Warning: This college course may be bad for your brain

Every August, families spend tens of thousands of dollars on college tuition, housing, meal plans, and textbooks. They compare degree requirements, graduation rates, and campus amenities. Yet many never ask the most basic consumer question: What is actually inside the classes they are buying?

Colleges already label the price. It’s time to label the product.

Americans would not buy food without reading the ingredients or take medicine without knowing something about the possible side effects. College courses, however, are often sold by title and catalog description alone. Students register for “Introduction to History,” “Ethics,” or even a science requirement with little idea of the intellectual assumptions the professor will bring into the lecture hall.

That information can be consequential. A course may pursue knowledge through evidence and argument.