The Lowering of Higher Education in America

Photo by Vasily Koloda on Unsplash

"Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?” – George W. Bush

Apparently, President Bush 43’s famous grammatically incorrect quote is not being effectively answered by anyone with the power and will to do anything about it in many high schools, colleges, and universities today. It’s pretty well established that many students who are admitted to college are unprepared for college work, yet have no trouble getting in, and once there, many learn little to nothing over their years of “study.” Tucker Carlson on Fox News clearly described problems with colleges and universities on his April 25 program, in a segment series called “Is College Worth It?” (Video below).

Test scores are dropping, but grades are getting higher. College costs are steadily increasing, while the value of the college experience is dropping, and in many cases is actually negative. Student loan debt is beyond what many loan recipients will ever be able to repay. Carlson says, "Colleges barely teach, yet every year they increase their fees. Try that in a private business, you might get indicted for fraud. Do it at an American university and you get billions in taxpayer subsidies."

More rigorous work could help, but college work is much less rigorous than it was not so long ago.

In his excellent blog, Confessions of a College Professor, (linked on this blog), Professor Doom gives us a continuing account of these troubles and their causes. Administrators now rule the higher education world and capitalize massively on the student loan scam. To do this, they try to make sure that students are “happy,” and the Admins penalize the instructors if the students complain about anything.

Administrators use the student loan funds to provide “palaces” and high six-figure salaries for themselves, while most faculty is adjunct (part-time), often qualifying for food stamps, few ever get tenure, and the emphases of the “study” curricula are more on political correctness and SJW topics, and less on academic achievement.

Dr. Doom points out that accreditation is a matter of paying the accreditation fees, and little else, so nothing changes unless criminal charges are brought. Administrators typically get a golden parachute whenever they leave, even if they leave under a cloud. Colleges these days are awash in cash, yet little of it benefits the students in terms of the supposed purpose of the university, and school policies add little to the academic or social quality of the college years, and actual results often demonstrate that it can be a very big waste of time and money.

With all the leftist-socialist-communist indoctrination going on, I repeat my statement from a previous article that colleges are some of the stupidest places in America. A prospective entrant should thoroughly check out any school he or she plans to attend, or risk a very disappointing result if the goal is a true education that can lead to a good future.

As Dr. Doom suggests, the solution would seem to be: Rein in the administrators, who have a chokehold on the system, dismantle the scandalous student loan program, upgrade academic standards, and restore accreditation rules with teeth. Sounds simple, but it’s like trying to get rid of cockroaches, termites, and bedbugs. Not easy, maybe not even possible without serious and strong intervention.
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Update 05/01/2018: Removed Twitter link for video and added YouTube embed, removed Carlson photo.

This article does not address the fact that education has been deliberately dumbed down in America since the days of John Dewey and his associates. That’s an article for another day. There are good books on the subject, such as Samuel Blumenfeld and Alex Newman, Crimes of the Educators: How Utopians Are Using Government Schools To Destroy America’s Children. WND Books, Washington, DC, 2015.