Posted on 10/01/2014 10:42:29 PM PDT by poinq
When we reach the end of high school, we approach the next life, the university life, in the manner of children writing letters to Santa. Oh, we promise to be so very good. We open our hearts to the beloved institution. We get good grades. We do our best on standardized tests. We earnestly list our first, second, third choices. We tell them what we want to be when we grow up. We confide our wishes. We stare at the stock photos of smiling students, we visit the campus, and we find, always, that it is so very beautiful.
And when that fat acceptance letter comes—oh, it is the greatest moment of personal vindication most of us have experienced. Our hard work has paid off. We have been chosen.
Then several years pass, and one day we wake up to discover there is no Santa Claus. Somehow, we have been had. We are a hundred thousand dollars in debt, and there is no clear way to escape it. We have no prospects to speak of. And if those damned dreams of ours happened to have taken a particularly fantastic turn and urged us to get a PhD, then the learning really begins.
(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...
College should be in quotes. It wasn’t that long ago in the larger scheme of things that european and american schools of higher learning turned out great men and women that changed things forever. Who has heard of Emmy Noether?
I’ve been waiting for years for Congress to pull heads of university’s in front of hearings to explain why they are gouging the American people.
If big oil and big pharma are gouging then colleges are the masters because the formers have nothing on the latter when it comes to gouging.
Universities are obsolete. You can get all of your liberal arts education online and basically for free. The only thing you get from a university for your $100,000 is a certificate that says your were stupid enough to pay for an education you could have given yourself for free if you were self motivated.
There was a time, when they were not obsolete. Prior to the 1945 era and the influx of all the G I bill players....it was a small operation and limited participation.
You came to a university to learn how to analyze, debate, and ask questions. Look over the listings of classes in the 1890s...Latin was still required...debate was mandatory for two semesters...and you studied Greek philosophy.
Studying the humanities once allowed students to learn what it meant to be a sentient human being. A mature person who could think for himself. Some even had experiences with the sublime, or the arts.
The sciences give us the people who help us heal, travel, communicate. College educated Nimrods have assisted many of us in doing the things we often take for granted.
And for some, of course, college was a waste, a “four year loaf on the old man’s dough.”
I get the feeling that the author did not study science, technology, engineering, or mathematics.
College is ripping you off
Well Duh....
The liberal dream being realized...
Soon we’ll be hearing they’re too big to fail.
Seriously?
Big Government is the biggest gouger of them all ... the others are pikers by comparison.
These professors are a product of the system which produces people who are not employable anywhere BUT a campus.
Trust me I work at a university.
There are ‘professors’ here who could NOT be employed off this campus....for MANY reasons
You are correct Thomas Frank has a Ph.D. in history from the University of Chicago. He lived in Hyde Park and I believe
he is friends of Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. He was (is?) a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal. A few years ago he praised Ayers and Dohrn in the WSJ. After 25 years of reading the Journal cover to cover. I stopped and did not renew my subscription.
Today, college is nothing more than getting your ticket to join the “college club.” You can’t join the “club” unless you have a ticket.
The most important feature of the “ticket” is that you can “network” (kiss ass, party, socialize etc...) with other members of the club and help one another to stay employed regardless as to your productivity or value to the company.
In many aspects a college education is actually valuable to society (doctors, engineers etc...) but most degrees are absolutely useless.
The only way to ensure an individual’s future is to learn a trade that is actually needed by society, not a profession that solely exists upon government regulations or requirements.
We don’t need no fancy book kearnin’!
I sent my kids to state schools, and they commuted. Others, especially those in the Northeast that don’t have such easy options, can spend their retirement on their kids’ partying.
Exactly, this is how liberalism survives. The universities are the money engine for liberalism. Think of how the money flows via tuition, grants and all the foundations that are run by radicals that move tax free and government money around through the system.
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