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November 20, 2011
"Public universities and the larger private institutions have become morally and fiscally bankrupt"
It used to be that one did not dare go to a DeVry or Phoenix for-profit schools for computer certification or accounting,because one would miss out on the rich undergraduate experience, both social and intellectual -- best exemplified by the core curriculum of some 50-60 units in liberal arts and sciences. But if the university is serially subsidizing panels about global warming, lauds Palestinian activists, and runs workshops on homophobia (all without balance and counter-opinion), and if its GE required courses, whether so titled or not, are too often little more than the melodramatic obsessions of over-specialized, ranting professors, who otherwise would have small audiences, then why spend the money and go through the charade of classically liberal instruction, especially given that the trade school is cheaper and more honestly pragmatic? -- Works and Days ｻ The Fannie and Freddie University
Posted by gerardvanderleun at November 20, 2011 4:09 PM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.
Your Say
Agreed, in fact, why ever leave your keyboard? All learning is autodidactic.
Posted by: Casca at November 20, 2011 7:14 PM
Sense from VDH, as usual. I did engineering, so no nonsense at all (I had to take an arts course to get some *ahem* action). When the Student Council (full of lefties, except for the two engineering and two science reps) tried to get proportional representation so that the much larger arts faculty would dominate, the engineering reps would advertise "free beer on the front lawn", timed for the engineers to go and vote the proposal down. This was in Australia, but I imagine the same scenario would play well in the US.
Posted by: Brett_McS at November 20, 2011 9:43 PM
I'm not sure about the assertion that people in the IT fields used to go to college for the "university experience". Some did, but I have a number of friends who dropped out of college in the '80s or didn't go at all because of the lucrative job opportunities right out of high school. I think that was the first crack in the higher education edifice.
Since then, the substance of university education has only diminished (and for-profit alternatives grown to take its place), and its overall credibility eroded. That it continues to exist at all in its present form is the result of hefty government subsidy (the same thing that has made its cost prohibitive) and the ongoing need for employers to create a paper trail before hiring anyone.
A college degree of some sort retains its function as a sort of basic literacy certificate... at least for the time being. Top tier and Ivy degrees also provide certification of ones membership in certain social circles. There's a big bloc of schools in the middle, though, whose degrees don't really carry much more weight than those of community colleges, and are grossly overpriced. That bubble will be bursting very, very soon.
Posted by: Umbriel at November 20, 2011 10:29 PM
A college degree of some sort retains its function as a sort of basic literacy certificate...
Positing that statement means somebody is willing playing Rapunzel in their own tower.
Posted by: Peccable at November 21, 2011 3:14 AM
The credibility of the university degree has certainly eroded, Umbiel, but it has lost no relative status because we have become less credible at the same rate. My daughter was very frustrated with her education at DePaul, and one of her classmates exclaimed: just party and enjoy your life as an undergraduate, education is what graduate school is for.
Posted by: james wilson at November 21, 2011 11:04 AM