated $1.2 million more than their high school-educated peers.13
Graduate degrees generate even higher returns, adding well over $1 million in additional median lifetime earnings.14
Calculated as a pure investment, the return to college has held steady at around 12.5% for the past three decades, a rate that handily exceeds the long-term returns of the stock market (around 8%) or bonds (around 4%).12
This robust return persists because while the costs of college have risen, so too have the economic benefits it confers in an increasingly knowledge-based economy.
However, this solid return is not uniform; it crystallizes differently depending on the chosen field of study.
The ROI varies dramatically by major, creating a clear hierarchy of economic value.
STEM and professional fields offer the most lucrative returns.
An analysis of degrees by ROI after five years in the workforce shows engineering at the top with a 326.6% return, followed by computer science (310.3%), nursing (280.9%), and accounting (261.3%).15
This data reinforces the Solid State’s core logic: the most valuable credential is the one most directly tied to a high-demand, high-paying profession.16
The Cracks in the Foundation: When the Solid State Fails
Despite its compelling economic promise, the Solid State of college is under immense strain.
The structural integrity of the credential is being compromised by two interconnected crises: runaway costs and the resulting debt burden.
For decades, the cost of college has risen much faster than general inflation or household incomes.7
This trend accelerated dramatically after the 1980s, coinciding with a massive expansion of federal student lending programs and a precipitous decline in state funding for public universities.7
During the late 1980s, state appropriations accounted for 77% of public university revenue; by 2020, that figure had plummeted, with 32 states spending less on public higher education than they did in 2008.18
As public investment receded, institutions were forced to pass the costs directly to students, transforming a publicly subsidized good into a privately financed one.
This cost shift has fueled an unprecedented student debt crisis.
As of 2025, total student loan debt in the United States has reached a staggering $1.77 trillion, a figure larger than the GDP of Australia.21
This debt is held by 42.7 million Americans, with the average borrower owing $38,883.21
This enormous financial burden fundamentally alters the ROI calculation.
A six-figure debt load can delay homeownership, retirement savings, and family formation for years, making the promise of financial security feel increasingly hollow.
The severity of the crisis is reflected in rising delinquency rates; in the first quarter of 2025, nearly 8% of aggregate student debt was 90 or more days delinquent, a sharp increase from previous years.24
The crisis is compounded by the fact that the credential itself does not always deliver on its promise.
A growing number of graduates find themselves underemployed, working in jobs that do not require a college degree, which calls into question the value of their investment.7
Furthermore, the quality of the education being delivered is under scrutiny.
A landmark study by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa found that 36% of college students demonstrated no significant improvement in complex reasoning, critical thinking, or writing skills during their four years of study.25
If the Solid credential does not guarantee a good job or even the core skills it purports to represent, its very meaning begins to crumble.
This leads to a vicious, self-reinforcing cycle.
As public funding for higher education declines, universities must raise tuition.
This forces students to view their education through the narrow, transactional lens of the Solid State, prioritizing majors with the highest immediate R.I. This focus on private financial gain, in turn, weakens the public and political will to see college as a public good worthy of taxpayer support, leading to further funding cuts.
The system is caught in a downward spiral where the intense focus on the Solid State’s economic promise is paradoxically eroding the public foundation that makes that promise achievable.
Simultaneously, the very success of the Solid State has created a new problem: degree inflation.
As a bachelor’s degree has become a baseline requirement for entry into the middle-class workforce, its power to signal exceptional ability has diminished.7
When a degree is a necessity rather than a distinction, individuals are compelled to pursue ever-higher credentials, such as master’s degrees, to stand O.T. This extends the costly educational pathway, yet the returns are far from guaranteed.
Shockingly, studies show that nearly half of all master’s degree programs leave students financially worse off, with a negative return on investment.16
The relentless pursuit of a more “solid” credential can lead directly to financial ruin.
| The Economic Ledger of a College Degree | |
| Assets (The Promise) | Liabilities (The Peril) |
| $32,000 average annual wage premium over a high school diploma 12 | $1.77 Trillion total U.S. student loan debt 21 |
| $1.2 Million average lifetime earnings increase (bachelor’s degree) 13 | $38,883 average student loan debt per borrower 21 |
| 12.5% average annual return on investment 12 | 7.74% of student debt was 90+ days delinquent (Q1 2025) 24 |
| 326.6% ROI for Engineering majors (top) 15 | Negative ROI for nearly half of all Master’s degree programs 16 |
| 310.3% ROI for Computer Science majors 15 | 36% of students show no significant learning gains in critical thinking 25 |
Part II: The Liquid State — College as a Transformative Process
While the Solid State views college as a destination—the acquisition of a credential—the Liquid State understands it as a journey.
In this state, the meaning of college is found not in the final diploma but in the fluid, adaptive, and often-unpredictable process of becoming.
It is a crucible for personal growth, an engine for developing durable skills, and a community that shapes one’s worldview.
This state is harder to quantify than ROI, but its value is arguably more profound and lasting.
The Crucible of Growth: Forging a New Self
For millions of students, college is the first true encounter with autonomy.
It is a unique environment that strips away the familiar scaffolds of home and high school, forcing a confrontation with independence.27
Learning to manage one’s own time, finances, and responsibilities is a formative struggle that builds a foundation of self-reliance.29
This process is rarely smooth.
Personal stories of transformation are often, at their core, stories of overcoming failure—bombing an exam, navigating a difficult roommate situation, or feeling overwhelmed and isolated.29
As one student who turned a 1.0 GPA into a spot on the Dean’s List reflected, the bad semester was a “blessing in disguise,” the “kick I needed” to move from laziness to discipline.31
This journey from struggle to success is where resilience is forged.
The ability to accept failure, learn from it, and create a new plan of action is not an academic skill but a life skill of the highest order—a “new superpower,” as one graduate described it.28
This transformative process, while often painful, is central to the meaning of the Liquid State.
The Skills Engine: Learning How to Think, Not What to Think
Beneath the specific knowledge of a major, the Liquid State is constantly cultivating a set of deeper, more durable skills.
These are the transferable, “soft” skills that employers consistently rank as the most valuable: critical thinking, complex problem-solving, communication, adaptability, and collaboration.33
At its best, a university education is not about the transfer of information but about the development of a critical mind.
It teaches students how to think, not what to think.36
Critical thinking is the art of making reasoned judgments by interpreting, analyzing, and synthesizing evidence from multiple sources.36
It is the ability to move beyond mere description to construct a coherent argument, to evaluate the robustness of evidence, and to challenge one’s own assumptions.36
This process is the intellectual core of the university experience, empowering students to take conscious control of their own thought processes and navigate an information-saturated world.38
While critics point to the failure of many institutions to deliver on this promise 25, its central importance to the value of college remains undiminished.
The Power of Community: Connection and Perspective
The Liquid State is not a solitary journey.
It unfolds within a community, and the nature of that community profoundly shapes the experience.
Smaller colleges, in particular, are often defined by their tight-knit communities, which can foster a powerful sense of belonging and psychological safety.39
This environment encourages deeper relationships with professors and peers, creating a support network that is crucial for both academic and personal development.
A key function of this community is exposure to diversity.
Interacting with individuals from different cultural, economic, and ideological backgrounds is a powerful catalyst for growth.28
It broadens worldviews, builds empathy, and forces students to examine their own preconceived notions.43
This social dimension—the unstructured learning that happens in dorm rooms, dining halls, and student clubs—is a vital part of the Liquid experience and a key value proposition that distinguishes a residential college education from purely online or transactional models.44
The Ultimate Flow State: Experiential Learning
The principles of the Liquid State are most powerfully realized in models of experiential learning, which intentionally dissolve the boundary between the classroom and the world.
Programs like cooperative education (co-ops), internships, service-learning, and field research embody this philosophy by making “learning by doing” the central pedagogical approach.45
The outcomes of these programs are remarkable.
Research on co-op programs, for example, demonstrates clear benefits across both the Liquid and Solid states.
Students who participate gain invaluable industry experience, report greater certainty about their career choices, and develop a host of professional skills.49
This practical experience often translates into superior academic performance, with co-op students demonstrating higher GPAs and persistence in their majors.50
Crucially, these benefits convert directly into Solid State advantages: co-op graduates are more likely to receive job offers from their host companies and command higher starting salaries than their peers.49
Experiential learning works because it forces the application of theoretical knowledge in unpredictable, real-world situations.45
This process enriches comprehension, builds confidence, and sharpens critical thinking and problem-solving skills in a way that no lecture or textbook can replicate.
The true, long-term ROI of a college education may not come from the static knowledge of a credential, but from the dynamic capabilities forged in the Liquid State.
The resilience, adaptability, and critical thinking skills developed through this transformative process are what enable a graduate to navigate multiple career changes, learn new skills, and create value in an economy where specific knowledge quickly becomes obsolete.
The failure of our public discourse to measure and value this “Liquid ROI” is a fundamental flaw in how we assess the meaning of college.
Experiential learning models serve as a powerful bridge, or a “phase transition mechanism,” that makes the value generated in the Liquid State tangible.
They take the abstract process of personal growth and skill development and convert it into the Solid currency of professional competence and career readiness, ensuring the transformative journey has a tangible destination.
| The Transformative Value Matrix | ||
| “Liquid State” Activity | Personal Growth Outcome | In-Demand Employer Skill |
| Classroom Debate / Socratic Method | Critical Thinking & Argumentation 36 | Analytical Thinking 35 |
| Group Projects & Collaboration | Conflict Resolution & Teamwork 53 | Teamwork & Collaboration 33 |
| Overcoming Academic Failure | Resilience & Grit 28 | Adaptability & Flexibility 33 |
| Navigating Social Diversity | Empathy & Cultural Competence 28 | Equity & Inclusion 34 |
| Experiential Learning (Internships/Co-ops) | Career Identity & Confidence 50 | Professionalism & Self-Development 34 |
Part III: The Gaseous State — College as a Societal Engine
The third and most expansive state of college is the Gaseous State.
Here, the university’s meaning transcends the individual student or the physical campus.
It functions as a societal engine, generating the intangible yet powerful forces of knowledge, civic virtue, and cultural critique that shape the nation and the world.
Its outputs are often abstract and diffuse, but they form the very atmosphere in which progress occurs.
The Idea Factory: Fueling Progress and the Economy
Universities are the primary engines of basic research and knowledge creation in modern society.54
This “Gaseous” output—the new scientific theories, historical insights, and artistic innovations—is often produced without immediate application in mind.
Yet, over time, this abstract knowledge “condenses” to form the foundation for new technologies, medical breakthroughs, and entire industries.57
This function was dramatically scaled by the creation of the federal-academic research partnership during World War II and the subsequent Cold War.11
Massive government investment, initially for military purposes like the atomic bomb and radar, transformed American universities into the world’s preeminent centers of research.11
This partnership established a powerful feedback loop: public investment in university research generates the innovations that drive economic growth and enhance national security.
The economic leverage is immense.
In the United Kingdom, for instance, every £1 of public funding for university research generates an estimated £9.90 in economic impact.59
The Democratic Ideal: Cultivating an Engaged Citizenry
From the very beginning, American leaders envisioned higher education as essential to the success of the democratic experiment.
Founders like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington argued that a republic could not survive without an educated citizenry capable of critical thought and informed self-governance.2
This is a quintessential Gaseous function: to cultivate the civic virtues and intellectual habits necessary for a healthy democracy.
Modern data confirms that universities continue to perform this vital role.
College graduates are far more engaged in civic life than their non-graduate peers.
They are significantly more likely to vote (75% of bachelor’s degree holders vote in presidential elections, compared to 52% of high school graduates), more than twice as likely to volunteer, and contribute nearly 3.5 times more to charity.13
Furthermore, they place a far smaller burden on the state.
College graduates are 3.5 times less likely to live in poverty and nearly five times less likely to be imprisoned.13
The net financial impact on the public purse is overwhelmingly positive.
The average bachelor’s degree recipient contributes $381,000 more in taxes than they consume in government services over their lifetime, a net contribution that is $355,000 greater than that of a high school graduate.13
By producing more engaged, productive, and self-sufficient citizens, the university’s Gaseous State provides a massive, if often unacknowledged, return to society.
The Atmosphere of Contention: A Hub for Change and Conflict
The Gaseous State is inherently unstable, provocative, and contested.
As hubs for the free exchange of ideas, universities are natural incubators for social change and cultural critique.4
Throughout the 20th century, college campuses were at the epicenter of the nation’s most profound social movements, including the push for civil rights, women’s liberation, and protests against the Vietnam War.4
This role as a space for critical and constructive debate is essential to a dynamic society.
Today, this function is the source of the intense “culture wars” that have engulfed higher education.
Public confidence in universities has plummeted, cleaving along sharp partisan lines.7
Between 2015 and 2019, the percentage of Republicans viewing higher education’s effect on the country as negative nearly doubled.61
Critics from the right and center increasingly view universities as inhospitable environments, dominated by a “woke” progressive orthodoxy that is hostile to traditional values and free inquiry.7
This has created a deep political backlash, with state legislatures passing laws to limit what can be taught, weaken tenure protections, and exert greater political control over university governance.62
This conflict represents a fundamental societal struggle over the nature and direction of the university’s Gaseous influence.
This struggle can be understood as a battle over the university’s “thermostat.” The very purpose of the Gaseous State is to “heat things up”—to challenge assumptions, question the status quo, and generate new, often disruptive, ideas.
The current political backlash is an attempt to “cool the system down,” to force the expansive, critical gas of free inquiry back into a more rigid, predictable, and ideologically contained solid.
The fierce debates over curriculum, tenure, and campus speech are not peripheral issues; they are battles for control of the university’s core function as a societal change agent.
The great vulnerability of the Gaseous State is that its benefits are diffuse, long-term, and often politically inconvenient.
The basic research that fuels future industries (a Solid outcome) and the culture of inquiry that teaches critical thinking (a Liquid outcome) are both products of the Gaseous State.
Yet, because a taxpayer cannot see the immediate personal benefit of a grant for particle physics or a seminar on post-colonial theory, this foundational state is the easiest to attack and defund.
This time lag between Gaseous investment and tangible payoff creates a permanent political precarity for higher education, threatening to starve the very engine that powers its other functions.
Part IV: The Crisis of State — When the System Breaks Down
The most pressing challenges facing higher education today—affordability, mental health, and political polarization—are not separate problems.
They are symptoms of a systemic failure, a crisis in the way the university manages its three states.
The “Phases of Matter” framework serves as a powerful diagnostic tool, revealing how these crises are interconnected through dysfunctional phase transitions, creating a cascade of failures that threaten the entire enterprise.
The Meltdown: A “Solid” Cost Crushing the “Liquid” Experience
The crisis of affordability is a “meltdown” where the extreme pressure of the Solid State—the rigid, non-negotiable cost of tuition and the resulting debt—effectively freezes the Liquid State.
The potential for a fluid, transformative journey of self-discovery is crushed under the weight of financial necessity.
The numbers are stark.
With total costs at elite private universities approaching $100,000 per year 64 and the average graduate leaving with nearly $30,000 in debt 21, students are forced into a defensive, risk-averse crouch.
The freedom to explore, to take an intellectually stimulating class outside one’s major, or to pursue a passion that may not have an immediate financial payoff becomes an unaffordable luxury.
Students are compelled to work long hours during the semester, which detracts from their academic engagement and personal development.27
They are funneled into “practical” majors they may not love, simply to justify the enormous cost.66
The Solid State’s financial imperatives do not just coexist with the Liquid State; they actively suffocate it.
The Boiling Point: The Student Mental Health Crisis
The student mental health crisis is a “boiling point”—a system under unbearable pressure that is beginning to break down.
Students are simultaneously subjected to the intense demands of all three states.
They face the Solid pressure to achieve high grades to secure a high-paying job, the Liquid pressure to navigate a complex new social environment and forge an independent identity, and the Gaseous pressure of living in a world fraught with political turmoil and existential threats like climate change and social unrest.
The result is an epidemic of psychological distress.
Recent studies are alarming: 80% of students report a mental health crisis on campus.67
Anxiety and depression are rampant, with estimates showing that 37% of students experience symptoms of anxiety disorders and 44% show symptoms of depression.67
These are not isolated cases of individual struggle but evidence of a systemic overload.
The primary stressors students identify are a direct reflection of this multi-state pressure cooker: their own mental health (50%), personal finances (39%), and academics (37%).67
The system is demanding a level of performance and resilience that its support structures—underfunded and overwhelmed counseling centers—cannot sustain.68
The students are boiling over.
The Condensation Crisis: The Attack on Academic Freedom
The “culture war” engulfing higher education is a “condensation crisis.” It is a powerful external force attempting to cool down the expansive, critical Gaseous State and force it back into a rigid, controllable Solid form.
As universities produce research and discourse that challenge established norms on topics like race, gender, and history, they provoke a political backlash.7
This backlash takes the form of direct political interference designed to restrict intellectual freedom.
In states like Florida, Texas, and Iowa, new laws limit or prohibit instruction on “divisive concepts,” effectively censoring academic discussion.63
Tenure, the bedrock of academic freedom that allows scholars to pursue controversial research without fear of political reprisal, is under direct assault.63
University governing boards are increasingly filled with political appointees who seek to impose ideological conformity.62
This coordinated effort is an attempt to “condense” the free-flowing gas of inquiry into a solid block of approved doctrine.
It fundamentally threatens the university’s role as a source of innovation and societal critique, risking a chilling effect that could lead to intellectual stagnation and a “brain drain” from affected states.63
These crises are not independent; they are linked in a destructive feedback loop.
The Condensation Crisis (political attacks) provides the justification for defunding the Gaseous State of public higher education.
This defunding directly causes the Meltdown (the affordability crisis), which shifts the cost burden onto students.
The immense financial and academic pressure of the Meltdown is a primary driver of the Boiling Point (the mental health crisis).
Thus, the abstract political battle over ideas is directly connected to the concrete financial and psychological suffering of students.
The system is failing as a whole.
| The Higher Education Crisis Matrix | |||
| Crisis | Dominant State of the Problem | Key Data Point | Impact on Students |
| The Meltdown (Affordability) | Solid (Rigid Costs) | $1.77 Trillion in student debt 21 | Financial stress; limited academic exploration; forced career choices 27 |
| The Boiling Point (Mental Health) | Liquid (Overwhelming Process) | 80% of students report a mental health crisis on campus 67 | Anxiety; depression; burnout; increased drop-out risk 69 |
| The Condensation Crisis (Political Attack) | Gas (Uncontrolled Ideas) | 58% of Republicans view higher education negatively 61 | Chilling effect on speech; erosion of academic freedom; unsafe campus climate 63 |
Conclusion: A Systems-Thinking Approach to Finding Meaning
The question “What is college for?” has become so difficult to answer because we have been trying to define a multi-state system using single-state language.
We have been arguing about whether college is a solid, a liquid, or a gas, when in fact it is all three.
The true meaning of college is not found in any one state but in the healthy, dynamic, and balanced interplay between them.
A successful higher education must provide a Solid foundation of knowledge and marketable skills, facilitate a Liquid process of personal transformation and critical thinking, and maintain a Gaseous connection to the broader world of ideas, innovation, and civic purpose.
The crises we face are crises of imbalance.
An overemphasis on the Solid State has led to a debt-fueled meltdown that freezes the Liquid State’s potential for growth.
Uncontained pressures across all states have caused the system to boil over into a mental health epidemic.
And a political assault on the Gaseous State threatens to condense free inquiry into rigid dogma, starving the entire system of the innovation and critique it needs to survive.
My personal journey from confusion to clarity did not end with a simple answer, but with a new tool for navigation.
The “Three States” framework is not just a diagnostic model; it is a guide for action.
For students and parents, it offers a way to move beyond the paralyzing binary of choosing between passion and pragmatism.
It encourages a systems-thinking approach to the college journey.
It means consciously asking: When do we need to focus on the Solid, like ensuring a chosen major has viable career paths and managing debt responsibly? When can we prioritize the Liquid, by taking a challenging course outside our comfort zone or embracing a difficult conversation that broadens our perspective? And how do we engage with the Gaseous, by participating in campus debates, seeking out fundamental research, and understanding our role not just as students, but as future citizens?
For university leaders and policymakers, this framework demands a shift from managing isolated departments to stewarding a complex ecosystem.
It means recognizing that funding the Gaseous state of basic research is not a luxury but a long-term investment in the Solid state of the economy.
It means designing structures like co-ops and mandatory internships that create intentional, healthy phase transitions between the Liquid and Solid states.
And it means investing in the system’s “containment vessels”—robust mental health services, strong faculty governance, and fierce protection of academic freedom—to prevent the system from boiling over or being dangerously compressed.
The landscape of higher education is already responding to these pressures.
The rise of alternative models—from the competency-based, career-focused approach of Western Governors University to the work-study model of Berea College, and the interdisciplinary focus of Evergreen State College—can be seen as experiments in rebalancing the three states.71
They are attempts to create new educational ecosystems with different thermodynamic properties, each seeking a more stable and meaningful equilibrium.
We may never find a single, static answer to what college means, because its very nature is to be a dynamic system in constant flux.
By abandoning the search for a simple definition and instead embracing a framework that accounts for its complexity, we can move from a state of perpetual crisis to one of conscious, intentional design.
The goal is not to solve the unsolvable question, but to equip ourselves, our institutions, and the next generation of students with the tools to build a more valuable, transformative, and meaningful college experience for the future.
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