Yale's DeVane Lecture series opens its Purposes of College Education course with this session asking what college education is actually for. The lecture frames the semester's approach, reading Plato's Republic as the first major work of educational philosophy and setting it alongside Aristotle, Confucius, John Stuart Mill, Virginia Woolf, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King. Marking Yale's 325th anniversary, the talk traces how the university's own conception of a college education has shifted over the centuries, drawing on founding documents from the college and university. Themes introduced include the formation of personal character, participation in community life, preparation for citizenship, and sustained conversation on intellectual questions, alongside the social and economic roles college plays. Open to the public, the DeVane Lectures are designed as an accessible entry point into Yale's undergraduate curriculum rather than a specialist seminar.