Because all liberal arts programs these days exist for is job security for faculty and staff. The kids are there as cash cows and indoctrination fodder.
My son recently graduated with a BS degree in Forestry. Right after graduation he obtained his CDL, my gosh is he popular now with the timber companies!
Part of this article says that 45% of students say they don’t enjoy reading serious books and only read what they have to.
In my opinion, college is for people who enjoy reading serious books. If that’s not your thing, fine — be a plumber, electrician, machinist, whatever. You’ll almost certainly have a better life doing stuff in the real world rather than living in a cubicle.
This country needs job training programs. It does NOT need a lot of college students. Most people in college today should not be in college today. They don’t want to be there. They don’t want to learn anything. They think they know it all already.
College, as it is set up today, is more of a problem than it is a solution. We need a lot less higher education.
I am 53 and earning my BS in IT. I climbed up the IT ranks via a combination of experience and industry certifications. I finally reached the point were HR said that I had to have a degree before I could receive any further promotions.
So I am currently doing a full time plus job and attending college full time. I am only able to do this because I can use my extensive experience in the classroom. For example, I already have received one of the highest certifications in networking so the college network course was a no-brainer. In fact, once the instructor found out my certification, he asked me to explain many of the more complex details.
That, along with the fact that I am in a STEM major, is likely to distort my perception of college. However, looking at the other programs out there, it does seem that there has been a drop in the level of rigor required to pass any of the “studies” programs. I did my AA in General Studies to get that portion of the degree out of the way quickly. Graduated with a 4.0 and it was fairly easy. Not at all difficult like I was expecting.
Now that I am coming to the end of my program, I am thinking that maybe a Masters might not be as difficult as I was making it out to be.
The statistics in that article on class attendance were striking.
I was an awful student all the way from 1st grade to High School. I couldn’t learn. But I never skipped a single day of school or class, ever. I was too afraid of what my parents would do to me if I did.
When I went to college, I never skipped a class there either, but for a different reason. I did well in college and got good grades, but...I never felt smart enough to be able to skip even a single class. I always felt I was hanging on to good grades so marginally, that missing even a single class would drop me into mediocre-bad grade levels.
I was astonished to read those statistics, if accurate, in the article. Maybe kids now are so much smarter than I ever was, but...I couldn’t do that and even pass.
I think you have to go to one of the more selective ones to get anything out of it. The schools that will take anyone who is warm and breathing have to pass most of those students. If the class is crowded you also have to deal with grading. If you have an adjunct they will be making very little money and unless they stand a chance of getting a promotion they will have few prospects.
Professors with overcrowded classes and adjuncts generally will want to simplify grading as much as possible, so tests will have a limited number of “correct” answers and group projects (grade socialism) will abound.
If you have a nonselective college, group projects will be used to get students who have difficulties with the material across the finish line to a decent grade.
Some professors will have a sort of baseline level you have to get past and will include the real learning as an extra for those so motivated. Some professors will do exactly the same thing but will put the fear of God into you to make you push as hard as you can. You will despair, you will feel as though you will be grateful for a “C” and then you will find you have received an “A.”
Because they know it all already. Sophomore has it roots in greek sophos = wise and moros = fool/dull. So, these learned fools know just enough to be arguers and just enough to be dangerous.
Kinda the mid point of forming...storming...norming.
Arrogant oblivious assurance of self worth (esteem) shoveled throughout public schooling for decades keeps students from realizing what is important.
sad state of affairs and unlike any other “...these kids these days...” period. Here, we are in it for nothing less than the spirit of ‘76,’ the American experiment, INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY.....and these doltish sophomores have so little idea....
KYPD
If companies actually valued self-learning and apprenticeships, lots of serious people wouldn’t need to waste time in a university to do a lot of STEM jobs. These places force people to waste money and go into debt, and then they pay them peanuts.
Colleges were not designed for 99% of the majors they host, including the non-frivolous ones.
And the vast majority of STEM majors are there primarily for vocational training — that could be handled online and/or at community colleges.
“Dangerous People Are Teaching Your Kids” - Jordan Peterson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LquIQisaZFU&t=2s&list=FLLR0KZJRLxO4vVbc4-lAyjw&index=3
They’re the paying customers, and you have to be nice to the paying customers or they’ll go somewhere else. Teachers get paid based on their student feedback forms and the student feedback is completely correlated to how many A’s they give out. Once you can get an A without doing any work, the student’s problems are solved.
I love my college, especially after reading this article. The author talks about people who don’t have to read 40 pages in a semester? HA! I had a class last semester where you had to read 100 pages a week and another where you had to read 70. Most of my classes require a 500-word paper once or twice a week in addition to all of the tests, projects, and research papers.
Women and transgender training, who cares what they learned.
Professors are discouraged, if tenured, to not to flunk students. If not tenured, most do not flunk if they want to keep their job.
I spent the last three years teaching business law at the undergraduate and graduate levels. I was shocked to see the abysmal writing, expression and critical thinking levels of these students, even the ones in the Masters program. Literally less than 8th grade level. I graded them as they should be graded and several complained, but the highest compliments I got were from my former students who recommended that others take the class, “Because the judge makes you earn it.”
They are too busy with ‘diversity’, hiding in their safe spaces, and protesting how they hate republicans.
THAT’S ALL THEY NEED TO KNOW thank you very much.
Thomas Paine once said “to argue with a person without reason is like administering medicine to the dead”.
University administrators are all Liberal. In most cases UBER Liberal. As such, they can’t be reasoned with.
Trump needs to cut off their money. No more student loans.
This alone will drop the price of higher education and cause many of them to go out of BUSINESS .
Another Thomas Paine quote: ……….”what we obtain too cheaply we esteem to lightly”.
I WORKED when I went to college! So did my two kids who BOTH graduated from Texas A & M. These brats these days need to work!
A college professor, sometimes on dope, won’t assign a 20 page paper for students to write because the worthless bastard doesn’t want to read em and grade em!
Simple: Colleges are diploma mills, in it for the money. You don’t flunk your customers.
So, hit the books: knowledge gained. Hit the bottle: money and time lost forever.