ABSTRACT
The rate of creativity in OECD countries is in decline. It has been so for a long time. A pronounced downturn began in the 1970s. This fall closely tracked the rise of mass higher education. A noticeable sharp downward turning-point occurs around 1974. This is when the post-industrial, post-modern era began.1 The rhetoric of the knowledge society supposed an age of intense creation. The actual record of the period was tepid. The mass university was the signature institution of the post-modern, post-industrial era. The singular failure of the era was the failure of that institution. It promised much but delivered little.
