Posted on 05/26/2014 11:07:26 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
WASHINGTON — The college presidents were appalled. Not only had President Obama called for a government rating system for their schools, but now one of his top education officials was actually suggesting it would be as easy as evaluating a kitchen appliance.
“It’s like rating a blender,” Jamienne Studley, a deputy under secretary at the Education Department, said to the college presidents after a meeting in the department’s Washington headquarters in November, according to several who were present. “This is not so hard to get your mind around.”
The rating system is in fact a radical new effort by the federal government to hold America’s 7,000 colleges and universities accountable by injecting the executive branch into the business of helping prospective students weigh collegiate pros and cons. For years that task has been dominated by private companies like Barron’s and U.S. News & World Report.
Mr. Obama and his aides say colleges and universities that receive a total of $150 billion each year in federal loans and grants must prove they are worth it. The problem is acute, they insist: At too many schools, tuition is going up, graduation rates are going down, and students are leaving with enormous debt and little hope of high-paying jobs.
The idea that the government would try to rate the schools has rattled the entire higher education system, from elite private institutions to large state universities to community colleges.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Can we rate presidential Administrations? It’d be easier than rating an automobile. This Administration is slightly behind a 70s Pinto.
Hey, why not. Obama can do for higher education what he has done for health care. What the system needs is clearly standardization and centralized control.
“Mr. Obama and his aides say colleges and universities that receive a total of $150 billion each year in federal loans and grants must prove they are worth it.”
The feds are nice enough to return the money we give them, but it comes with a few strings—the old `carrot and stick’: foreign lawbreakers, `diversity,’ AA, ‘phaggotry’ and other Hussein requirements.
OK, we’ll pass on the federal funding then, and stop paying-in ...
What?
So the more liberal/communist propaganda is taught in the school, the higher the rating...OK...I get it.
Serves em’ right. Leftists who think they are somehow immune to the heavy foot of big government will get squashed right along with everyone else. No institution can escape this bureaucratic oligarchy. Universities will have to pay their kickbacks, or be seized by their overlords.
.
This is Obama's staff. Faculty lounge misfits and congenital morons abound.
Never trust a woman? called Studley.
(1) and (3) aren’t bad measuring sticks. (2) is much less so. Taking more than four years to graduate might be worthwhile for a number of reasons including the student’s individual financial situation or the college program which actually expects the student to take a semester or more off to get exposed to the real world.
Abolish the Education Dept. - it’s worse than useless.
Hey academic pinheads, it’s government’s right and duty to judge and punish me, my company, possessions, wealth, political affiliation, religious beliefs and health care...but not y’all?
Government ratings aren’t what is rattling the schools - it is the threat of the inability to get federally backed student loans if they don’t toe the fed’s line.
I can see that.
You just need to find out which school makes the best margaritas.
Heh heh heh.
Even the academes are so stupid—they thought the snake would NEVER bite THEM...”We’re his FRIEND,” they thought...”We have indoctrinated an entire two generations or more in the socialist mindset, doing our best to chip away any parental influence or Christian upbringing...we have taught kids that morality is FLEXIBLE...even NON-EXISTENT, and that government is the answer to all problems. Why would he turn on US?”
They should rate the degrees. Women’s history degree vs Engineering. Urban study degree vs Biology. They should tell the students as an example, that the average student with a degree in Art History after graduating gets a job making X amount of dollars. The student can then make a choice. Is it worth it for me to get this degree, or should I choose another field.
I'm sure you're correct, but it's sadly ironic that so many university faculty are big fans of intrusive government oversight, for others...
They can’t refuse . . . many of them could not survive without the federal government transferring taxpayers’ hard earned money to their ivory towers.
“...it’s sadly ironic that so many university faculty are big fans of intrusive government oversight, for others...”
Since universities are generally in line with the federal government already, it begs the question - what is the real reason the (B)administration is putting this out there? I have my hunches.
But I can’t stop laughing - Barry O won’t disclose his college transcripts but wants colleges to be accountable through a ratings system.
It will be:
1) Socialist Doctrine Acclimation
2) Gender/Diversity Friendliness
3) Enviromental/Anthropogenic Global Warming Sensitivity
"But...but...but...there must be no winners and losers in an egalitarian society. No school should be rated higher than another. A rating system should not even be considered. The psychological damage to students in a lower-rated school would be incalculable. Ratings are elitist.
If a little league team is winning 15-0 after 5 innings, the game must be called. Same with colleges and universities. One school must not score higher academically than others. All must be equal in "ratings"...or don't rate at all. So just forget this nonsense.
We must not judge others, anyhow.
All professors must earn equal pay. Similarily, class grades for students must be abolished so no psyches are permanently damaged.
Dodgeball should not be permitted in campus gyms. Getting nailed in dodgeball is even worse than an F in Womyn's Studies or getting a possible low scholastic rating from the federal government. We don't need more losers in dodgeball or in anything. Either everyone is a loser or no one is.
College presidents, administrators, educators and students of the nation, arise! No capitalistic "rating" competition within or between institutes of higher learning! No "seeding" system like we are hick professional tennis players!
NO MORE GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE IN ACADEMIA AND INSIDE OUR IVIED WALLS....oh, wait a minute, oh my...oh, oh.......what am I saying......oh, oh......what to do, what to do.....the grants, the grants.....oh, oh...."
Leni
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