But by the end of the 20th century, college curriculums had added much beyond the old classics. From the 1960s through the 1990s higher education absorbed vocational training: physical therapy, accounting, marketing, hospitality management, even culinary arts. Mastery of these pursuits doesn’t always require a uniform four-year program. The core of, say, a hospitality degree might require only one year of study. All the while, the costs of the mandated four-year degree continue to soar.

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