When has Rice ever given any indication that she wants to run for office?

Well, he certainly seems to be investing lots into the "youth vote" lately. Either he thinks he's discovered a plan to break their normally very broad electoral apathy, or he's hoping for a miracle.

Hence the problem...to which technology is no panacea. Ditto for the myriad of other problems in higher ed. My point is that there's still quite a bit of good in higher ed, and reasons why the basic format has proven so enduring. Even though technology has and will bring new opportunities, we shouldn't lose sight of what's valuable just because some parts have gone awry.

I understand this, and I'm not disagreeing that the higher education system in the US needs quite a bit of reform. However, trying to suggest a total overhaul of the higher education system, possible epic explosion or not, is going to be difficult so long as you have millions of people in this country who seem perfectly content to keep enabling it as is.

Yes, but I don't quite get your point here. Because leftists have infiltrated universities, we should deem everything about the structure of higher education as faulty and try to completely remake the system? Wouldn't it make more sense to put an emphasis on encouraging more conservatives to work their way into academia to reform it from within? That's what the left did...

I fully agree that there are much bigger core issues. Largely, the convoluted view amongst the general population about the meaning and necessity of higher education, of which college sports is simply a microcosm.

Not really. The left, particularly since the 1960s,  has long tried to usurp and overthrow the traditional university classroom structure. It's just one of the things that survived their efforts, although not wholly intact.

We can adopt new techonology, sure, but let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Going completely digital won't solve the litany of problems with higher education in this country, and will in fact exacerbate many of them (trust me, as lazy and ignorant as many students can be  in the traditional university setting these days, it gets even worse when they feel like their 'classroom' is nothing more than an internet message board).

What's needed are for the consumers (students and their paying parents) to recognize the problems and demand repair from within. This unwillingness of most to recognize that anything is wrong is the major problem. Until that happens, don't expect anything to change.

I've taught university classes both in person and online. I absolutely love doing the former and very much despised doing the latter. I understand the organizational benefits for students doing classes online, but in terms of quality of education, they get a short shrift. There's no accounting for what's lost in losing direct human communication when substituted by digital formats. Not to mention that the online format encourages students to produce writing akin to something you'd see in the ESPN comments section.

Our colleges and universities need ample reform, but the basic lecture/seminar structure is not one of them. Why would anyone calling themselves a conservative want to eliminate a format that's proven effective for several millennia?

I agree fully. In this respect, many college students are not any better than your average student athlete. However, there's one big difference. Most of those students who probably shouldn't be wasting their time in college are wasting it on their own time and their own (or their parents) money. Why should others get to do the same at no cost, simply because they play a sport? Particularly when there are plenty ofstudents who are competent academically and also paying out of pocket.

I have nothing against the sport, and definitely appreciate the value of athletics to many of its participants. However, the image of the scholar-athlete is a complete facade in most cases. In my experience as a university instructor, student-athletes who are actually good students are the exception rather than the rule. I've discovered that this hold true for just about all sports, both men and women's.

I'm all for allowing college sports to become semi-pro. Let the student athletes who care and meet rigorous academic standards stay on scholarship and let the others have a paycheck. Scholarships should go to desiring scholars, not people killing time while they develop their athletic trade.

Although, to be fair, the movie is in many ways mocking this standard, and ends with the characters realizing by the end that there's more importance to the occasion than simply losing ones virginity for the sake of the cultural pressure. Which is about as considered a view as you'll probably ever get from a late 1990s  teen comedy.

Well, the problems with "norms" is that they hardly ever hold up to close scrutiny. This is even the case in the propagated images of the 1950s family that people cling to when discussing this topic. Everyone loves to to cherry pick Leave it to Beaver, but the most popular show in the 1950s was I Love Lucy. Although Lucy appealed to some images of traditional gender roles, it also challenged many images of the stereotypical family, most prominently in the fact that Lucy, the independently minded housewife played by Lucille Ball, was herself the lead star of the show!

Ha, well, I sympathize. I've largely just tuned out at this point. This entire election cycle has proven extremely dispiriting for me. I can't help but read these 'prediction' posts and feel that I'm predicting between whether I'm going to end up disappointed or extremely disappointed. Election day can't come soon enough for me. I'm ready to just take the lumps of whomever we end up with and move on from there.

Huh?

I'll stick to flyover country.

I'm all for making collegiate sports semi-pro. Allow those athletes who wish to use the opportunity to receive a college degree to remain on a scholarship system. For those involved simply for the sake of improving their trade at their chosen sport, just pay them some equivalent standard and drop the facade about why they're at the university.

Peter, so your entire opposition to the New Deal up until this point was based around your assumption on a single program? Perhaps you do need to read up a bit more...

That said, SS was clearly presented by FDR as a retirement savings plan, and of course he didn't intend it to become a ponzi scheme (at least I hope not). The main purpose of the program was to provide a 'secure' savings system in the wake of the stock market crash and run on the banks (because nothing is as secure as the always benevolent, fiscally sound federal government...). This would have been ok, had the ND had simply established a program that gave people the opportunity. However, it instead created a program that was mandatory for all wage-earners, eliminating the right for individuals to choose how to invest their own money. That's why you should hate the program. The fact that the program became a giant ponzi scheme is only piling on. I'm also fairly skeptical of the notion that FDR didn't see it as a means of pursuing a transfer of wealth.

We barely wanted any of these guys for this cycle. Why would we want any of them for the next one?