For a while there I was thinking there were never any consequences for wicked and absurd behavior, as long as you’re an academic. But now comes news that it’s payback time for two of the colleges that have disgraced themselves the most–Evergreen State College, in Washington, and the University of Missouri (http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/09/01/colleges-struggle-over-defending-or-curbing-free-speech.html).
As a result of highly-publicized, ultra left-wing hooliganism, Evergreen’s freshman enrollment is way down, resulting in a $2.1 million shortfall in revenue. At Missouri State, freshman enrollment is down 35%, donations to the athletic department are down a whopping 72%, they’ve had to get rid of 400 jobs, and close seven dorms, renting them out for one-time-only purposes.
These two schools are hurting, big-time. It serves them right, and it would be very good indeed if the whole university system got it likewise. Time for Antifa U. to be shut down.
America’s “higher education” system is at least ten times bigger than it needs to be, wasting billions of dollars of our hard-earned money, and producing tens of thousands of sullen, ignorant, unemployable, radically immature, and thoroughly unreliable young people. It employs highly-paid idiots to be gender studies professors, diversity consultants, microaggression rapid response teams, and whatnot. It is swollen far, far beyond what is good for the country. It is a tumor that needs to be removed.
It’s really quite simple: There is no reason under the sun why absolutely everybody has to go to college. And it’s time we as a nation got that through our heads. Trust me: you don’t really need a degree in Superhero Studies to get ahead in life.
One thing the far Left doesn’t seem to understand is free will. They can become as radical as they want, but at some point, they will lose the support of almost everyone. They don’t seem to understand that their viewpoints are not universal truths.
They despise everyone who isn’t them, so public opinion is irrelevant as far as they’re concerned.
“It’s really quite simple: There is no reason under the sun why absolutely everybody has to go to college. And it’s time we as a nation got that through our heads.”
Amen, Lee! I’ve been saying that for years, including while I was a college professor. Pushing everyone into college not only dumbed down the programs, encouraged grade inflation to keep people in who shouldn’t have been there in the first place, and cheapened the degree to the point of meaninglessness — not only all of that, but it also diverted some very talented and bright youngsters away from what they’d be really good at to things they had no interest in or talent for. (And yes, English professor though I may be, I do end sentences with prepositions.)
And guess what? Once the undergraduate degree became meaningless, those who wanted to do real studies and prove themselves truly educated had to go for master’s degrees. And THEN guess what? Yes, the master’s degrees became cheapened … and we won’t go on to what was already happening to the Ph.D. by the time I retired.
Another sad consequence is that by now the true scholars never reach their potential because they get mired down in the mickey mouse that’s been put in place for those who just need to be pushed through to the degree. And this is now true even of graduate studies. Hence all the garbage courses: no one can handle real scholarship any more, either at the student level or the teaching level.
Another rant. Sorry again. I was once a serious scholar. This kind of thing breaks my heart.
I loved my honors seminar on Dante. It wasn’t going to put a single extra dime in my pocket–ditto Art History, which I also loved–but it kept my mind pumped for the whole time I was in it.
Scholarship is part of the collective memory of mankind, and to discard it would be folly. But all the same, it’s not for everybody.
And I love your rants, so keep ’em coming.
I once mentioned, here, that I had a year of Sanskrit in college. Just to give you an idea of what my college experience was like in the very early ’60s, I have to add that both we and our professor did the course for the sheer love of learning. Sanskrit wasn’t actually offered on our campus at the time. But we discovered that our Greek professor was studying advanced Sanskrit, and we made a deal with him, that if he would teach us Sanskrit — no credit, no fees — we would take him out to dinner once a month. And that’s what we did for a year: regular classes every week and homework like a real course, but he didn’t get paid for teaching the course (except for a monthly meal at an Indian restaurant) and we didn’t get any college credit for taking the course, with all its extra work piled on top of our already full schedules. And we loved it. But that was a long time ago.
Did you know that the Sanskrit alphabet has 84 letters, and the nouns have eight cases in singular, dual, and plural? It took us the whole first month just to master the alphabet and a few simple nouns and verbs.
Alas, the only sentences I can still remember are two curses and “The two elephants smell the perfume.” Do not scoff. Someday you may buy your wife a bottle of perfume for her birthday and then take her to the zoo, where (alas) the perfume bottle falls to the ground and breaks. As two elephants wander over to the fence and extend their trunks toward the broken bottle, you turn to your wife and say, “Gajau gandham jighratas.” Imagine how impressed everyone will be.
Sanskrit was a staple of a college education in the 19th century, wasn’t it?
In many cases, I think the term ‘higher’ education refers to the ingestion of mind-altering substances, rendering them ‘high’. And that’s in addition to the trash that’s being disseminated by their professors, confusing their all-too-delicate brains even further.
I don believe any polls put out by MSM. The left is controlled by the father of lies…I don’t believe they are as big, bad or powerful as they claim. I just am not bothered by them anymore and ignore them in my newsfeed. My time is too valueable to spend giving them some of it – I could use that same time to glorify God…why waste it on these pieces of junk?
I would rather they didn’t acquire the power to wreck our country and throw better people than themselves to the lions.
I don’t believe that any weapon formed against us can prosper.
“Antifa U.”, good one, Lee!
People don’t need anymore to go to college’s physical buildings, which are mostly just a monument to donors, because a degree program can be completed Online, more so all the time. Some kids are graduating from high school with BA’s. It’s an Information Revolution going on out there. Buckle your seat belt because it is going to be a hell/heaven of a ride.
Here ya’ go – start earlier!
https://fellowshipoftheminds.com/2017/09/02/california-catholic-school-removed-statue-of-jesus-mary-so-as-not-to-alienate-students/
One line from the article is: “Instead of teaching students about Catholic theology and doctrines, San Domenico provides students with instruction in world religions and philosophy because truth is relative and subjective:” and the rest is no better.
They aren’t Catholic anymore, then, are they? Now they worship the god of this world. Lots of luck with that, you poor deluded fools.