Posted on 05/30/2025 5:54:25 AM PDT by karpov
Over a mere two days recently (May 14-15), the major daily news outlets serving higher education, Inside Higher Ed and the Chronicle of Higher Education, reported the following:
Data collected by the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) reveals that state-government support of universities rose by a minuscule inflation-adjusted 0.8 percent in the last year, an actual decline after adjusting for enrollment or income growth;
Penn State University has announced plans to close seven campuses;
The U.S. House of Representatives appears poised to make sharp reductions in federally guaranteed student-loan support, for example capping support for graduate and professional students and forcing colleges to share in losses from students defaulting on their loans;
Congress seems poised to sharply increase current federal endowment taxes for applicable private schools, expanding the number of affected schools beyond 50;
A study reveals that inflation-adjusted compensation for faculty members fell over three percent over the decade 2013-2023, while rising by four percent for higher-education staff, further indicating the increased collegiate domination by bloated administrations and the downplaying of core academic functions;
Financially shaky Bastyr University in Washington said it wanted to sell its main campus in order to get funds to operate.
Higher education is paying a very high price for allowing leftish ideological predilections to dominate policy decisions on college campuses, putting the achievement of certain perceived social-justice goals ahead of a merit-based promotion of the core mission of discovery and the dissemination of knowledge and ideas—truth and beauty.
(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...
Ha Ha!
“With regard to teaching, increasingly, colleges are not challenging students or preparing them importantly for the “real world.” Data on student time use suggest that the average student today spends perhaps 25 hour on academics (class attendance, reading, writing papers, et cetera) each week, for perhaps 32 weeks a year—800 hours total—while parents are each typically working perhaps 1,800 hours annually to help fund the expensive education.“
Students and the parents who send their children off to get indoctrinated by Marxists don’t live in the real world. They live in a virtual world where eyeball to eyeball human contact and interaction is all but a thing of the past.
Our culture isn’t doomed. It’s irreparably obliterated.
It’s called a ‘course correction’, or ‘market correction’.
It’s normal, natural, and overly-long in arriving.
They brought it on themselves!
“An actual decline after controlling for...income growth”?!?
Bastyr U? That's a new one on me.
In other news, I'm thinking of selling my car so I can afford Uber.
And this is fantastic -->
"forcing colleges to share in losses from students defaulting on their loans."This, perhaps more than anything, will push schools to get kids into useful major areas of study, something that will earn the kids a decent living throughout their lives. This will chip away at the completely useless "Studies" programs.
It's too bad the federal government cannot outright deny loans for any student taking any "Studies" major.
Glad to see that taxing the endowments is still in the works. I infer it must be in the BBB
Apparently they specialize in holistic weirdness, and offer a Masters in acupuncture.
Guess they’ll have to scrap some of those commie degree programs.
Somehow folks have gotten the mistaken notion that these institutions have something to do with education - those folks need to realize they’re primarily sites for sponsoring minor league football and basketball teams, with a secondary function as employment programs for otherwise unemployable grievance-study majors.
Though some of them will dabble in actual education in the science and engineering departments.
I spent at least 50 hours a week on academics my last two years in college. I was taking 21 hours each semester, plus ROTC commitments. It was worth it, I graduated with a degree in Public Accounting.
Reform is going to be very, very difficult. At this point, the vast majority of the faculty are part of the Cult.
That explains a lot.
So many worthless degrees were handed out - while the students were burdened with massive student loan obligations.
Better to go to a trade school. I had to pay a plumber $250 for a .10 cent part he had in his truck that took minutes to install.
Women's studies. Gender equality. Black .. whatever.
If Penn State , et al, were to collapse and rebuild as an educational institution, it would be a big plus.
Agree!
Oh well.
Goes to show that welfare queens aren’t the only ones addicted to the federal feeding trough.
Pennsylvania had too many public universities for a state with its population. A lot of former teachers’ colleges became universities with names like Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania. I taught at one of them for a year (replacing someone on leave) and was not impressed by the quality of the students—there were other, better quality public universities in the state they could attend for the same cost. With the widespread use of online teaching, it probably makes sense to reduce the number of campuses.
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