Posted on 12/09/2015 5:01:41 AM PST by Kaslin
Most college students do not belong in college. I am not by myself in this assessment. Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson said, "It's time to drop the college-for-all crusade," adding that "the college-for-all crusade has outlived its usefulness." Richard Vedder, professor emeritus of economics at Ohio University, reports that "the U.S. Labor Department says the majority of new American jobs over the next decade do not need a college degree. We have a six-digit number of college-educated janitors in the U.S." Vedder adds that there are "one-third of a million waiters and waitresses with college degrees." More than one-third of currently working college graduates are in jobs that do not require a degree, such as flight attendants, taxi drivers and salesmen. College was not a wise use of these students', their parents' and taxpayer resources.
What goes on at many colleges adds to the argument that college for many is a waste of resources. Some Framingham State University students were upset by an image of a Confederate flag sticker on another student's laptop. They were offered counseling services by the university's chief diversity and inclusion officer.
Campus Reform reports that because of controversial newspaper op-eds, five Brown University students are claiming that freedom of speech does not confer the right to express opinions they find distasteful.
A Harvard University student organization representing women's interests now routinely advises students that they should not feel pressured to attend or participate in class sessions that focus on the law of sexual violence and that might therefore be traumatic. Such students will be useless to rape victims and don't belong in law school.
And some college professors are not fit for college, as suggested by the courses they teach. Here's a short list, and you decide: "Interrogating Gender: Centuries of Dramatic Cross-Dressing," Swarthmore College; "GaGa for Gaga: Sex, Gender, and Identity," University of Virginia; "Oh, Look, a Chicken!" Belmont University; "Getting Dressed," Princeton University; "Philosophy and Star Trek," Georgetown University; "What if Harry Potter Is Real?" Appalachian State University; and "God, Sex, Chocolate: Desire and the Spiritual Path," University of California, San Diego. The fact that such courses are part of the curricula also says something about administrators who allow such nonsense.
Then there is professorial "wisdom." Professor Mary Margaret Penrose, of the Texas A&M University School of Law, asked, during a panel discussion on gun control, "Why do we keep such an allegiance to a Constitution that was driven by 18th-century concerns?"
Perhaps the newest "intellectual" fad is white privilege. Portland State University professor Rachel Sanders' "White Privilege" course says "whiteness" must be dismantled if racial justice is ever to be achieved. Campus Reform reports on other whiteness issues (http://tinyurl.com/oof9wu3). Harvard's classes on critical race theory combine "progressive political struggles for racial justice with critiques of the conventional legal and scholarly norms which are themselves viewed as part of the illegitimate hierarchies that need to be changed."
Back to those college administrators. Dartmouth College's vice provost for student affairs, Inge-Lise Ameer, said, "There's a whole conservative world out there that's not being very nice." She did, however, issue "an unequivocal apology" for stoking tensions with such a disparaging comment about conservatives to Black Lives Matter protesters.
After a standoff with other Black Lives Matter protesters, Princeton University President Christopher L. Eisgruber acceded to demands that former Princeton President Woodrow Wilson's name be removed from the campus because of his behavior as U.S. president. President Wilson was a progressive and an avowed racist who racially segregated the civil service and delighted in showing D.W. Griffith's racist "The Birth of a Nation" to his White House guests. Professor Thomas DiLorenzo's recent column suggests that a worthier target for Black Lives Matter protesters would be Abraham Lincoln, who he says was "the most publicly outspoken racist and white supremacist of all American presidents" (http://tinyurl.com/jza7ntf).
The bottom line is that George Orwell was absolutely right when he said, "There are notions so foolish that only an intellectual will believe them."
It's time to end America's addiction to "college education for everyone."
Several years back I got into an argument with a couple die hard lefties about college. My position was (is) its not necessary as there are plenty of jobs where anyone can make a very good living, especially in technical areas.
I pressed them for a reason and finally said I bet it’s so they can be indoctrinated to leftism. They both smiled and admitted that’s right.
I think now going to college is part of the “American dream”, it’s something daddies have got to give their children whether they can afford it or not. For to not give it to them is like not buying them a new car for HS graduation being that it’s child abuse.
The American dream has been stretched to the point where it has been made so easy for kids they grow up totally worthless and wind up voting marxist.
I have said for at least 50 years, that not everyone should go to college. Why can’t these politicians not see it?
“The first in his family to go to college” Bill Clinton. That’s all it takes. The programs will continue. How about a $200k ‘offer’ to 1000 Valedictorians to NOT GO to college? There’s an organization that does just that.
college is not a panacea for prosperity or the good life. it is an industry that lies to its clientele to get them to continue enlisting (and paying) with promises of high wages when in fact few professions hire at the promised rates. if you buy into this meme, then you will have a rude awakening when you get your sheepskin and start trying to realize the false promises.
The Gov needs to stop all hand outs period. We are 19 trillion in debt. These kids in college do not even know U.S. history. These kids are mostly obese and have never had a job. Many need to learn trades.
Now we have to test our applicants on such things as written and verbal skills as we can't take it for granted that a college educated person will have them in order to present a professional image to our customers.
There are some degrees that are actually worthwhile, Science and technology type degrees mostly (engineering, hard sciences, medical etc).
All the rest are pretty much wasted. any thing that has “studies” in the title is useless. What kind of job is a black studies or homosexual studies graduate equipped for anyway?
It's a statement that need not be supported because it is a basic "the sky is blue" statement of truth.
85% of these kids in college should be picking our fruit and vegetables, instead we have an "unskilled labor crisis", an "illegal immigrant crisis", and next will be a student loan debt amnesty/bailout crisis.
By one simple act (enacting legislation that says that businesses are allowed to administer tests of aptitude and knowledge to current and prospective employees, and base hiring and promotion decisions on those tests, and that any "disparate impact" is not actionable), we could deliver a huge blow to the Left.
A. “College” is big business - very big business.
B. Those that cannot do, Teach
I’m of the opinion that if you are studying the sciences, medicine or engineering...college is necessary. Beyond that? About half the people ought to just quit...settle for a year or two of community college or find some apprentice deal with the plumbers or roofers.
About six years ago, I had to stop late one night in an airport to pick up a car...just me and the chief of the rental shop. She was early 20’s and we had a conversation. She was a recent college grad. I asked why she settled in with the car rental agency and she said it plainly....there just weren’t jobs in the region for her background. I didn’t say this to her....but a decade prior...this chief of a car rental shop would have been a fifty-year-old guy with a high school degree. We’ve basically come to the point where your education is worthless enough....that you can work in a regular high-school diploma job.
i work at a community college. i see this every day. get people to enroll, and keep coming. even if they’re here for 8-10 years. more than half are generic degrees that are worthless unless you plan to go on for a 4 year degree. its sad that people with educations firmly believe that what might have worked for them will work for anyone.
The proportions of engineering, science, and math graduates working in custodial or fast food positions is probably quite low. However, among the gender studies and other frivolous majors, I would guess the proportion is extremely high. I don't feel bad for those who knowingly choose to waste $100k to $280k on a degree in ____ Studies, but I do feel bad for those who are given so little guidance by their disengaged parents that they don't realize they will be unemployable when they graduate, except for jobs where the most common phrase is "would you like fries with that".
I can understand the challenges for many companies today. How does one discern the value of a degree from any number of directional-named, online degree programs that give credit for "life experience?"
And while your company may be different, many Fortune 500 companies require a four-year degree as the minimum criteria for employment.
And lower education
and welfare...
And sick people...
And tobacco growers...
And tea imports...
and farmers...
And on and on and on and .....
Because college grads do the admitting process!
| There are notions so foolish that only an intellectual will believe them. This is a great article. I love Walter Williams. Always a joy to read. And the hit on Swarthmore College is justified. My daughter recently graduated there and she learned the progressive agenda and her mind sadly needs re-programming. I have been critical of some recent articles on TownHall, but I don't want to go overboard. They still publish sold anti-GOPe conservatives like Walter Williams, Ann Coulter, and Pat Buchanan. So I tip my hat to them. Thanks for posting, Kaslin. |
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