The always brilliant Thomas Sowell offered this insight into a major flaw in progressive thinking, back in 1995, as a rebuttal to the assertion that young people thirst for an education and that the government is right to slake that thirst via tax-dollar largesse:
Nothing opened my eyes up more to these things more than being a state school kid chasing my Ivy League girlfriend around in the 90s. Many things I didn't realize until well after the relationship ended, and the insights are hardly unique: it all adds up to caste and perpetuation of caste.
Like you say, even before the current hobgoblins of higher education/ education administration reared their ugly heads, this stuff was brewing.
I hope more people are waking up to it, but I also think that vaunted 1% isn't going anywhere or giving anything up without a fight. And I don't see anyone (in America anyway) bringing one. Hope to be wrong on that sooner or later.
Oh, for sure the 'elites' will continue in their Ivy ways. This isn't about them, it's about everyone else. If the club is no longer seen as "highly desirable," it'll lose cachet, and maybe it'll knock things down a peg.
Great column. I went to college from 1982-1990. I dropped out from 1985-1988 to enlist for three years in the Army: I jumped out of airplanes at Fort Bragg. When I graduated in June, 1990, I owed $0.00 in student loans. But, that’s not a valid plan for everyone. For starters, something like 71% of the US’s military age population isn’t physically or mentally fit for military service, and isn’t inclined for that, anyway. It worked for me, though, and, I did “network:” The now-defunct North Georgia College (now replaced by “The University of North Georgia”) was “The Senior Military College of Georgia” and many of my fellow NGC grads retired as colonels - and a few, generals. Today, UNG is an example of what Peter writes about: it offers a good education, but, it is very expensive and has grown into a sprawling complex: a student can no longer walk from one end to the other in 10 minutes, to get from one class to another. The military program has been gutted. Only a fraction of the student body is now in the Corps of Cadets. What happened? Lawyers and the same people who have driven costs up everywhere else. It is now little more than a money-making enterprise.
There are other culprits in this mix: 1) Unions. They, as do those professional associations, conspire to hold down their numbers in order to increase incomes and opportunities for the few. Those trade schools we old folks remember were brought down at least in part by union opposition. 2) Immigration. The days when our southern border was ignored almost exclusively by crop pickers are gone. Now, our building trades are full of illegals willing to work for low wages without benefits. Trucking is, too.
You failed to address one argument for sending people to college, which is that the liberal arts classes they take will make them better voters.
I don't agree with this argument, but it is made so often, particularly by liberals, that it must be addressed.
There is a YouTube lecturer, "Contrapoints", who is very left-wing -- I basically never agree with her conclusions, but she gives better reasons for them than most liberals I tune into. She got a master's degree in philosophy, which demonstrates a high-IQ but has zero vocational value. And in the beginning of her "Capitalism" video, she discusses her introduction to capitalism after leaving academia, which involved doing a lot of "shitty jobs".
Well, the number one rule of survival in a capitalist society is "Don't arrive in the workforce without skills". And she didn't know that rule, yet she's lecturing us on the nature of capitalism.
A student who majors in the liberal arts is economically castrating themselves, and dooming themselves to a lifetime of poverty if they leave academia. And liberal arts classes are all taught by these economic eunuchs who are thus ignorant of the most basic principles of how the world works. And they cling to academia with its slim job offerings and lousy pay and lack of alternatives out of a deep resentment they have of people who are capable of creating wealth. These people aren't going to teach their students anything about the strengths and virtues of their society that should be preserved, they are going to teach the students that it's all corrupt (or racist or sexist or whatever) and needs to be torn down. This is not the education that our voters need.
Thank you.
Nothing opened my eyes up more to these things more than being a state school kid chasing my Ivy League girlfriend around in the 90s. Many things I didn't realize until well after the relationship ended, and the insights are hardly unique: it all adds up to caste and perpetuation of caste.
Like you say, even before the current hobgoblins of higher education/ education administration reared their ugly heads, this stuff was brewing.
I hope more people are waking up to it, but I also think that vaunted 1% isn't going anywhere or giving anything up without a fight. And I don't see anyone (in America anyway) bringing one. Hope to be wrong on that sooner or later.
Oh, for sure the 'elites' will continue in their Ivy ways. This isn't about them, it's about everyone else. If the club is no longer seen as "highly desirable," it'll lose cachet, and maybe it'll knock things down a peg.
Great job! I hadn't seen what the numbers look like when you back out STEM performance. That is very insightful.
I saw those stats some time ago, and it was an "aha" moment.
Great column. I went to college from 1982-1990. I dropped out from 1985-1988 to enlist for three years in the Army: I jumped out of airplanes at Fort Bragg. When I graduated in June, 1990, I owed $0.00 in student loans. But, that’s not a valid plan for everyone. For starters, something like 71% of the US’s military age population isn’t physically or mentally fit for military service, and isn’t inclined for that, anyway. It worked for me, though, and, I did “network:” The now-defunct North Georgia College (now replaced by “The University of North Georgia”) was “The Senior Military College of Georgia” and many of my fellow NGC grads retired as colonels - and a few, generals. Today, UNG is an example of what Peter writes about: it offers a good education, but, it is very expensive and has grown into a sprawling complex: a student can no longer walk from one end to the other in 10 minutes, to get from one class to another. The military program has been gutted. Only a fraction of the student body is now in the Corps of Cadets. What happened? Lawyers and the same people who have driven costs up everywhere else. It is now little more than a money-making enterprise.
There are other culprits in this mix: 1) Unions. They, as do those professional associations, conspire to hold down their numbers in order to increase incomes and opportunities for the few. Those trade schools we old folks remember were brought down at least in part by union opposition. 2) Immigration. The days when our southern border was ignored almost exclusively by crop pickers are gone. Now, our building trades are full of illegals willing to work for low wages without benefits. Trucking is, too.
Never heard that about unions and trade schools. Thanks.
You failed to address one argument for sending people to college, which is that the liberal arts classes they take will make them better voters.
I don't agree with this argument, but it is made so often, particularly by liberals, that it must be addressed.
There is a YouTube lecturer, "Contrapoints", who is very left-wing -- I basically never agree with her conclusions, but she gives better reasons for them than most liberals I tune into. She got a master's degree in philosophy, which demonstrates a high-IQ but has zero vocational value. And in the beginning of her "Capitalism" video, she discusses her introduction to capitalism after leaving academia, which involved doing a lot of "shitty jobs".
Well, the number one rule of survival in a capitalist society is "Don't arrive in the workforce without skills". And she didn't know that rule, yet she's lecturing us on the nature of capitalism.
A student who majors in the liberal arts is economically castrating themselves, and dooming themselves to a lifetime of poverty if they leave academia. And liberal arts classes are all taught by these economic eunuchs who are thus ignorant of the most basic principles of how the world works. And they cling to academia with its slim job offerings and lousy pay and lack of alternatives out of a deep resentment they have of people who are capable of creating wealth. These people aren't going to teach their students anything about the strengths and virtues of their society that should be preserved, they are going to teach the students that it's all corrupt (or racist or sexist or whatever) and needs to be torn down. This is not the education that our voters need.
I imagine that a single civics class in HS, instead of A.P. Woke, would do more to make people better voters than 4 years of steeping in Utopistan.
But, yeah.