Bernie Sanders introduced the idea of free college for most during the Democrat primary. New York has decided to give free college to middle class New Yorkers. California is poised to do something similar, and free college is now part of the New Jersey governor’s race debate.
I think I’m going the other way on this. Rather than schools offer free tuition to students, I’m all for pulling all state and federal funding from colleges and ending subsidized loans.
I have already blogged, twice, about butthurt professors who have protested the lawful campus carry in Texas and Kansas by wearing body armor.
The Secretary of Education, Besty DeVos, is using the DOE to undo the Obama Dear Colleague Letter which has turned into a massive abuse of Title IX (I deliberately chose the Slate article – because when Slate says DeVos is right about Title IX being abused, you can bank on it being that bad). College professors are resistant to the idea of reintroducing due process to on campus sexual assault investigations.
Princeton University is holding a Fuck Free Speech event on Constitution Day. Professors at the University of California Berkeley want students and professors to boycott campus during the ‘Free Speech Week’.
College campuses across the country are creating racially and sexually separated ‘safe spaces’ for various identity groups.
Then there was the total cluster-fuck of Evergreen State College.
Since the beginning of 2017, academia has done its best to show that it has no respect, if downright hatred, for the First Amendment, Second Amendment, Fifth Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
This is anti-Civics, actively promoting ignorance and hatred of the United States.
Why are we funding this?
I’m not saying end college as an institution, but maybe taking away the free money will cause the useless programs to wither and die. There will always be a need for scientists, engineers, doctors, nurses, accountants, and such. But if kids have to pay $50,000 out of pocket to listen to some putz ramble on about the social construct of gender in Indigenous societies, they might say “fuck that noise” and actually learn something.
It’s not just college professors that dislike due process. The most amazing tidbit I learned from a recent WSJ article about the Title IX mess is that the American Bar Association came out against the right to an attorney for students accused of sexual misconduct. Yes, the ABA. Amazing, isn’t it?
At least some commentators, though apparently not Betsy deVos, are saying that schools should have *no* role at all in any of this. Not a due process role, not the kind they have today — none at all. Investigating crimes is the job of the police, judging them the job of the jury, and punishing them the job of the courts. In none of these steps is there any role for any private organization, such as a school.
I have come to the conclusion that I were a policy maker, my policy on this would be: colleges CANNOT investigate sexual assault. All reports must be handed over to the police, preferably state police, no campus police allowed. It is too much of a conflict of interest. The ability of schools that receive public funds to punish students should also be limited until after the police and courts finish their process.
“Free college” is an idea that’s so stupid that socialists have to love it.
There are just so many arguments here, it’s hard to fit in this space, so let me list two.
College costs have gone up at three times the regular Cost of Living, because the market doesn’t work here. Politicians love to fund student loans and grants so the amount of money is practically unlimited. The number of seats in colleges is limited so the price is bid up by the infinite checkbook of the Fed.gov.
The second big problem is that if a college degree is still valuable, it’s because the supply of people who can do the work is less than the demand. Not everyone can be an engineer or a medical doctor. If everyone gets a 4 year degree in some nonsense, they’re not going to be any more valuable. If college becomes like a high school diploma (everyone gets one), then a Masters will be required to stand out from the crowd. Call it degree inflation.
The NY proposal was classic. In return for “free college”, the graduate had to stay in NY for a number of years; in other words, Cuomo has proposed to restore indentured servitude.
Soo… Not sure how NY is going to enforce that. I can’t see TX, PA, TN or any other no income tax state extraditing fleeing grads back to NY. NY can of course sue in civil court for unpaid fees, but just how much is NY going to spend to force the scofflaws to pay. Hasn’t worked all that well for collecting child support from dads that leave the ex-wife’s state.
Also, when does NY start mandating that “free” college is only for majors that have a potential for jobs that do not involve the phrase “Do you want fries with that?”
The Education Industry as it presently exists is nothing more than a jobs program for registered Democrats.
I’ve got two nonsense degrees. No idea if they have ever helped me in the work force but I have been employed nearly continuously since I was 16. I’m sure 95% of my professional success has been networking since I was 16 and my work experience.
The current model that college operates under is horse shit, so I agree to some extent. Not everyone should be going to college because we really don’t need another 10k history of poli Sci degrees.
However, there is still value to those degrees, I think it is just significantly cheapened because of how many are coming out with those degrees.
Unfortunately I don’t think there is much of a solution to discouraging college though. More emphasis on trade school is good but eventually you can unbalance the job market just the same way towards trades or skilled jobs.