Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
American Colleges Are a Valuable Resource. But Not for America.
Conservatives love higher education. The whole point of conservatism is to attempt to give all American citizens equal opportunities. So affordable higher education is important. And Republicans like the economy to grow. And if you understand the value of engineers, doctors, computer programmers, and so on, a good way to get more of those is to subsidize their education. So subsidizing higher education makes sense, from a conservative point of view. It grows the economy while helping young people of modest backgrounds improve their lives. For a conservative, that’s a win-win.
Until you stop choosing the smartest and hardest working college applicants, and start selecting students based on other criteria, like skin color or 40-yard dash time. And then, of course, most of the students who aren’t capable of majoring in chemical engineering start majoring in Psychology or something. And things continue to deteriorate over the years, so now they have to invent new areas of study for this ever-growing influx of “students” who wouldn’t even have been in college a few decades ago. So pretty soon half the college is majoring in Petty Jealousy Studies (PJS).
And then the chemical engineering majors start to wonder why they’re studying 80 hours a week to try (and often fail) to keep a “B” average, while they lose out on all the academic awards to PJS majors with 4-points. So more and more STEM majors switch to various grievance studies departments, and understandably so. So now, a large majority of the college is engaged in activity which is far, far removed from the original goals of the university.
The Republicans who proudly tout their endorsement of public subsidies of higher education (“Investing in our children!”) are now starting to wonder what they’re getting for their tax dollars. Where are all the engineers and computer programmers? And what the heck is going on in the Department of Trans-Gender Canadian Bagpiper Studies? Why are we paying for all this again?
So Republicans are starting to view American higher education as a failure. Or at least, a very poorly utilized resource.
Democrats, as you might imagine, take a different view. Many leftists have traditionally viewed college more as an opportunity to “find themselves” rather than learn a trade. So the left has long held a somewhat less pragmatic view of higher education than conservatives. But over the years, this college thing has worked out better than any Democrat could have dreamed.
By taking millions of kids right out of high school, and having four of their most formative years to indoctrinate them into leftism, Democrats have stumbled on one of their most valuable resources. If Democrats move so far to the left that they start losing voters, it’s no problem – they just make more. Why develop policies to satisfy your constituents, when you can just create new constituents who have been trained to support your policies? Combine this will illegal immigration, a reliably leftist administrative state, and a leftist media, and the policies of Democrats can really be whatever they want. The views of the American voter thus become much less important.
Democrats no longer need to fear elections like they once did.
If the American system of higher education collapses (or, at least, is drastically transformed), that would be a major setback for the Democrat party.
As the safety-obsessed leftists who run universities decide to close their campuses for fear of COVID-19, but still bill students over $50,000 a year for a glorified Netflix subscription for video lectures, many students are deciding to drop out. And as that income stream dries up, many of these poorly run organizations will move from illusory solvency to financial crisis in a matter of months. Many schools will not survive this sudden drop in revenue.
Look for Democrats to do all they can to preserve their most valuable resource.
Republicans, who typically are eager to “invest in our children,” should stop and think for a moment before agreeing to increase educational subsidies in the upcoming college apocalypse.
College is not what we would like it to be, and it is not what it once was. Our higher education system was once a valuable resource for the United States. It is now a valuable resource for the Democrat party.
There will always be a market for engineers and programmers. Thus, there will always be a market for educating them.
Subsidizing Petty Jealousy Studies is unhelpful. You’re wasting the time of the students, and wasting tax dollars that could be better used.
American tax dollars should not be intentionally used to create voters for one of our political parties.
The upcoming collapse of American higher education will appear sudden, but it’s not. It’s been building for years. What’s about to happen to American colleges has really already happened.
We should just step back, and let it happen.
Published in General
We’ve all the Aggrieved Group Studies graduates we will ever need. As a matter of fact, if we have any, we have a surplus.
In the free market, institutions survive only if their outputs (products and services) are more valuable than their inputs (labor, land, materials). Government subsidies free institutions from this constraint. All too often, graduating seniors are far less valuable to society than are incoming freshmen. Many, in fact, are toxic to society.
Very, very true.
What you see in our public institutions is what happens when government gets involved in anything. In fact, we’ve discussed the destruction of the public school system on these pages.
But so long as these institutions are able to feed – and feed well – at the public food trough, it will continue with more and more entering, only to find themselves one of the marching morons.
No, we shouldn’t let it happen. We should push. STEM is the future (and is relatively uncorrupted), PJS courses can be taught online and off-campus (no lab requirements). COVID could be easily turned into a blessing. Tax receipts to fund state colleges and universities are down, so use the opportunity to force reforms Boards of Regents, Boards of Governors, etc., now have no football to attend, so they should be more malleable. A few good starting places–and I think doable–ones include:
I’m pretty sure that there will be a giant howl when this is started. But, when the first red state university starts down this road, the others and then the blue states will follow.
I have a friend who works for a company called Tech Elevator which mainly teaches computer programming. He sees Humanities majors with $30,000 a year jobs come in and leave with $60,000 or $70,000 a year jobs. The company works very actively to find employment for its graduates. Not everyone needs to, or even ought to, have a classical education.
I also had some friends from Austria a few years ago. Their very intelligent, multilingual daughter wanted to study medicine. She went back to Austria, because a bachelor’s degree is not required for medical school there. The time from high school to a medical degree was four years shorter than it is here. We need to wake up.
We could do that here. If our high school education was lots, lots, LOTS better. I’m sure the teacher’s unions would be eager to help with, um,…
Never mind. We can’t do that here.
“God and Men at Yale” by Wm. F. Buckley, Jr. was published in 1951, exactly 1 year after WFB’s graduation from Yale. In it he chronicles seeping atheism, collectivism and leftism within that cherished institution. That was 70 years ago or more! Some 21 years later, I matriculated at Dartmouth. It was commonly thought of as the most traditional (read: conservative) of the Ivies, but that isn’t much of a lift. It went coed, started its own minority student recruitment program (which was a complete failure), initiated it’s own affirmative action hiring program targeting female and black faculty (which favored “activist” candidates) and as a result, let instructors like Gary Paulson go in favor of your angry feminist of the month. In reaction, conservative students started the Dartmouth Review, which pointed out the College’s blatent rush to the Left. This created the likes of Dinesh DeSouza and Laura Ingraham. Now Dartmouth is as Left as any of the Ivies. I stopped contributing when they stacked the Board of Trustees expanding the board to achieve a majority of appointed Trustees, essentially ending conservative alumni influence. These institutions rely on alumni for support. I guess that they have decided that they don’t need support from the likes of me. That may be true. But I can’t believe that many of the SJW studies graduates provide much in the way of support. Lefty Trust babies, Wall Street Bankers and Hedge Fund Managers might make up the difference, but if the economy tanks, that support might be short lived.
These are great institutions. I want them to thrive. But I want them to educate our children, not indoctrinate them. A Liberal Arts education was meant to provide a base for a rich, curious, intellectual life. It was not meant to be a re-education camp designed to create Liberals.
As a musician with a Music Ed degree (which was wasted on me), I genuinely believe the large majority of university music students would be better served at a music trade school. Outside the world of music education, a music degree is meaningless. I’ve been a working professional for 43 years, and the only times I was ever asked about my college degree was when I was being asked to teach at a college.
There is clearly a market failure caused by government distortion of the student loan market. If student loans were based on choice of major (ability to repay), all the problems would be fixed.
Your point number 2 is the most important. We have more than enough colleges/universities to handle the the PJS majors (here in Ohio, Oberlin comes to mind). Let them marinate in their own bile using mommy and daddy’s money.
By doing that, the majority of our colleges/universities can concentrate on producing, among other things, the “steely-eyed missile men” (and women) that this country needs to compete on the world stage.
I went to Denison in the late 80’s. It not as far left as Oberlin, but it’s close, and it’s doing its very best to catch up.
In fact, I’m struggling to think of an Ohio school which does not devote itself to indoctrinating leftism.
Can you think of one? Maybe John Carroll? I doubt even that.
Heck, even Case Western is woke crazy these days.
1965 started college, student body 6k: Today there are 66k+
When I started there were student aid programs – you worked during summers, you worked while in school, on weekends. And there was actually financial assistance for those that truly needed it. I don’t know anybody that got a loan. Some went into the military before college. Things have certainly changed in that department!
And as financial “aid” has exploded, so have myriad programs with little probability of providing a well remunerated career.
Thats at my alma mater.
I wish I could “like” this many times. As you say, “There is clearly a market failure caused by government distortion…”
Very true.
Maybe 15 years ago I had a patient who had recently graduated from some state school with a degree in sociology, and she was angry that she couldn’t find a job. She went on and on about how her classes were just as difficult as any other science course (she repeatedly called sociology a science), her professors were all about hard data, they had told her that she was learning skills that would be valuable in the marketplace. Now she was 22 years old, over $100k in debt, and unemployed. She felt that she had been conned.
And I tried to be sympathetic. But honestly, did she really choose Sociology because she hoped to earn a living? I just can’t buy that. Come on. If she was concerned about finding a job, why not major in Chemical Engineering?
Because she’s not smart enough, and she knows it.
So now, her troubles are somebody else’s fault.
Students are being conned, but it’s at least partially because they want to be. You can’t lead anyone anywhere that they don’t already want to go.
You are correct. I checked the hiring stats and income and historical salary growth before choosing Chem E -but I wasn’t up to it so I went into EE.
Who does that now? How many parents advise their children?
Your parents didn’t advise you – you looked it up yourself.
I understand your point, but to me, an 18 year old is not a helpless child. The military has 18 year olds in charge of million dollar equipment.
It’s reasonable to expect an 18 year old to do due diligence when making important decisions.
This pattern has been repeated in country after country. Students are being sent to universities under the assumption that building human capital will increase economic growth and raise living standards. But, either because the nation’s economy is controlled or the degrees are worthless, jobs are not available for the graduates. Some emigrate – especially those with marketable skills – but those who stay become sources of political unrest.
You are correct. The advising starts years earlier.
Really not smart enough to complete Chem E major, or was too concerned about finding the major where her grades would be the highest? It seems to me that sometimes schools put more emphasis on success, measured as having the highest grades or best scholarships, than on education–preparing for life.
My daughter, Hurricane Annie, and I went a few rounds over that issue. She started out as a Biochemistry major but switched to Accounting, over my strong suggestion that if she was going to change majors in that direction, it should be to actuarial science. Difficultly with math and science weren’t directly the issue. She finished the third semester of Calculus at Big State U the first semester of her Junior year of high school, but in college she felt she couldn’t compete with (dominate, is the word I’d use) the best students without retaking some math coursework because she wasn’t encouraged by anyone in her high school, or at the university, to keep pushing forward with math. I have seen that quite a few times where a good, even an excellent student takes a path of least resistance, and not because they weren’t good enough, but because they were not good enough to be the very best student, rather than be the best they can be at something the market values (demonstrated by paying well for their relatively scarce skills and knowledge). Hurricane Annie to my relief wasn’t in that group, she wanted to finish quickly and get on with life. And she knew the world needs (and is willing to pay for) good CPA’s, too.
You may be right. I would have guessed that maybe Case Western was the last of the Ohio schools to go the leftist route but that’s just conjecture on my part.
Do you think that Woody Hayes would recognize Denison today?
Of course, when it comes to leftist indoctrination, don’t forget Antioch. When it comes to idiocy, they were decades ahead of their time…
Located in the heart of the Peoples’ Republic of Yellow Springs.
I disagree a little bit. The student loan programs were designed for children from low-income families, and my experience in working as a volunteer in public schools was that the world of college and student loans was a foreign country to them. Especially minority kids. All the colleges and universities want those kids so that they can use them to puff up their diversity numbers to the extent that the sales pitch from the admissions departments can be hard for families to resist. It’s always year 2 that the admissions department disappears and student loans get crazy big, if they are available at all.
I put the blame on the colleges and universities for this national student loan debacle.
The kids and their parents simply see a lot of people boarding that plane. They just get in line and move along the way everyone else is. We all make risk assessments in the same way. The safety of the plane has to be the burden of the airline and pilot.
I thought about this the day I accompanied my mom for an angioplasty procedure a dozen years ago. I was sitting in the waiting room at Deaconess Hospital thinking, “Geesh, this is scary stuff, but no one else seems nervous about it. The doctors and nurses are certainly confident.” It just made me think about how we all consider risk from moment to moment.
When the kids are near graduation in high school, everyone around them is hurrying confidently through the college and student loan doors. It creates a false sense of security, and it’s something that the colleges and universities should understand and be ahead of.
The kids from lower-income families need more assertive and active student advisors as well. The student advisors my kids had in college were really a joke. My kids had me, but for a kid from a low-income family, good luck. It’s the student advisors who usually help the kids pick a major (along with its income potential) and courses required to get there.
These days, it’s tough to purchase something that doesn’t have a warning label on it. Is it unreasonable to demand that colleges put in their catalogs the average salaries for each major? Several commenters here have already noted that parents, or the students themselves, aren’t doing a real great job in researching potential college majors and the likelihood of being able to support themselves with a degree in any particular field.
When I lived in Atlanta, the newspaper there ran a special section at the beginning of the 2006 football season with information about the Atlanta Falcon players and cheerleaders. I was about to discard the section when I saw the college majors of some of the cheerleaders. Some of the majors I saw for these brainiacs were, “Administration of Leisure Services”, “Sports Business”, “Physical Education & Dance”, “Health Promotion” and “Travel and Tourism”.
Now, what sort of parent would pay good money to send their daughter to college while they majored in any of the above? Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
I was going to argue with you, but that’s a very clever analogy. I see your point.
But still. They’re 18 years old. They can get married. Join the military. Have children. I consider them adults. They should take responsibility for themselves.
But again, I see your point, so I’ll soften my criticism. But at some point, you have to start taking care of yourself. And if you’re not ready, then get ready.
If you’re rolling your eyes at this point, I understand. My daughters roll their eyes when I give them this lecture, as well.
If you major in those things, you’d better marry well.
Hopefully, these Humanities majors will forget everything they learned during their four years of indoctrination. Otherwise we can expect some of them to be protesting that Base-16 Mathematics (IBM Mainframe system architecture) is a perpetuation of “White Privilege”.
…except for Hillsdale, which accepts no government money of any kind, and turns out some of the best-educated adults anywhere. The majority of the players in their orchestra are not music majors. As always, I recommend supporting Hillsdale.
In my WoW playing days, I had an in-game friend from Singapore. Her daughter flew an F-16 for the Republic of Singapore Air Force. She had no university degree.
There is more than one way to fix it. Allow students to default on college loans, but put colleges on the hook for, say, 50% of the debt.