Posted on 03/04/2012 12:57:26 PM PST by reaganaut1
With a mere 3 percent of Texas Southern University students graduating within four years — and less than a quarter earning their degree in a decade — the school’s president, John Rudley, knows that people are asking “What’s wrong with this institution?” and “What are they going to do about it?”
...
Primarily a commuter campus, T.S.U. is a historically black college in the urban Third Ward in Houston, and it receives more state financing per student than the University of Texas at Austin.
Would-be students “should be looking at the community college and not be lured into going to a four-year institution that’s not going to be able to graduate them,” said Bill Hammond, the president of the Texas Association of Business, which has been pushing the Legislature to address the issue of college completions.
“It’s unfair to the kids when they have little or no probability of graduating,” he added. (The Texas Association of Business is a corporate sponsor of The Texas Tribune.)
But Glenn Lewis, the chairman of T.S.U.’s board of regents, said that the university’s low numbers, which are among the nation’s worst, reflect a school willing to take chances on a high volume of students who are inadequately prepared — culturally, academically and economically — for college.
...
T.S.U. had been one of the state’s last open-enrollment public universities. Now prospective students must have at least a 2.5 grade point average and either a combined reading and math score of 820 on the SAT or a 17 on the ACT.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
This is Welfare State U.
I have some experience with TSU.
For many years TSU has had a very good music performance program, some of which is classical. Outside of that area, the school is generally providing degrees of very little real academic value - if a degree is obtained at all.
I suspect that many of the students find that the aid packages at TSU are superior to welfare, so they pretend to be students for as long as they can.
It was founded as a way to have a “separate but equal” law school in Texas so the University of Texas Law School would not have to accept black students.
I knew a girl with child who went to college for 10 years like this. And drew welfare, rent support, and all manner of financial support. She finally graduated and last I heard was working as a clerk at a gas station convience store.
For later reading.
1. Half of those kids shouldn't be in college, it's simply a right of passage in a society where this is a symbol (the degree). MOST kids going to college are actually disinterested, nor have the aptitude to actually survive in a rigorous academic environment since they never learned what is necessary to survive. That is why so many kids take 4 1/2 or 5 years for a 4 year degree. They have to learn the basics that should have been taught in high school.
2. Most colleges and universities, especially the community ones have degenerated into vocational education programs. Partially this is caused by high schools canning the vocational educational programs because there is this notion that inside of everyone is a rocket scientist. So those that want to go to the trades all go to some sort of college now as well.
3. The social norms and standards, culture so to speak has decayed to the point where people have zero integrity, loyalty, national identity, self discipline or discretion. Most colleges are unable to deal with the issues they really face (heathens and savages) and the “resource office” (police) have become the tool to intervene where a threat to life, limb or eyesight is posed. However, in reality the problem is much larger and a consequence of a decay of religion and the destruction of the family in America, those places where kids are socialized and morals are taught.
The idea that an “F” can be a teaching point is lost. Today we're all winners and don't keep score.
Outcome: All that happens may that be in middle or high school, community colleges or universities, is that we drop the standards by redefining things in order to make them succeed. It's the norm and what we have been doing for years. You don't want to be mean and tell someone that they failed, do you?
Your comment could be interpreted to say UT law school is racist. It isn’t. They will accept anyone of any race who meets their academic standards.
/not a UT grad, but respect them...
/not a UT grad, but respect them...
After WWII there was a lawsuit Sweatt v. Painter filed against the University of Texas law school, because it wouldn't admit black students, and there was no law school in the state of Texas that admitted black students. There was a Texas constitutional provision that prohibited integrated education. The state of Texas used legal maneuvers to delay the lawsuit long enough to create a new law school for black students at what is now Texas Southern University.
Ultimately in 1950 the US Supreme Court ruled that the new law school wasn't equal. The University of Texas law school was much more prestigious; it had a larger faculty, and it had a larger law library.
Um, that was then, this is now. But I get your point about the history...
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