Why College?
After a year of college, riddled with Keynesian economics, moral relativism, and revisionist history, the question "Why am I here?" is a logical one for any conservative.
Sure, there are the clear advantages to a college degree, from the job opportunities to the social environment (as well as getting to write for the College Feed!). But, in today's economy, a college degree is far from a guarantee for a job and even though I love the camaraderie at school, eight years of tuition is a really expensive tab for jello shots.
There is a lack of "higher" ideas in American higher education. The point of a liberal arts education is to train young adults for the responsibilities of being a free individual. This doesn't mean have a working knowledge of Milton or the ability to pick out constellations, but rather a grounding in the moral and objective truths which define the West.
Unfortunately, American academia, through loose requisites and an utter embrace (as Allan Bloom so conclusively displayed) of relativism, has turned higher education into a shopping mall, wherein students jump from class to class, worldview to worldview, truth to truth, ultimately reinforcing a surrounding narrative covertly founded in nihilism.
Many universities, though, possess the opportunities and resources where a true liberal arts education can be found. It's a difficult balance and expedition, but a possible and redeeming one if discovered. Nevertheless, this is a burdensome onus that befalls only students, punished for their adherence and commitment to higher values.
So, why college? I'm not entirely sure. At the end of the day, examining the academic culture around me, I think its most important role will be to push me to ask the right questions - even if the school doesn't choose to recognize the answers.
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Re: Why College?
Not to engage in too much collegiate partisanship here, but this is why I attend the University of Chicago, the only remaining elite research university committed to a classical liberal arts education. The fundamentals of the Core curriculum at Chicago have been somewhat watered down, I will admit, but my collegiate education began with two Core Great Books classes, my humanities sequence Human Being and Citizen partially designed by the late great Allan Bloom, and Classics of Social and Political Thought, put together by Nathan Tarcov, the director of the Leo Strauss Center.
The sad thing is Chicago used to not be the exception, but rather the rule for elite institutions of higher education; liberal arts and an appreciation for Western Civilization were prerequisites for any educated person.
Although UChicago is far from a conservative institution—a recent survey of the undergrads found that only 10% consider themselves conservative—it truly believes in a liberal arts education for its own sake. And I know many a liberal student whose mind was opened because of the Core; nothing makes you a conservative quite like reading Aquinas or Aristotle.
Dec '10
Re: Why College?
I asked myself the same question, and not having a sufficient answer for it, I left college after my first year to try and figure out why I was there to begin with. The harder question for me was why should I go back? It took a couple of years for me to answer.
Aside from my personal experience, I have to ask...is college really the best place for the majority of 18-22-year-olds to spend their time?
I know Denver Public Schools has done what it can to eliminate any thought from this process by herding students into universities and community colleges, and I would imagine it is not an anomaly.
So, why not the military, or apprenticeships, or simply working a job while deciding how you want to apply yourself before enrolling?
May '10
Re: Why College?
Harry Graver:
So, why college? I'm not entirely sure. At the end of the day, examining the academic culture around me, I think its most important role will be to push me to ask the right questions - even if the school doesn't choose to recognize the answers. ·
There are plenty of fields in which a college education is absolutely necessary. Happily these technical fields like engineering and the physical sciences are not easily distorted to accommodate the latest leftwing ideologies.
Nov '10
Re: Why College?
You might profitably read a short but excellent book on the subject by Charles Murray called Real Education. I have urged my grandson, who graduated from High School this spring, to take some courses on the Internet and to get into a craft apprentice program and learn to earl a living. My suggestion is welding, but any of the crafts will do. Construction is down right now, but it will come back.
Jul '10
Re: Why College?
You'd be surprised, Mark, the most virulent anti-Republican ranting I've heard in 4 years of college has been in my Botany class.
I'm one semester away from being done, and must conclude that modern college is an absolute waste. Parents have no idea how much they are being swindled. I have been working a job consistently since 11 years old. My dad pushed me in the direction of a physically laborious job when I was 18. Worked for a painting company (and still do) eventually making $22 an hour as a 19-year old upon promotion.
Then I went to college as a history major for a semester, concluding after one semester that I'd be better off spilling paint buckets again. The only saving grace that has kept me here for 4 years was that I contracted with the US Army as a cadet and will commission in the Infantry in May of '12.
Self-avowed Stalinist teachers, Humanities courses on how sexist Pericles was, etc. Fortunately, I'm a prolific reader on my own and avoid the assigned textbooks. Like one of my heroes, I've never let my schooling interfere with my education.
Jul '10
Re: Why College?
continued....
Forgot to mention...I am a History major by the way.
Any time an unsuspecting family friend has their high schooler ask me about college life, I must infuriate the parent by telling the kid to take a few years off from school, maybe travel (I wish I had done that), and that they MUST learn some sort of physical, marketable trade or craft. I've been a paper boy, dishwasher, baker, art gallery clerk, and professional house painter since I was a young boy. I would have suffered grievously had I only known formal education in my life.
I can honestly say I have learned almost nothing in 4 years from school. (with the exception of the officer course) Everything I know I have learned from a voracious appetite for books and general curiosity.
And I go to one of the less expensive schools in the country! I would certainly not pay the tuition of $9,000 for such nonsense if the Army did not pay. And to think there are parents (or even worse...kids who take out loans for this) who pay over $50k a year for information available at your local library!
Re: Why College?
Wait a minute, Harry. You're asking this question now? After hundreds of thousands of dollars have been committed to your.... well, I won't say "education," I'll say: college experience?
I'm sending this post to your parents.
So isn't the solution here that parents (and federal loan programs; and grants, scholarships, and everything else) should specifically exclude the study of anything other than the hard sciences and engineering? Why should hard-working, near-broke and exhausted parents -- not to mention taxpayers -- be asked to pay for something that's subjective and relative? Why spend $50,000 a year to go to a literature seminar, especially if the text is just going to deconstruct itself anyway?
May '10
Re: Why College?
But did it infect the botany, or was it just a tangential political rant?
If the former, maybe I should have restricted my comment to just engineering. Maybe it's because the results are judged by the laws of physics and then the competitive market, two unforgiving bosses.
Although you can see the distortion in this rule because of government subsidies for "green" energy.
Re: Why College?
I sympathize with your feeling out of place. The hope is that these great institutions will return to their original purposes of teaching the liberal arts and tranforming young people into responsible citizens. That will only happen if there is a demand for such instruction. Such demand will only come from the bottom up. The professoriate will not all of a sudden return to first principles. Therefore there is a great calling in being a conservative student on college campuses these days. I think part of that calling consists in worrying about the current state of the nation. But the one thing you can do that the rest of us can't do on the outside is keep reminding these professors what they are supposed to be doing--and using the founding documents and history of the universities to do so. What I mean is a new kind of Tea Party activism on the part of students on the right demanding that professors explain how the work they are doing is in line with the original purposes of those institutions. There are great things in those university archives that ought to appear in the campus papers regularly.
Dec '10
Re: Why College?
I think the liberal arts have outlived their usefulness in university education, at least in public universities. The Ivy's can indulge in the fiction that they are educating a leisure class in a some sort of broad-based education.
But the fact is, without a canon, the humanities are hardly more than Oprah's book club and the social sciences have no quality control.
What we can use is more 2-year degrees focused on training for specific skills. Breadth requirements are fine for high school but just acuses students to elect trivialities, wasting time and money.
Re: Why College?
I think that it's a tremendously important investment if the institution shows that certain things in fact are not subjective and relative. The truths of the physical world, learned in science/math/etc classes, are of minimal importance compared to the higher philosophical truths that academia is supposed to protect. Great literature, separated by its insight into human nature, can be a tool for this. But silly poems and modern "art" are definitely wastes.
Re: Why College?
Indeed. But let's remember, not all undergraduate education is a sham. The Great Books programs at Thomas Aquinas College and St. John's College are actually concerned with understanding the nature of man and the world, as opposed to the endless manufacture of hair-splitting doctoral theses—and they contain a great deal of math and science to boot. The University of Dallas declares: "Quite unabashedly, the curriculum at the University of Dallas is based on the supposition that truth and virtue exist and are the proper objects of search in an education." Unfortunately, Harry, it's Ivies like our dear school that set the tone of the higher ed world and shape people's general perception of what a "high-quality" education consists of. The core curriculum database of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (http://whatwilltheylearn.com/), even though it can be disheartening when you read about the elite colleges, is also a salutary reminder that some colleges still care about teaching their students.
Edited on August 31, 2011 at 2:42am