Posted on 12/28/2021 2:58:59 AM PST by Kaslin
Late last week I wrote a nice moderate blog post on education, that included a roster of all the brilliant minds that have held forth on education from Aristotle to Mr. “Common School” Horace Mann to our own beloved Bill Gates. The very next day Curtis Yarvin wrote a similarly moderate post on his Gray Mirror Substack about “Retiring the university.” Said he:
To a substantial extent, America is the university. A nation is its government; and America’s government is its university system. Sorry if this comes as news to you.
If we are going to have regime change, he writes, the university is the “old regime” and it’s got to go. Then Yarvin disappears into the weeds on the details of how to do this.
Now, in my moderate post on education I proposed a new Constitutional Amendment:
I propose that the US should pass a constitutional amendment forbidding the federal government to fund or legislate about universities.
That’s all very well, but whatabout the text of the Constitutional Amendment? How about this:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of education, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of education, or of the internet; or the right of the people peaceably to misinform, and to petition the Government for a redress of Government disinformation.
Ain’t I a Stinker? (©1950ish Bugs Bunny)
Now, given the vile injustice of the Deep State and universities generally and unionized teachers in particular, I think that my proposed Education Amendment is the most moderate thing in world history. I expect that you will agree with me.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
The university model is dead. Almost all information is available on the internet, often for free. So why do people pay ruinous tuition and build massive student debts? Tradition plus employers. Employers use universities for validation. Socialization is an important factor as well.
More than universities. Government schools are bad at all levels. I see a place for military academies and similar government training. But educating the vast majority of citizens should be in non-government schools and taxpayer funds should be banned.
I am not so sure the university model is dead or even gasping for air just yet. Many employers still require a degree and income stats demonstrate college grads make significantly more on average.
This may change over time but I don’t see it in the short term.
However, college is not for everyone and you better pick a worthwhile degree, medical related, engineering, finance all are in demand. Skilled trades are commanding decent wages and are in short supply making 2 year degrees in the trades a worthwhile path or if you can get in a union apprentice program, not easy, get paid while you learn.
One problem with the author’s proposal - it would be extended to the states via the 14th Amendment. Too much money, sports revenue, power tied up at the state and local levels. This proposal would never fly.
It would be far easier to return the the federal givernment to those limited powers enumerated in the Constitution. And that also will never happen.
The most common face of the federal givernment in majority of people’s lives is the US Post Office. I will not describe it any further other than to say if tax dollars weren’t funneled into it, USPO would be shuttered and many of its people on welfare because they couldn’t find jobs elsewhere. Its involvement in education, both direct and indirect, has been a failure except for expanding the demonkkkraps’ political machine.
Based on your description, the university model is pretty much dead. Its a leftist indoctrination center kept alive by federal funding and at some schools, huge sports revenues or endowments made by emotionally attached alumni. Liberal arts degrees, definitely employable in the 1960s are not worth the investment with a poor rate of return because it brings no advantage into the general market place. What you describe is using the university as a trade school of sorts in certain fields in order to recoup one’s investment (tuition) in a short period of time. That is practical advice.
The root word is “educe”, which means to “bring out”, which implies that the student speak his thoughts (in essays, seminar discussions, etc.) on history, literature, etc.
Rote memorization & drill were for multiplication tables, (and some arts - theater, music, etc.)
Now they’ve turned that bass-ackwards - one is supposed to “talk about” how 3x7 = 21, and robotically recite what one is told to think about history, literature, etc.
::
Because people with college 'educations' do all the hiring!
Never say never.
Name me one government/ruling system that has NOT been overthrown at some point in history.
This guy thinks that screens will teach? Screens change brain processing function but ....
Many years ago after dropping out at age 25 I was established in my own apartment and job in Boston. I went to the local high school and talked with a school counselor about taking night school courses.
He got up and closed his office door.
He said one had to be 21 before being allowed to attend night school.
The reason being was that if the students were permitted to go to night school the high schools would empty out so fast they would become deserts as young people found jobs and took the courses they needed at night
At age 15. Sorry error
We have 2 election cycles to correct it. Plant the seed in the primary season starting in March.
“All education is fundamentally religious.” ~Alex Newman
https://youtu.be/AVotpQnlLCI
Education is like a big fat juicy pimple. It needs to be squeezed from every side.
While you are correct about the money, sports, and power every effort helps.
Re: Universities as trade schools
Even in fields such as nursing, medicine, engineering, etc., most of the learning is rote and changes little from year to year. Most of it could be mastered by studying a used textbook from Amazon. Mastery of this knowledge could be tested at a small fee at a testing center.
Obviously, laboratory courses and clinical rotations require a brick and mortar setting but none of the rest does.
It shouldn’t cost a quarter of a million dollars to be a physician. $25,000 would cover it if the above would implemented.
It is my opinion, and/or experience, perhaps, but I see that a ‘University’ can/should teach three things:
How to search/find Information, not as easy as Google, these days.
How to think using Logic, applying reason to the subject.
How to communicate the results of your reasoning to others.
These are rarely done at universities in existence, and simply having “the information available on the internet” is little better as people get a little bit of a big puzzle and think they see the ‘whole thing’ of what is there to be considered. Both perverted universities and raw data w/out rational thought equally fail.
Our Republic, and any ‘democracy’ must have a population educated and empowered to find information, think and act on it. For the Google, Twitter, the media, etc, to restrict free speech is to destroy any part of the process. A reasonably well educated person should be able to look at the information today, and the ‘misinformation and fake news,’ and be able to see the fallacies and truth for what they are.
“Name me one government/ruling system that has NOT been overthrown...”
Nothing is forever, I’ll grant you that. However, my two statements on certain things never happening are not in the context of being the result of an overthrown givernment system. In other words, they won’t happen in the current system, and if said system were overthrown, the raison d’etra for said revolution would have nothing to do with restoring the Constitution to its original power limitations on the federal givernment. Of course I could be wrong, but I don’t forsee that happening in the next 50+ years.
-PJ
Wintertime - There’s a lot in your short answer. I’ll be brief but this is a great topic for a lot deeper dive / discussion. Just like the good old days on campus.
One point you are making - since a lot of basic knowledge today is available on-line in used fairly recent books on eBay or Amazon - there is less of reason to attend college. Provided there is a certification mechanism to show matery of the knowledge. That is why universities claim the necessity of their certification (”degrees”) across virtually all subjects. “One isn’t legit in the after college marketplace without their degree.”
I understand however, in still moving at the speed of light computer science, certifications outside any college (even not having a college education) is what is the rule. It has been decades since I met someone who has a 4 year or grad degree in computer science degree that works in IT. Then there are people who work in so many fields on the cutting edge, universities have to go out and sell themselves to companies, get grants etc to stay relevant - they are followers, not leaders in a lot of cutting edge technology and ideas.
Not sure you came up with the $25,000 cost for med school. But let’s assume it is true. There is the cost of med school and then there is the value of med school. Despite colleges living in la la land ... they do grasp certain real things about money from time to time. If the cost is $25,000, they know their grads will pull in $175,000 - $300,000 coming out and passing their boards. Like the mafia, they need a cut of the future action based on the prestige of the university. If you go to “top tier” schools, there is a value to be assigned to just having “Harvard” etc printed on the artificial sheepskin, with the lifetime network of being an “insider” that is not available to others.
I know of a Harvard law student. He had a law intern job every summer in a law firm somewhere in the USA. What I found out was Harvard (not the firm) was paying his summer law intern’s salary, moving expenses, etc. So when he got out of school he has a Harvard resume with 3 summers of intern experience. This increases the chances of his paying his student loan, but more importantly - making contributions to Harvard, and perhaps returning the favor someday of hiring a Harvard intern. Law firms loved it; it cost them nothing except having the decision-makers there be graduates of ... guess where ... Harvard!?!
Final note - if it weren’t for the billions of dollars that federal givernment provides annually (courtesy of the taxpayers and the lenders), the college system would collapse. The student loan forgiveness crap only benefits these leftist run institutions. Else, more and more people (voters) will figure out that colleges are not worth it - high debt for worthless degrees.
Beloved? A guy who supports the idea that there are too many of us and about seven billion peons need to be killed off to put Earth in balance for him and his elites, beloved?
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