Posted on 04/13/2017 1:39:48 AM PDT by Kaslin
If Animal House were to be rebooted today, Bluto – who would probably be updated into a differently–abled trans being of heft – might ask, “See if you can guess what am I now?” before expelling a whole mass of pus-like root vegetable on the WASPrivileged villains and announcing, “I’m a university – get it?”
At least popping a zit gets rid of the infection and promotes healing. But today, the higher education racket festers on the rear end of our culture, a painful, useless carbuncle of intellectual fraud, moral bankruptcy, and pernicious liberal fascism that impoverishes the young while it subsidizes a bunch of old pinkos who can’t hack it at Real World U.
At least literal boils don’t diss you while demanding you give them free money. We’re expected to shut up and write checks while the universitools ruin our culture. Luckily, due to the happy coincidence of a conservative federal government, technological advances, and the college industrial complex’s inexplicable death wish, we normals now have a chance to lance the boil that is 21st Century academia.
The purpose of universities long ago stopped being education, yet Big Edu and its liberal supporters keep pushing the lie that the only way to prepare young Americans for the future is to tie an anchor around their necks. America’s student loan debt now totals a staggering $1.4 trillion carried by 44 million Americans, and 2016 grads are weighed down with an average $37,712 each. And what do they get for it? Nothing but four years older and considerably dumber. Record numbers are using their degrees in Papuan Feminist Literature and Genderfluid Break Dance Therapy as gateway credentials into the exciting field of brewing caffeinated beverages for grown-ups who didn’t still live on the futon in their mom’s spare bedroom at age 33.
A house, a family, and a future that involves either dignity or success – these are things walking out into society with a meaningless piece of paper and nearly forty grand in debt prevent. But hey – the important thing is that we continue to subsidize one of the Democrats’ key constituencies and its prime breeding ground for the social dysfunction and soft-handed tyranny that are the hallmarks of progressivism. Too bad if it ruins the lives of the young suckers whose parents pushed them onto the conveyor belt that annually pumps out another crop of credentialed indentured servants.
But even sucking the lifeblood out of Millennials is not enough to feed the greedy academic beast. The bright new idea – one embraced by that commie from New England, that other commie from New England who tricked her college into thinking she was an Indian, and that firewater aficionado who lost the election – is “free college.” Let’s set aside the fact that community college exists to give everyone the opportunity to get some higher education; today, it’s job is to occupy high school students for a few extra years by intermittently teaching them the things the incompetence of unionized teachers ensured they didn’t learn in public high schools. The “free college” idea offers those of us who have already paid for our own education the opportunity to pony up for someone else’s. As the grade-inflated bastions of higher learning say to pretty much anyone who hands them a check and keeps his mouth shut about liking America, “Pass.”
If traditional colleges performed some meaningful function that only they could perform, then there might be a rationale for them in the 21st Century. But there’s not. What do four-year colleges do today?
Well, they cater to weenies who feel “unsafe” that Mike Pence is speaking to their graduates. Seventy-some years ago, young people that age were feeling unsafe because the Wehrmacht was trying to kill them on Omaha Beach.
At our nation’s most prestigious university, students are emotionally incapacitated by the fact that other Americans elected someone they dislike. Their reaction is to form a “resistance” that they refer to as “Dumbledore’s Army.” What a bunch of wand-stroking. But there is one good thing about this mortifying childishness – perhaps now, when you meet a grad, he, she, or xe will hesitate for a couple minutes before telling you it went to Harvard.
And in their quest to ensure their students’ perpetual unemployment, colleges are now teaching that punctuality is a social construct. Somewhere, a Starbucks manager is going to hear from Kaden the Barista that, “I like, totally couldn’t get here for my shift on time because, like intersectionality of my experience as a person of Scandinavianism and stuff. I feel unsafe because of your racist vikingaphobia and tardiness-shaming.”
Academia is pricing itself out of reach even as the antics of its inhabitants annoy and provoke those of us whose taxes already pick up a big chunk of the bill even without the “free college” okie-doke. This is where the fortuitous coincidence of two phenomena collide to give us an opportunity to fix our problem. We’re woke to the scam, and we now have a federal government dominated by conservatives that can use the law and the power of the purse to tame the beast. As the same time, technology that will allow no-frills learning is improving every day. What we must do is pass popular laws that make colleges accountable to taxpayers and students, including by shifting some of the student loan risk onto them. We must also protect that whole wacky freedom thing – colleges can always give up all federal funds if they, say, want to force college Christian clubs to accept atheist members. And yeah – that’s a thing.
At the same time, we can use the law to help facilitate the transition away from the current centralized campus with a bloated administration and faculty/four-year booze cruise model. Laws can mandate and regularize credentialing for technology-based learning to help make non-traditional programs a viable and accepted alternative to a traditional degree. Right now, college is less about learning than about creating a cultural signifier – someone who went to college is “one of us.” But that snobby luxury can’t endure when tuition becomes unaffordable for everyone but ultra-rich folks willing to pony up for their spawn’s sojourn on campus. And it’s unnecessary. To the extent college teaches hard skills – I learned how to beer bong like a boss – students can go on-line at a fraction of the cost to get the specific education they need, without spending time and money on nonsense they don’t. Oppression Studies requirements, I’m looking at you.
The quarter million dollar academic vacation model is economically unsustainable and poisonous to our culture. The world of Animal House was a lot more fun when it didn’t mean preemptive bankruptcy for its graduates and the fostering of a tyrannical training ground for future libfascists. It’s time to get all Bluto on the obsolete boil that is academia; time to give it a squeeze.
Good writing.There is so much bloat in education.They create classes just to get federal money. A total racket.
Good writing.There is so much bloat in education.They create classes just to get federal money. A total racket.
At some point, traditional educational institutions will lobby government to regulate these new competitors. These new companies will be banned if they do not accept certain amount of liberals for instruction and administration. Or they want to mandate all citizens to undergo certain amount of education at institutions designated by liberal educational elites, or business will not be allowed to hire them.
Yes, good writing, nothing I haven’t read before though, and I wonder if the author’s young went to college. Or did he put his money (and his progeny) where his mouth is?
Two comments here:
One, is that not every major is conducive to online learning. For example, I’m a scientist. While the classroom portion of my studies could have been done online, the laboratory portion requires specialized equipment and supplies. Activities like dissecting fetal pigs or labeling compounds with radioactive tags for analysis just do not lend themselves to the home learning model. On the plus side, however, science is less affected by liberal rot than other majors. This is because science tends to draw rational, thinking people. It is not an environment conducive to liberal snowflakism.
Two, whatever happened to the old tradition of working one’s way through college? Maybe if more students had to learn to balance class and work while managing a budget, that liberal belief that money is free for the asking (and that if anyone says no, they are greedy and selfish) would go away. Nowadays, these kids borrow, borrow, borrow to pay their way through college—they do not have the experience of working, and so do not grasp the very fundamental concept that money is produced through work. Much of the liberal narrative survives only because too many young people do not understand that concept. If they were to understand that money is only produced through work, and that it is fundamentally unfair to use the government to steal from workers to give “free” money to those who don’t work, they and society would be far better off.
The reason I never go to TownHall website.
the scroll bar disappears and one has to move the cursor to get it back and scroll.
I don’t know why websites do that.
It annoys the reader.
I use a script blocker and an ad blocker. Townhall does not let me even enter the website even if I allow townhall.com. If they are going to be like that then I have no business going there. It also proves they are all about ad revenue and nothing else.
This article is correct though if I understand it to mean colleges have become indoctrination centers for the radicalization of leftists much the same way a Muslim goes from being a peaceful law abiding person to being a confirmed terrorist, killer, and criminal.
How sad and crazy is that!!? Colleges actively churning out radicalized criminal leftists on purpose...
This means their educations are worthless and those propagating this radicalization should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law but what kind of punishment fits the ruining of so many children and the future they could have had?
So this is about my Ghostary.
I think that ending all federal funding, subsidies and financing of higher ed is a time that has come.
Stop funding the enemy.
Thank you, Kaslin.
After spending 30 years in academia and the work force as a scientist, etc. I think now we haven’t thought about what “learning” means enough. As my students were less and less well prepared to handle Freshman topics in science due to an almost nonexistent English as a subject/tool-to-communicate and zero capacity to do deductive thinking. I found two ideas to be true.
1. Learning and understanding the specifics of a science or a trade is highly dependent on understanding and using the general ideas of “learning” and how that is accomplished.
2. I had to actually teach many of my students how to read for understanding and to remember. For example, they didn’t understand the point of writing a book with chapters and subheadings. And, most importantly they did not have a clue about deductive reasoning. They did not understand the difference between subjective and objective information.
We have to begin all over again. All over again and teach basics before going forward. And those that don’t want to or can’t learn must be taughts vocational skills.
Don’t let them escape their coming responsibilities as adults.
Let them fend for themselves, remove all federal funding. If they want federal funding let them come before a federal education commission and present there need for this funding. If it fits America’s narrative it gets granted and is carefully monitored, or let the liberal progressive parents of snowflakes support them, sink or swim.
Academia ,,,, Makes me think of Jessie Waters (of FOX cable news) on just about any college campus asking questions about our government . Very few college students can answer simple questions regarding historical facts or questions about current affairs . For instance ,,, who discovered America ? ,,, or what are the three branches of our government ? ,, and on and on . Very few were able to answer many , many simple such as these . How could you graduate from High school with out knowing these type of answers . I’ll tell you ,,, most k thru 12 students are not taught these things but rather they get large doses of anti-American propaganda and lots of liberal indoctrination . Academia is a joke just like some of the strange degrees these students are awarded with no jobs available to match them to . When Jessie asks these questions you see that dumb founded look along with their laughter . To me it’s not so funny .
It’s Jessie Watters with 2 ts, and yes he did. And these people vote. But I believe the reason they don’t know, because they are not taught it in high school or college.
Lamp Post Decor? Last I looked, rope was still pretty cheap. I'll bring my own. Oh, I was about to forget, after liberal applications of 'Lucille'.
That is because the authors of these pieces, even on the conservative side, tend to be graduates of Political Science, English, or Law. They probably took at most one lab course to fulfill a general education requirement. In their mind, of course you can get any degree online. Personally I don’t want a surgeon or an engineer with an online degree.
“Right now, college is less about learning than about creating a cultural signifier – someone who went to college is ‘one of us.’ “
This Schlichter column is one of the most succinct takedowns of our corrupt higher education that I have ever read. If I was still editing, I would set the above sentence, in italics, as a “pull quote” from the main story.
Good as the rest of the column is, this one sentence captures the tribalism that underlies most of our political division today. Leftists have some idea what they’re against, no idea what they’re for, but above all things, they must cling with a death grip to their identity as Leftists.
Call it tribalism, call it a cult, rationality has nothing to do with today’s political Left. The Left is approaching the mentality of primitive peoples, with large helpings of taboo and superstition.
Our education system became just what the adherents of The Frankfurt School (of social Marxism) wanted. They also infiltrated unions, Democrat party, media, and our churches.
This was planned and implemented and it succeeded, all while the ‘greatest generation’ chilled out after WWII, lulled by peace, beer, TV and sports.
I see you get my point ,,, how else would they not know these things ???
Exactly
A sort of takedown, but not concise, succinct, or motivating. It is boring. It's the kind of writing one would expect from a high-school student, many years ago.
What is both pointed and condemning is of the type of account presented by Robert H. Bork, "Slouching Towards Gomorrah," published in 1996, twenty years ago. An except from the chapter "The Decline of Intellect" is as follows:
Anyone who reads newspapers and magazines is surely aware of the politically correct terror that has overtaken many of our institutions of higher learning, and is probably aware of the preposterous courses being offered in matters such as comic books and of the inflation of grades. But what the press reports is usually anecdotal. The National Association of Scholars (NAS), by contrast, has conducted a systemstic study of what has happened to university educations over a period of almost eighty years in fifty highly selective institutions . . . The findings are devastating . . .
What has gone wrong appears to flow from a poisonous combination of radical egalitarianism and radical individualism. Egalitarianism means that faculties have lost the self-confidence to tell students what it is that they ought to learn. Radical individualism causes students to resist dictation by college authorities and faculty, to prefer following their own interest to what the institution wants taught, These two forces press higher education in the same direction . . . To the degree that higher educational institutions have such priorities and tend to agree with one another, they help maintain a common culture.
Yet the number of required courses has undergone a rapid decline in recent years . . . Hence the startling decline in required* courses . . . The loss of general education requirements is an educational disaster, producing students who have information about narrow corners of subjects but no conception of the larger context that alone can give the niches meaning . . . That is true across the board . . . It will be a few years yet before America discovers what the decline of general knowledge means for our well-being." (* = my emphasis)
FRiends, we are there, and that is why we have the kind of elected representatives and Chief Magistrates (Presidents and Justices an Senators) that we have. There is no agreement between these graduates of different, post-Beatles schools; no consistency being demanded by the voting public; and no clear standards of morality and intellect that must be met.
Out of this, we have no longer a Ronald Regan or Antonin Scalia or Jesse Helms--of the old schooling--that you can rely on to uphold the Constitution. Instead, we have an Obama or Sotomayor or John Edwards whose fluidity of values is quite troubling. May Trump or Gorsuch or newly-elected legislators find a solid platform that wipes away the anti-Christian New Age philosophy of tolerance that has permeated and ruined our institutions and our culture.
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