Posted on 08/09/2010 9:29:41 AM PDT by Catphish
Many of the schools Mr. Brandon describes are education-free zones, where students' eternal obligations—do the assigned reading, participate in class, hand in assignments—no longer apply. The book's title refers to the fact that only 30% of students enrolled in liberal-arts colleges graduate in four years. Roughly 60% take at least six years to get their degrees. That may be fine with many schools, whose administrators see dollar signs in those extra semesters.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
High schools and colleges are social institutions. The majority of students do not care whether they get an education or not, particularly if they are required to give up their free time to actually study. That’s why foreigners and Asian-Americans populate the hard sciences, while the majority is concentrated in such dead-end majors as Journalism and Communications.
This doesn’t factor into account the BS degrees such as “Womyn’s studies”, “Class studies”, certain aspects of Sociology, “enviromental justice”, “Social Justice studies”, ect. These majors will lead either to grad school, or more likely to the barista job at a local coffee shop.
I knew/know many people who took that stuff at UW-Madison and at UW-Milwaukee. They graduated and found themselves doing dead-end jobs or campaigning for Obama.
hmmm...I got an AS, a BS, and a minor in the standard 4 years total. That was before there were AP classes at my high school so I had to do it the old fashioned way - test out of classes...too bad I couldn’t get any credits for my foreign languages...
Have fell through the floor ?
Shouldn't that be, have fallen ?
What subject do you teach?
Mathematics. Thanks for the message board grammar lesson, though.
LOL.... I was looking at that too, but I didn’t dare say anything!!
The past participle gets no respect these days, particularly the irregular ones.
These phrases sound funny since no one seems to use the irregular past participle correctly anymore:
“I have swum...”
“She had drunk...”
“I had swung...”
But I’m pretty sure the phrases above are correct.
The regular past participle, ending in -ed or -en seems more natural.
“he has fallen”...
I have read your post.
I agree.
On another message board for following my beloved Cowboys the question of favorite college professor came up. Of the ones I knew and took, the ones that came up the most were the ones known for being hard. Funny how time changes your view of those classes.
Of course there were quite a few votes for the professors who taught capstone classes and took the class out for beers during dead week too. But there is a place for both things.
Young American’s have a tough path ahead of them. There are many web-sites that you can contract a multitude of skills from around at a lower rate, tax-free. Often the quality and speed will be better.
I wish I could find John Goodman’s rant from Treme about Tulane cutting engineering programs and leaving the (identity) studies courses. He can do righteous anger pretty well, and it is suited for the topic.
“The book’s title refers to the fact that only 30% of students enrolled in liberal-arts colleges graduate in four years. Roughly 60% take at least six years to get their degrees. That may be fine with many schools, whose administrators see dollar signs in those extra semesters.”
This bs re taking 5-6 years+ to get a liberal arts degree has been going on for at least close to 3 decades.
27 years ago, in June, I went to our oldest son’s California University of choice for a 2 day parent teacher workshop.
Every workshop pushed the concept that due to the “hard study demands” at that time, it took 5-6 years+ for the average student to get a basic 120 hour BS degree.
Driving home after two days of this brainwashing, I looked over at my son who was grinning about 5-6 years+ at one of California’s Universities known for party time besides a few good degrees.
Three times while driving home I asked him how many fingers I was holding up as I held up my right hand. The answer was 4.
The fourth time that I held up the 4 fingers, he said, “Okay, you have four fingers up, what is the point?!”
I said that 4 was the # of years his scholarship/contract from his Mother and I ran out.
He started to argue, and I said if he couldn’t graduate in 4 years, he was too dumb to go the university, and should spend a few years at the local community college.
Then I added: “We will pay for all costs directly related to getting a degree. He would be working for his Mother and I as he got his degree. He would have a contract each semester that would be extended to the next semester if he made the honor roll and no grades below a C. In other words, we will pay you to go to college, if you don’t make the grades, you will be fired.”*
After getting his commitment to that, I said “We will not be funding your happy time, ie, beer, dating and whatever expenses. You will have to have $1,000 in your savings account before each year starts. That $1,000 or more he saved was his discretionary/party/whatever fund.
He complained to his Mother, who told him, that I was being too easy on him. He got a summer job and had well over $1,000 in his savings account. He graduated with honors with one C. It did take 5 years, but he ended up in a tough discipline that required 148 hours + 8 hours of left wing bs.
One year, he became a hermit in the last few months of school as he had spent all of his “discretionary” fund. That never happened again.
*We had several friends, relatives and just people we knew, who adopted/used the same program for their college kids. He has told his 11 year old daughter that she has the same program that he had when she goes to college. She agreed.
I really don’t have an issue with how long it takes students to get a degree. Some have to work or have demands from their families, etc. The problem which I think is correctly identified is the administrators’ attitudes. They want as much money as possible and they want high retention rates. There is simply too much subsidization of college education and the subjective value of a college education (no matter what the degree) is too high. Instead, I think more trade schools, apprenticeships and on-the job training right out of high school would do plenty of good for our society.
Oh well, pardon the error. I was a good English student as well, I swear!
My issue then and now was the non stop bs during those two days of brainwashing that it was impossible to get a basic 120 hour degree in 4 years or everyone, not just those trying to work their way through.
Of course the way some of the rats in charge of the universities scheduled required courses, they insured that it would take more than 4 years.
Then, when the kids finally get their degrees, most of them are worthless instant unemployment degrees of zero value to any potential employer. So the new adults with worthless degrees and their parents are out $100k+ for a degree that is worthless to an employer.
“Mr. Brandon estimates that only 10% of the students at party schools are interested in learning.”
That’s probably a generous estimate.
Yet when they graduate, they’ll expect all the benefits of a good education.
And the left will be there to assure them that they’re not succeeding due to capitalism. Better they should stay in the non-profit sector, where education, intelligence and results do not matter.
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