The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less

by Barry Schwartz

A century ago, a college curriculum entailed a largely fixed course of study, with a principal goal of educating people in their ethical and civic traditions. Education was not just about learning a discipline—it was a way of raising citizens with common values and aspirations. Often the capstone of a college education was a course taught by the college president, a course that integrated the various fields of knowledge to which the students had been exposed. But more important, this course was intended to teach students how to use their college education to live a good and an ethical life, both as individuals and as members of society. This is no longer the case.

What education used to be

A friend of mine has two daughters who provide a case in point. When the older girl entered adolescence, my friend and his wife experienced the usual parent-versus-adolescent struggles for control. Often, the battles with their daughter were about buying clothes. Their daughter was style conscious and had expensive taste, and her ideas about what she absolutely “needed” differed from her parents’. Then my friend and his wife had an idea. They negotiated a clothing allowance with their daughter, allocating funds for a reasonable number of reasonably priced items in the various categories of clothes. They gave her a lump sum, and she could then decide for herself how to spend it. It worked like a charm. Arguments about clothing stopped, and my friends were able to spend the rest of their daughter’s adolescence fighting with her about more important things.

Spending quota