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Posted on 06/11/2025 7:44:34 AM PDT by karpov
After enjoying many decades of high public support, higher education in the U.S. is in serious decline. Polls show that a sizeable percentage of the populace now doubts that college is worth the cost and that it contributes to the public good. Enrollments keep falling, and the luster that a college degree used to confer on graduates has become tarnished, especially since recent events indicate that, instead of helping them mature, college turns them into ideologically obsessed activists.
What has gone wrong?
In his latest book, Let Colleges Fail, economics professor Richard Vedder employs his insights to answer that question. The book’s subtitle, “The Power of Creative Destruction in Higher Education,” further elucidates his point of view. Consumers enjoy the results of markets where wide-open competition prevails, because the drive to succeed weeds out entities that fail to provide good value for the money. The problem in higher education, Vedder observes, is that competition is greatly hampered. Colleges can get into financial trouble just like failing businesses, “but, typically, third parties come to their rescue—governments allocate emergency funds and private donors respond to appeals for support,” he writes.
Moreover, the higher-education system is riddled with features that protect the status quo and retard innovation. Americans should therefore embrace changes that would allow much more competition than we now have.
One of the most glaring problems, Vedder argues, is the escalating cost of college attendance. For most of our history, nobody talked about the cost of college, because it simply was not a problem. In the past, college was not very expensive (even at prestigious schools), and its cost was actually decreasing as a percentage of average income. But that changed in the 1970s. People began to complain about rising tuition rates. What was the cause?
(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...
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When you import third world savages, most everyone else in the host country suffers.
You cannot educate dangerous and diseased cannibals whose primary existence is to conquer, kill and eat the native population.
Because the academic ranks became filled with people who spent the 1960s in college, working hard to keep their 2S draft deferments, and the next generation of academics who grew up studying under them.
You want to fix what’s wrong with higher education? Step 1: Fire anyone with a “studies” degree and make sure they never work in education again.
To complete a rigorous course of study leading to a bachelor’s degree, you should have an IQ of at least 110 and unusual tolerance for academic work.
There are way too many students in college, enrolling according to a cargo cult philosophy which says it’s the piece of paper they give you at the end that’s the value, not the work you do while you are there.
American higher education wo;uld work better if 75% of the “students” dropped out.
To complete a rigorous course of study leading to a bachelor’s degree, you should have an IQ of at least 110 and unusual tolerance for academic work.
There are way too many students in college, enrolling according to a cargo cult philosophy which says it’s the piece of paper they give you at the end that’s the value, not the work you do while you are there.
American higher education would work better if 75% of the “students” dropped out.
because big education is in the job to create followers not thinkers.
Once you create a follower, then they are yours to use at will.
Because the instructors are more interested in indoctrinating than teaching.
I think there are some decent points here. One thing overlooked in any recommendations these days though is many of these recommendations operate in a vacuum. The are made with the belief that colleges will change on their own with a bit of prodding and seem oblivious there is something like almost 2T of student loans outstanding.
I think the first thing to do is to get the government OUT of the student loan business NOW. Remove the money, the costs will follow.
As far as delinquent debt, give everyone the same plan, pay back what you owe without interest and penalties. (Its not going to be paid anyway). If they choose not to do that, begin garnishments or other collection methods.
“There are way too many students in college, enrolling according to a cargo cult philosophy which says it’s the piece of paper they give you at the end that’s the value, not the work you do while you are there.’
Yes, this is the answer, or at least a big part of it. The message from the culture is that everyone needs to go to College. Then lots of people end up in College that shouldn’t be there. Instead of allowing them to fail out, the College then adds more “support” offices and programs, which cost money and don’t accomplish much. The College then pressures the faculty not to fail students, because the College wants/needs the tuition revenue, so the curriculum gets watered down, grade inflation occurs, degrees become less valuable, etc. etc.
There are of course other problems at work in this mess as well, but you are right that this is a big one.
Higher Education in the United States of America is working as it was designed. Turn out a group of idiots who will follow the orders of their masters without questions. Higher Education was born when the Department of Education was elevated to Cabinet level by The People’s President, James (Jimmy) Earl Carter.
Not when young people leaving college are saddled with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt to their name which will take years, if not decades to get out from under.
That, and many of them have worthless degrees - or are forced to compete with H-1b visas for IT jobs.
The students are running the schools.
Easy...cranking out degrees no one wants.
Q: “What can you do with a Psy degree?”
A: “Anything you want...flipping burgers, spinning signs, streetwalking”
People who went to public school in past decades may remember it fondly, with teachers and staff who thought and cared.
It is not that today. It is a zombie institution, dead but still twitching. Walk in try to engage, look into dead eyes.
Education, very like health-care, is bloated by government regulation and spending, administrative bloat, and supported by DEBT.
Like any quasi-public organization thus organized, it will always trend leftist.
Foreign students are welcome because (mostly) they pay full tuition, so they support the entire structure.
President Trump must end the outrageous H-1B racket that has persisted for far too long.
I agree. College degrees aren’t for everyone. I’m a CPA so I had to do college. BUT…….My two sons were not college material not because of their brains but because of little interest but I saw where they’re skills were. Both great with their hands. One got a vocational skill- electricity. Doing well. Other son. Joined the Army. No college debt real world experience.
“To complete a rigorous course of study leading to a bachelor’s degree, you should have an IQ of at least 110”
Some years ago I was reading a study that said the average IQ of college students in the early 60’s was 110. I’m willing to bet that nowadays we’re lucky if if it even averages 100. Saying that everyone needs to go to college was a mistake. I think part of that was just to keep people out of the workforce for an additional 4 years so the unemployment figures wouldn’t look as bad.
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