Posted on 11/22/2021 3:22:42 AM PST by MtnClimber
Lately, conservative parents have been laser-focused on Kâ12 education. And well they should be: perhaps no other issue is as important to our nation's future.
But what about college? Those same parents will soon be faced with that very question. And the people who run our public colleges and universities, unlike their Kâ12 counterparts, are largely unelected and therefore much less accountable to taxpayers.
Fortunately, families have options â beginning with recognizing that not everyone has to go to college to be successful. These days, hardworking young people can pursue a number of careers that pay well yet don't require any post-secondary education, much less a degree.
On the other hand, I do believe that a liberal arts education has intrinsic value. There's more to life than just earning a living. Moreover, many worthwhile careers do require higher education: law, medicine, accounting, and teaching, just to name a few. If your child wishes to work in one of those fields, college is in his future.
Unfortunately, many universities these days have become toxic, poisoning young minds with a warped view of reality. Gatherings of middle-aged conservative parents are replete with stories of good, well raised, God-fearing kids who went off to State U and returned home as committed, brain-dead leftists.
That is scary stuff for parents, and understandably so. But what can they do? Here are some suggestions.
Religious colleges. The solution for many is to send their kids to private religious colleges.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Parents need to make sure their children have a strong set of conservative values before high school. Colleges are a mess. They need core values to survive the leftist cancer.
If able to sacrifice, private or homeschool the kinder up to 8th grade at least.
Some kids can take the leftist beating they get in college and some cannot solid background be damned.
Yes that too but not any traditional leftist colleges and universities. Except for the religious school recommendation the others are all sound options.
Most religious colleges are about 10 years behind secular peers so most are accepting what you see at leftist hell holes as new and wonderful which is actually more exciting than the full acceptance of the left bastions.
Do not do traditional college or university life. Make programs up via internet and travel to local location. Do not have your child ever live on campus. They have turned into sexual cesspool.
Hillsdale only has about 1500 students. They don’t have the infrastructure to take in thousands of students.
If you look at the traditional list of best conservative colleges, few have quality STEM programs.
“Parents need to make sure their children have a strong set of conservative values before high school. Colleges are a mess. They need core values to survive the leftist cancer.”
Not enough. I was in the belly of the beast during college (a hard left college, in a hard left dorm). Very, very, few can survive that intact. To this day, I have no clue how I did.
Given that lesson, I never let my kids spend a night on campus. It was commuting to college, and that was it, and they never had a problem holding to conservative values.
First, gauge whether your child has the intelligence potential & desire to be successful in STEM.
There is a current fallacy that anyone can be an engineer or scientist if they just had access to [fill in the blank]. In my undergrad days, I saw many students go into engineering because “that’s where the money was”. They did not make it because they either flunked out, or realized engineering was not them. While engineering was male dominated, there were some women engineers and math majors - they all shared an above average mathematical aptitude and interest.
Today for STEM, I would recommend going to community college for 2 years and get all/most the non-STEM electives out of the way. Since students commute to school, sitting around with too much time one’s hands to learn to do drugs and be a leftist is minimized or non-existent. Even today, engineering departments may have some leftist profs (mine had a couple 30 years ago) most if not all of them are interested in how things work, making and breaking stuff and putting it all back together etc. We frustrated one lefty prof who loved to talk politics, but he never held it against us in grading because the subject is quite objective - you can apply Fourier Transform or you cannot. Last advice - get an advanced STEM degree. Many times because one is American, they beg for you to come in. You can get financial support (no debt) for the entire advanced degree.
One more thing. Do not make any contributions as an alumnus. It matters not how great the parties were, or the football team was, or all the women/men you dated, etc. Put that emotion aside. Put your money where your mind is - and it isn’t there.
Look at regional state colleges. They’re usually less expensive, have more personal instruction and are focused on gaining the knowledge for employment. Look in flyover states for cheaper schools. A decent student with a decent ACT score can get full tuition somewhere. A 3.5 GPA and a good test score can a full rife somewhere. The higher both are the more money is available.
Set the budget before your kid applies to make sure he has somewhere he can graduate without debt.
Re: Religious Colleges
Don’t go to Villanova, an Augustinian Catholic university. I am a graduate. Even in the mid-70’s it was thoroughly infiltrated with social justice Marxists.
Those who succeeded all shared an exceptionally high IQ and highly focused self discipline.
Very good points. I’ve felt for a long time if your son or daughter isn’t prepared to take calculus on day 1 of their freshman year, they shouldn’t go to 4-year college right away. Community College or a Trade School first. Who knows? They might find something they would prefer doing and not have to go in the first place. I agree also about cutting off the money after graduation. In no way should a conservative support a college or university in any fashion. Unless your kid’s on the team, ignore them, don’t watch them. If all conservatives took this approach, their money will start to dry up, especially in the humanities. We conservatives won’t be there to take their useless gen-ed courses.
College murders wisdom as effectively
as much as
cemataries, er, seminaries murder theology
Both have as their main goal
robbing people of their faith
and knowledge of and acknowledgement
of God.
The quality of education has been being diminished as fast as possible imho.
How long till even they do away with structurally systemic racist objective grades ?
Soon diplomas will come with lollipops and rainbow flags minus any competence in their fields of study.
Jmho.
Self-discipline ... no doubt about its necessity.
Things have changed with regards to the value of higher education. It should be looked at more practically now given (1) its costs well outpacing inflation for decades; (2) the sub-standard-to-no-employment-opportunities that allow one to recover the investment; (3) the indoctrination, anti-Americanism and radicalization of colleges and universities.
One should not overlook learning certain skilled trades and taking community college business and computer courses to supplement. This can go a long way to making certain persons become successful in their own business, and quietly become the millionaire next door. Their jobs won’t be sent overseas. Most of us know at least one such trustworthy person whose skill (HVAC, electrician, mechanic, et al) we can always depend upon.
Did I get your attention? Good!
The good news is that most people do not need the four years of college to have a successful life. What they need is to learn a specialty, a trade or a profession.
I never went to college but I outearn my college-educated peers by a wide margin (on the averages and the means).
I went into the military after high school and learned electronics. After my service, I immediately found work in the electronics (now high tech) industry. In my early years of working, I not only made a decent salary but I was also able to start funding my 401k and was able to use tuition-reimbursement to take essential college courses at night for practically free. I never earned a "degree" to hang on my wall but I did get college courses in accounting, economics, business administration, and technical writing on the company dime. I also was able to take certification courses (such as A+, MCSE) on the company dime.
So in my adult years, I never had to learn how to make lattes at Starbucks for just over minimum wage, like so many college grads do today! I just plunged into my profession at the entry levels, getting the necessary certifications and college level courses done on my own time and on the company's dime.
No student loans to pay off and steady work with increasing pay since my early 20s. Don't let anybody tell you that college is necessary to be successful. Quite the opposite.
Lastly, never stop learning!
To succeed in STEM one needs aptitude, persistence, and resilience. It helps to learn to work in a study group with like-minded individuals. One needs to develop study skills and the ability to calm oneself during exams. It helps if you can find summer employment in your desired field. This tends to open other opportunities.
Those are great additions as well. The summer employment or paid intern programs help many to continue on their path or find that they should be elsewhere.
For those who are not STEM, and if not going into a trade, my recommendation would be be business major, or economics plus a foreign language to a level of fluency. Study abroad for a year to increase that fluency. Many college study abroad programs today are actually “college vacation” programs run by the student’s university. What I mean by study abroad is where one matriculates full-time in a foreign university program for a full year where the credits are earned toward degree. Also, there is no reason a STEM major could not do the same with language and study abroad. And doing these things one can see with the aptitude, attitude, persistence, discipline, and being with like-minded ... there really is no time to sit around with leftists who are recruiting, indoctrinating, smoking pot, painting signs for protesting, skipping leftist humanities etc.
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