A COLLEGE EDUCATION...NOT WORTH THE BIG BUCKS -- The High Price of Campus Political Correctness!

ICONOCLAST ^ | By Wendy McElroy

[clintonbaiter]

Parents should read two new reports on education before sending children onto a campus in North America. What passes for education at many universities is not merely an intellectual embarrassment; it is also tremendously expensive. Fortunately, there is good news for the future: a spotlight is now shining on the problems, and students in the near future may receive the quality education for which their parents pay, both through tuition and taxes.

The first study, Death of the Liberal Arts? was released last month by the Independent Women's Forum. Melana Zyla Vickers examined the curricula of the top ten liberal arts colleges as ranked by the authoritative U.S. News and World Report. She concluded, "Even at the best...freshmen can't obtain a sound education in history, literature, and other fundamentals of civilization."

Some of the knowledge that freshmen will not find includes any course on Shakespeare at Bowdoin, any overview of American history at Amherst, and any overview of any literary period at Swarthmore. Meanwhile, freshmen at William College can explore such esoteric areas as an English course on "man's desire...to take, order, idealize and copy nature's bounty while humanizing, plundering and destroying the environment" -- even though there is no comprehensive course in history.

Only three colleges offer students "a course that could roughly be termed Western Civilization." Only three receive a "pass". That is, they provide a comprehensive introduction to English, History, and Political Science, which constitute the basics of a Liberal Arts education.

Yet the cost for a freshman to graduate from one of the "top ten" could run as high as $120,000.

A second report, Trends in College Pricing 2003 -- issued by College Board, a non-profit schools association -- states, "college tuition and fees increased an average of $579 at four-year public institutions, $1,114 at four-year private institutions, and $231 at two-year public institutions" in 2002.

Most students will pay less tuition than listed in catalogues but their parents, as taxpayers, will still be foot the bill. The report explains, "Almost 60 percent of undergraduates receive some form of financial aid to help them pay for college." In that regard, 2002 to 2003 saw a record amount of student financial aid -- $105 billion.

Although a significant amount went to student loans that are supposed to be repaid, "over $40 billion of [non-repayable] grant aid was distributed to college students by federal and state governments and by colleges and universities."

Using research from the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), Neal McCluskey of Cato Institute offers the ratio of tax to private funding. "More than half of public universities' revenues -- $79 billion -- were extracted directly from federal, state, and local taxpayers, while only 18.5 percent came from student fees and tuition."

For good reason, an increasing number of parents are questioning whether the money -- public or private -- is well used.....

[clintonbaiter]

Time to take back our universities. Let's use the Internet, and people pwower, to terminate tenure for radical professors just like we terminated 'The Reagans' mini-series on CBS.

[LiteKeeper]

read later

[AndyObermann]

Good point. Here at my campus, especially in the history department (my major), there is definitely a leftward slant. There is no way around it. From time to time I debate it and argue, but most times I just sit back and bite my lip...no sense in arguing with the senseless.

[ladylib]

A student can take "an English course on "man's desire...to take, order, idealize and copy nature's bounty while humanizing, plundering and destroying the environment"

Parents and students have to ask themselves if it is really worth putting themselves into thousands of dollars of debt for joke courses like this.

I suppose it is if you're willing to play the game for four more years and the degree is more important than the education.

[CatoRenasci]

The problem with reports such as this, which are true as far as they go, is twofold: 1) a college degree is a credential absolutely required in this society for further education and/or jobs (other than sales) above the menial level; and 2) one of the most important aspects of a college education is the the student body, in terms of mutual growth and learning and in terms of making future connections, whether in terms of a spouse, friends or long term social class.

Unless one comes from the highest reaches of inherited wealth (and possibly even then) it is impossible to achieve upper-middle class or higher social status in America without a degree from a "good" college or university.

[ladylib]

And then go after public schools on the primary and secondary level.

This is a little off topic, but today I watched a program hosted by Pat Summeral on education and business. One of the segments showed a K12 system in Kansas with a highly developed technical program. Computers are integrated into every aspect of the students' day. The children had a TV studio.

One of the things that this school does is have children work in groups for just about everything. One girl said that she couldn't reach her goals unless she worked as part of a team. The brainwashing that she is being clobbered with is that an individual can't succeed in setting and meeting individual goals, that you must be a member of a team.

She will be lost in life as far as goal-setting and achievement are concerned because she can only function as part of the collective.

Just awful. Awful and frightening.

[neverdem]

Here's a related link.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/946557/posts

[JoJo Gunn]

That web site absolutely sucks.

I hate frames!

[El Conservador]

Thank God I chose civil engineering as my major!!!

[RLK]

From time to time I debate it and argue, but most times I just sit back and bite my lip...no sense in arguing with the senseless.

--------------------

Not if you want to stay in school. You'll bet booted out or denied entrance to graduate school. As a grad student you will be denied a degree.

[philetus]

College education? WHAZZZA?

[Stopislamnow]

Nah, become a entreprenuer. Find a product or service that is desired, make or supply it, use common sense, a lil luck, and then you can wipe your a$$ with college brochures in your 10 million dollar home.

[k2fourever]

I disagree. Although its becoming more difficult to reach the upper echelon of society without a degree, it is not impossible. My grandfather and his brothers, after WWII began a construction company, worked their tails off, and are now very comfortable. Not to mention their company is still running strong, employing thousands of Americans. My father also made himself what he is today. After graduating from High School, worked and saved and invested his money, without support from his family. He is now a very sucessful real estate developer. My older brother failed out of a state college, decided to go to work, and is now making a very good amount of money, again, without the help of my parents. The American Dream is still alive and strong, but only if people aren't afraid to roll up their sleeves and do some work.

[wizardoz]

There's quite a bit Americans can do:

1). Send your kids to junior colleges for their associate's (thus removing a MAJOR source of revenue: tuition from freshmen and sophomores) and then transfer them, whenever possible, to conservative private colleges, usually Christian.

2). Steer your kids toward the hard sciences. Mathematics and Engineering are darn hard to turn into exercises in tree-hugging.

3). Tell your local representatives that higher education is fairly low on your budget priority list. Make it clear. When the budget ax falls on a university, the humanities are the first to go, because they don't pull in any money.

4). Make sure your kid is a spoiler in any BS class they have to take. Turn that child into a heat-seeking missile. Create a kid with guts who's willing to raise their hand and say things like "According the Wall Street Journal, there are enough empty buildings in NYC to house all the homeless, but they are boarded up because rent-control makes it impossible for the property owners to be able to afford the maintenance on a rented residence." Or "William Ayers may be a 'respected' Education professional now, but back in the 1960s, his girlfriend and their Weatherman buddies were killed by their own anti-personnel bomb that they were planning on using against civilians attending an Army dance at Fort Dix. The man is a terrorist and a criminal." One kid can completely destroy the stagnant atmosphere of relentless propaganda.

5). If you are a student, become part of student government and do your damndest to shoot down any implementation of new student fees to fund socialist medical coverage for frivolous crap like "free dermatology and weight control coverage" and "fine arts fees" that'll be used to bring Jello Biafra to your campus.

6). Read your local college paper and write in OFTEN with reasoned, point-by-point rebuttals of the drivel they generally publish.

[k2fourever]

The thing is, all the kids who attend these schools (well, the vast majority) are children of liberal parents who have had everything handed to them their whole lives. The are already lost to the dark side.

Speaking as a college sophomore, I see this far too well. I have some good (ultra-conservative) friends who are attending Liberal Arts colleges due to sports scholarships. At least twice a week I'll get an instant message asking me if it is against the law to beat commies. If a conservative opinion is even thought on campus, the student is ridiculed by not only other students, but professors as well.

Parents, look hard at schools with religious affiliations. At least here (here being BC in my case) we have some semblance of balance in the political sphere.

[wizardoz]

Oh, you betcha. I'm getting my teaching certificate right now, and the two things they constantly push are group-work and process-over-product. The values now are not individuality and accomplishment, they are collectivist and being busy (whether you accomplish anything or not.) It's like they are being trained to be union workers. Oh, right... they are!

[wizardoz]

Not if you want to stay in school. You'll bet booted out or denied entrance to graduate school. As a grad student you will be denied a degree.

In fairness, this has not been my experience. I have argued, argued, argued, till my professors are pale and shaking with rage. But I do the work and they know full good and well if they try to screw me they'll see me shortly after and it won't be pretty.

[DC native]

You are completey correct. I am enrolled in the education department of a public university on the east coast. This groupthink world view is being absolutely jammed down our throats. Only the group approach is given any serious consideration and we are required to assess the students according to the "process" rather than the product. It is communism and dumbing down at its finest. And guess what? My fellow Stepford Students are swallowing the Kool Aid like the mindless lemmings that they are.

[DC native]

I didn't see your post.....I am feeling your pain!

[ladylib]

We need more Hillsdale Academy type schools or schools that offer a classical education based on the trivium -- grammar, logic, and rhetoric (for those who want that type of education for their children) -- instead of the touchy-feely, everybody absorbed by the collective blob we have today.

http://www.accsedu.org/

Classical schools do not necessarily have to be religious. We have a classical charter school in my state, and I bet those kids aren't sitting in little groups parcing Latin grammar among themselves, fooling around, and drawing dangerously violent stick figures.