Posted on 10/02/2026 6:09:34 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Too many students are graduating with a college degree ignorant of this country and how it works. To remedy this, I would add three courses that should be required for graduation. These courses would go a long way toward curing the misinformation now being presented to many modern college graduates. We can add these requirements to the Illinois state schools as a minimum and as an example to the rest of the education establishment.
First, require microeconomics. No student should receive a college degree without at least a basic understanding of both the laws of supply and demand and the utility theory of value. Many students graduate believing Marx’s labor theory of value, which was debunked going back to the 19th century.
Second, students should know the basis of our country’s founding. This should include readings of John Locke’s Two Treatises on Government, Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, and The Federalist Papers, as well as study of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. Adding Polybius’s chapter on the structure of the Roman Republic in the 2nd Century B.C. might provide additional insights into how the country’s government was originally structured. The University of Chicago used to require students to read Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, which would be another alternative.
Third, a class reviewing 20th-century socialism and the human tragedy it caused worldwide. The class would cover the USSR, where 20-40 million people died in the labor camps and famines, National Socialist Germany, which murdered 12 million people in Europe as well as starting a war which led to 50 million deaths, Mao’s Chinese Communist Party which killed 40-80 million people, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia which killed a quarter of the population of the country in just a four-year
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The marxist professors and administrators would try to sabotage this program.
Agree!
However shouldn’t this be done by high school?
Waiting until college is a bit late. What about those that don’t go to college? Leaving non-collegians off leaves them ripe fodder for unionista manipulation.
Florida implemented a new law that all schools must teach at least 45 minutes of instruction on the history of communism each year on Victims of Communism Day.
Included in microeconomics should be a thorough understanding of what money is. It is not “bills” that you hold in your hand.
Also, a good primer on wealth, what creates it, and how it is preserved.
Students who take an economic class in college should know that governments shouldn’t print money.
I agree.
I think at a minimum any student taking out a federal or private student loan to pay for their college education should be required to take an 18-hour seminar, including a final test, on how interest is calculated, and then examine their own loan as the final test.
They’ll have no excuse for pretending ignorance at how they don’t see a reduction in their loan principle for the first few years.
And how about the basic skills of reading comprehension, grammar and spelling? So many youngsters have little understanding of how to communicate in their own language.
These should also be taught in middle school and high school as well. Mandatory. MAGA.
Also mandatory should be courses in basic human biology and exercise, with an emphasis on brain health, longevity, and long-term performance. Health care costs and stupidity caused by basic neglect of ourselves are ruining our country. MAHA.
Should be 6th grade classes
This is all rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Until the number of high school graduates attending a four year college is reduced by at least 80% (preferably 90%) there is no hope for a meaningful improvement.
Baccalaureate education is suitable for 5-10% of the population. Forcing it on 60-75% of the teenaged population destroys education AND produces decidedly non-elite intellects who are repeatedly told they are entitled to top-tier jobs and incomes (1-5% level of both), which is obviously impossible.
The history of how elite overproduction and socialist revolution are intertwined is obvious.
It’s not the reading it’s the slanted interpretation. As long as the instructors come from inside the institutions club the discussion will always take the current tone.
Agreed prescription, but suggest a different dosage.
Concepts on the structure of our country, comparisons to other forms of governance, and resulting outcomes should be taught throughout the elementary through high school experience.
There’s ample content for all ages, numerous opportunities to tie content to holidays, current events, etc. This would not be difficult to design and implement. Red States should act now, and Parents should always do their part too.
As for FEDGov…. Linking federal funding to curriculum would have risk as America periodically goes full retard and elects a Dtard into office and educational content could vary. Again, parents and red States should lead the way.
Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman
No doubt.
very few will have the prerequisite skills - order of operations, exponents, operations with fractions, to name a few...
“One of the things that was taken out of the curriculum was civics. Civics was a class that used to be required before you could graduate from high school. You were taught what was in the U.S. Constitution. And after all the student rebellions in the ‘60s, civics was banished from the student curriculum and was replaced by something called social studies. Here we live in a country that has a fabulous constitution and all these guarantees, a contract between the citizens and the government - nobody knows what’s in it. It’s one of the best kept secrets. And so, if you don’t know what your rights are, how can you stand up for them? And furthermore, if you don’t know what is in that document, how can you care if someone is shredding it?”
=Frank Zappa
Then they have no business being in college.
Employers who ready to hire students graduating with a college degree should give them a test on all subjects they should know first.
Only way to weed out the bad ones.
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