Posted on 04/04/2019 1:12:05 AM PDT by Kaslin
American college is terrible and, as a society, we should stop doing it – at least how it is being currently done. The greatest benefit of a system where most citizens are pushed to get college educations, whether they truly need and want one or not, would be a society of really smart, informed, and engaged citizens. Do you see that happening?
No, you do not.
Instead, we have a bunch of people who are dragged down by crushing debt after wasting years of their youth chasing a piece of paper that often has no relationship to these graduates’ futures. Compounding the failure is how these grads march off campus infatuated with ridiculous commie notions abhorrent to a free people. The college system is a disaster – an expensive disaster that picks our pockets as well as those of the suckers who matriculate – and we should stop tolerating it. Time for conservatives to reform academia the hard way, and by “reform” I mean, “Destroy it, sow the campuses with salt, and rebuild academia into something that isn’t useless.”
About 99% of current college grads will feel that “sow with salt” line zoom over their empty heads. Most of them probably think “Carthage” is a rapper, or maybe a lesser Kardashian.
The college admission scandal, where a herd of rich Democrat donors paid a ton of dough to get their half-wit progeny into Snooty U, was the perfect encapsulation of how big a rip-off college really is. Did you notice how the parents forked over cash to get Junior into school because Junior scored 112 on his SAT and then…Junior stayed in the elite school with no problem? You might think that if these schools were rigorous institutions of higher learning instead of ruling class credential rubber-stump machines, they might flunk out? But no. When the internet famous daughter of that (former) Full House / Hallmark-movie-about-a-widow-finding-love-with-a sexy-carpenter-at-Christmas starlet Lori Loughlin was busted, she was literally sailing around the Bahamas on a yacht owned by a USC trustee.
I guess she needed a break from her work carrying on Dr. Hawking’s particle physics research.
Of course, according to our betters – the same betters who pulled off this scam and all the myriad other scams that are wrecking our culture – the answer to this outrage is to eliminate standardize testing. That way there will be no objective criteria for college admission at all, and the elite can simply wield its influence, pull a few strings, and voilà – Kaden has his gender studies degree from Yale!
But your kid, like every other Normal kid, will have even less chance of being accepted at, say, Harvard, because they can’t test in anymore. Harvard is, of course, the best school in the world, according to Harvard and the people who went there, a fact about them that you will learn within 15 seconds of meeting one. And your kid will have even an even worse chance if he or she (though not xe – that’s a plus) is both Normal and Asian. Apparently the hard work and talent of Asian-American students give them an unfair advantage over people lucky at being born or who get on TV spouting approved liberal clichés.
It’s apparent that the current collegiate system serves several functions, all of them a symptom of a deeper problem with our society. We have seen how admission to one of the elite schools is a de facto degree, which in turn is a de facto ticket into the ruling class. Any actual education is purely coincidental. It is also clear that attendance at non-elite schools is today merely a signal to employers that the person might possesses the basic readin’, writin’ and ‘rithmatic skills we used to expect from a high school graduate. This is because high school’s purpose is not to create a baseline educated citizen anymore but, rather, to provide comfy sinecures for Democrat-voting unionized teachers and the swollen ranks of lazy, useless administrators. Again, education is an afterthought – public education’s real goal is to provide jobs for Democrat constituencies.
Academia is similar. It exists to mass produce ignorant future elitists and to provide jobs for liberal indoctrinators fueled by our tax money. The state and private schools both take our dough directly as well as through guaranteed student loans. Student loans are a giant scam, of course. Students get grifted into chaining an anchor around their necks in exchange for credentials most don’t even need. Colleges can raise tuition as high as they like because the government will just back the loans these suckers take out. It’s a great system, if you’re an academic. Not so much if you are a student or a taxpayer.
Of course, the schools love the “free college” movement. Nothing costs as much as “free.” The only thing better than having the millennial dummies willing to borrow 200 grand for a degree in the feminist literature of Mongolia pay for it is to make you and me pay for it.
How about no?
Now, the college scam has insinuated itself into our culture like a malignancy, and cutting it out will be traumatic, but we need to do it or it will destroy us. First, we need to demand that high school do its job and turn out students who can do the basic things citizens must do without taking remedial courses in college so they can master See Spot Run. Outlawing teachers’ unions sounds like a great start, as well as refusing federal aid for any district that has more than a 1:1 teacher to administrator ratio.
Second, we need a cultural rethink of the concept of college itself. A four-year degree – as opposed to a four-year party – is not for everyone. It’s not even for most people. You know who do well today, who aren’t MFA grads yet making our coffee for us? People with skills. Plumbers. Electricians. Welders. Trades are the future.
And a four-year degree should not always be a prerequisite for a professional degree either. I did four years of undergrad, where I majored in beer and girls with a minor in 80s post-punk alternative music, then three years of law school (albeit interrupted by the Army). That seven years could have been condensed to five, maybe four. Same with med school; docs learn as on the job as residents. You should not have to spend nearly a decade taking classes to do the vast majority of jobs. I deal with other lawyers for a living. Most are quarter-wits aspiring to be half-wits.
Third, we need to realize that our elite schools are not elite. Their status comes not from the quality of their education but the selectivity (at least, the selectivity they claim to the public) of their admissions. Guess what the median grade at Harvard is. Go on, guess. Our most rigorous school, right? It should be really hard, right? Lots of “C” and “B” grades because of said rigor, right?
It’s an “A-.” The median grade at Harvard is an “A-,” which is supposed to be “outstanding.” But a Harvard A- is not “outstanding.” It is the default. Think about it. Half the grades at Harvard are “A-” or above. Would you give our ruling class an “A-”?
And beside all this, the universities as bastions of leftism and censorship. That needs to end too. President Trump’s free speech executive order is just the first step in defeating academic fascism.
Academia is a scam, as well as a campus gulag archipelago of hellholes of leftist oppression, and we need to tear it down and start over.
They're like the rednecks, who have heard of Copenhagen but not Denmark.
“Which means EVERYBODY in the school knew what was going on. “
Thing about this is that the kid isn’t going to do something in life where that fake diploma will be useful. Businesses should change their hiring practices. I would go with certifications instead of degrees and bring in companies like Skillsoft to educate employees.
I’m willing to bet 99% of the Harvard faculty wouldn’t get your comment (I love it - pass me a spit cup, please).
My daughter finally decided to go to college at age 27, so her first semester was mostly remedial classes to get back in the groove.
Every other kid in her classes had just “graduated” high school, yet they couldn’t master basic math or English.
Most of them there were Obama’s kids who were just looking for a party on the taxpayer dime. They had no intention of actually getting an education or paying back the loans
1) The ACT and SAT already exist to test literacy and numeracy. If a student ( of **any** age) scores high enough they should be awarded a high school diploma from their local school district. Let these kids free!
2) All employers should ask for SAT or ACT scores and then make decisions based on mastery of literacy and numeracy. If getting a job depended on actually being literate and numerate then our youth would have the incentive to shoulder their par in studying and demand that teachers use effective methods.
Except for the professions and trades,**MOST** of the jobs are learned ON THE JOB!
3) The professions:
**Most** Most Most*** of the foundation material is routine and changes little from year to year. Much is available ( for free!) on the Internet and used textbooks ( cheap!) What is needed are certifiable exams to test this knowledge. But...( obviously!)...Laboratory and clinics rotation experience needs a brick and mortar setting. **None** of the rest does!
Yes! Yes! Yes! Two well accepted exams exist. They are the SAT and ACT.
(from my post #25)
2) All employers should ask for SAT or ACT scores and then make decisions based on mastery of literacy and numeracy. If getting a job depended on actually being literate and numerate then our youth would have the incentive to shoulder their par in studying and demand that teachers use effective methods.
Except for the professions and trades,**MOST** of the jobs are learned ON THE JOB!
Schoo Debt **Slave** is a hard life to live.
The main reason though is that academia is the #1 culprit in the SPREADING and the FUNDING of culturally destructive Leftism.
Reagan supposedly had plans to address this in his second term, which is why the Left pulled out all stops to paralyze him with Iran-Contra.
I was in Denmark in 1973. A Danish man told me that all children in Denmark at that time were required to take an exam at age 12. That exam would determine whether the child would take a college-bound educational route or a trade school route. They limited access to universities, in other words, based on that one test.
You can only set up a system like this in a homogeneous country, but remember it if you have any Bernie supporters in your family.
If we had private education and public education this would not be a big deal. Unfortunately our government wants socialist education. With a private college paying to get in is NO problem. With government funded education you should have to earn your education through testing. But we have neither. In our system we have a grey area. Both government and students pay for education. So the real question should be, “CAn you offset intelligence, hard work, and studying with increased money”? In a private system, yes. In a government system no. In a socialist system, good question. In other words capitalist system pay for what you want. Communist system Governments decree. Socialist which our advanced education system really is society has to make the rules. I don’t know have we established laws against enhancing opportunity through financial exchange? I’m unfamiliar with laws in this area.
Too many greedy people out there in "academia"
“and by “reform” I mean, “Destroy it, sow the campuses with salt, and rebuild academia into something that isn’t useless.”
We can start with the Harvard and Yale schools of Law and Business. Tomorrow we can move on to the Kennedy School of Government.
L
Academia no longer “educates”. It “indoctrinates”.
Public Schools no longer prepare the youth for adult life. They indoctrinate them into ignorant dependency.
well there’s terrible advice “...college for law ...”!
We have lawyers piled on top of lawyers piled on top of layers!
Way way too many of them graduate every year!
Lawyers with nothing real to do other then “save the world” are a huge part of the problem!
Nothing wrong with a STEM field or business as a field to study!
The real problem is 50& of the students shouldn’t be there, particularly right out of high school. 75% of the college/university administrators shouldn’t be there!
yes layers of lawyers...the last layer is actually lawyer!
Academia has been gone for a long time. What is left is the American version of the reeducation camps of China and the USSR.
Simple fix, just openly auction off the openings, instead of doing so in the closet.
A litle more complex, auction off say a quarter of the opeings, and allocate the other three quarters by whatever voodoo they use now.
Grades can be openly sold by auction too.
Agree with some of what you say, but it really depends on the school, the demographic it serves & the type of institution. In my career I worked a lot of cooperative projects in R/D with universities across the country. Never had a problem and never saw any of the instances that people (me too!) here rant about.
I retired to a university town in a very blue collar state.
Yes there are leftist loonies here but you have to go out of your way to find them. In fact I am told (And have met one example here!) that the political science department here is conservative. (The prof I met was a retired Navy officer Vietnam vet.) From what of the students I can see & have met the vast vast majority are here to get a degree and then get a job and that’s pretty much it. (Well scream & support the football & basket ball teams!) The biggest gripe I get from the students (all STEM in this case!) is way too many foreign STEM profs & foreign STEM grad students. (It was easily 50% foreign STEM grad students when I was here for my PhD. 30 years ago!). Probably 1% of the students & faculty create 90% of the visual & verbal political turmoil that people complain about.
“I’d rather live in a society of law without order then one of order without law’’.- Thomas Jefferson. Hey pal, you always post stuff to yourself?
Since I can’t edit a typo ...yes!
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