Posted on 09/27/2024 3:18:13 AM PDT by george76
Below is my column in the New York Post on a growing crisis in higher education as enrollments and trust falls. Despite these trends, administrators and faculty appear entirely oblivious and unrepentant. They continue to alienate many in the country who view schools as pursuing indoctrination rather than education.
Here is the slightly expanded column:
In the 1930s, Bertolt Brecht asked “What if they gave a war and nobody came?” As someone who has been a teacher for over 30 years, I find myself increasingly asking the same question as trust and enrollments fall in higher education.
Trust in higher education is plummeting to record lows. According to recent polling, there has been a record drop in trust in higher education since just 2015. Not surprisingly, given the growing viewpoint intolerance on our campuses, the largest drops are among Republicans and Independents.
There has been a precipitous decline in enrollments across the country as universities worry about covering their costs without raising already high tuition rates. From 2010 to 2021, enrollments fell from roughly 18.1 million students to about 15.4 million.
There are various contributors to the drop from falling birthrates to poor economic times. However, there is also an increasing view of higher education as an academic echo chamber for far left agendas. For many, there is little appeal in going to campuses where you are expected to self-censor and professors reject your values as part of their lesson plans.
That fear is magnified by surveys showing that many departments have purged their ranks of Republicans, conservatives, and libertarians.
In my new book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I discuss the intolerance in higher education and surveys showing that many departments no longer have a single Republican as faculties replicate their own views and values.
One survey (based on self-reporting) found that only nine percent of law professors identified as conservative.
Some anti-free speech advocates are actually citing higher education as a model for social media in showing how “unlikeable voices” have been eliminated.
Many of those “unlikeable” people are now going elsewhere as schools focus on degrees in activism and denouncing math, statistics, the classics, and even meritocracy as examples of white privilege.
Schools offering classic education are experiencing rising enrollments, but the growing crisis has not changed the bias in hiring and teaching. Despite repeated losses in courts, universities and colleges continue to deny free speech and diversity of thought.
The fact is that this academic echo chamber may be killing educational institutions, but the intolerance still works to the advantage of faculty who can control publications, speaking opportunities, and advancement with like-minded ideologues.
We have seen the same perverse incentive in the media where media outlets are seeing plummeting readers and revenue. Journalism schools and editors now maintain that reporters should reject objectivity and neutrality as touchstones of journalism.
It does not matter that this advocacy journalism is killing the profession. Reporters and editors continue to saw at the limb upon which they sit due to the same advantage for academics. For reporters, converting newsrooms into echo chambers gives them more security, advancement, and opportunities.
Recently, the new Washington Post publisher and CEO William Lewis was brought into the paper to right the ship. He told the staff “let’s not sugarcoat it…We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right. I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.”
The response from reporters was to call for owner Jeff Bezos to fire Lewis and others seeking to change the culture. The Post has been eliminating positions and just implemented another round of layoffs to address the budget shortfalls.
In the meantime, trust in the media is at record lows — paralleling the polling on higher eduction. The result is the rise of new media as people turn to blogs and other sources for their news.
The same phenomenon is occurring in academia. People are now evading campuses with online programs. For those of us who believe in brick and mortar educational institutions, we may be watching a death spiral for some universities and colleges as administrators and faculty treat their students as a captive audience for their ideological agendas.
In the meantime, alternative educational opportunities are seeing a rapid rise. Take the Catherine Project, a project started four years ago, to offer free discussions of classic works that is also free from ideological indoctrination. The project has reportedly doubled in size since 2022.
With online educational technology, universities and colleges no longer have a monopoly on education. People have choices and they are increasingly choosing alternatives. To paraphrase Lewis, “let’s not sugarcoat it…People are not [buying our] stuff.”
We are killing our institutions through an abundance of ideology and a paucity of courage. Recently, interim Columbia President Katrina Armstrong actually apologized to students who took over and trashed a building in pro-Palestinian protests.
During the protests, a Jewish Columbia professor was blocked by the school from going on campus because he might trigger anti-Semitic students. Yet, Armstrong apologized for the alleged abuse of police and the role of the university in allowing them to be harmed, adding “I know it wasn’t me, but I’m really sorry.… I saw it, and I’m really sorry.”
Like many conservatives and libertarians, Jewish students and families are now reportedly looking for alternatives to schools like Columbia.
What is clear is that many administrators and departments will continue to bar opposing views and maintain the academic echo chamber. Many have tenure and expect to ride out the decline of their institutions while enjoying the acclaim of being academic crusaders. Of course, it will become increasingly hard to be social warriors if you hold a war and nobody comes.
Our local college turned into a ‘University’ about 10 years back. Right away it went from conservative to libtardville. I couldn’t believe it when friends told me what was going on with the faculty.
The school admin changed from people that had good jobs and ran a good local school to money grabbers with two homes, a boat, rv, and amazing retirements.
Now the area is full of libtards and it is unbearable.
When I was at university we even had a class on how to draft inter-office memos. I guess times have changed with text and email etc. But the protocols shouldn’t have changed much.
Fwiw I sent a memo to a classmate asking her out to lunch. :-)
I got an A, because it was formatted correctly and it was professional in nature. And she went with me to lunch.
Simply the result of neo Marxist ideology. Destroying American institutions is a part of the plan.
Sweet. Thanks for sharing that heartwarming tale!
One day the only rainbows people see will be made from above.Liberals destroy everything in their orbit.
The great conservative, Jerry Falwell founded a university called Liberty Baptist.
He named it thus because he believed in constitutional liberty and was himself a true Baptist Reverend.
As soon as he died, within a year the “administrators” ordered a name change and removed the word Baptist. It also went from being a leading conservative teaching institution into a leftwing homosexual dump.
Rev Falwell is no doubt turning over in his grave considering what they did to the school.
“What happens if we hold college and nobody comes?”
Then we all become smarter, more intelligent 🧠.
These crapholes are closing left and right. Need about a thousand more to close and put these pigs who work there on the street with no useful skills.
They can take up welding our plumbing. There is a huge under supply of anyone who knows WTF they’re doing in the greater DCmetro area.
Wasn’t there a scandal involving Jerry Falwell, Jr., that discredited the administration of that university? I was not aware that Liberty had become an Appalachian version of Baylor.
Turley would have to get a real job.
It would be heavenly to starve that beast, especially the Ivy League scum, sitting there with billions of dollars in endowments and brainwashing American kids.
Maybe 25-50 years from now the campuses will be ghost campuses, or the buildings become assisted living quarters.
A majority of students in college now should be working, but taking trade school classes.
“Rev Falwell is no doubt turning over in his grave considering what they did to the school.”
Not to mention what his perv kid did to the school’s reputation, and his dad’s reputation. (Much like Charles Stanley and his disgusting LGBT-loving kid.)
BTTT
“Beginning with the 2025-26 academic year, the listed tuition and fees for new and returning students will be $22,000. Prior to the restructuring, the sticker price in 2025-26 would have been $59,359, an 8% increase from the current year’s listed cost.
“Students at the private liberal arts institution will be eligible for up to $10,000 in merit scholarships under the new model.”
https://www.highereddive.com/news/hartwick-college-to-slash-tuition-sticker-price-to-22000/727268/
“but taking trade school classes”
Most new houses are built by persons not born in the USA.
The invaders that have come to work have come to work in construction.
And, as with local landscapers, that will lead to them moving up to management and ownership.
Our “indigenous” population is indeed threatened.
The world needs ditch diggers, too.
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