College Blues

"And with all that expense, are we graduating the next generation of Captains of Industry? Or just educated idiots..."

More and more people are starting to ask, "Why college?" Good question. Especially with private colleges. Is it the cost? What costs? They can't be that expensive. Today in the paper it was reported that our own Carlton College in Northfield has some of the highest tuition costs in the nation. Northfield, that sleepy little berg that Jessie James make famous is now home to one of the most expensive colleges in the land. How expensive? $62K/year expensive.

In fact, many private colleges are now $50K or more. That is about $200K just to get an undergrad education. Wow! And then many young darlings major in some kind of basket weaving and graduate knee deep in debt. Knee deep in debt with little or no chance of getting a job in that field. The private colleges are starting to fight back. "Hey, sure we are expensive, but we can get you scholarship help and other financial assistance." Okay, then here is my question - if the costs are real, who picks up the tab that students don't? Private donors? The government? Does the school just eat them? Hmmm.

To make matters worse, I was watching a news show this morning which confirmed an age old suspicion. Some egghead professor from a reputable school was quoted as saying it was okay not to give students balanced political viewpoints. They don't need to be fair and balanced. In other words, they want to keep shoveling leftist garbage down the throats of our little darlings.

A recent study from Inside Higher Ed revealed nearly 70% of all college professors are either liberal or far left in their politics. And about 25% are "middle of the road", whatever that means. My excellent math skills tell me if you subtract 70% and then 25% from 100%, that does not leave many conservative voices on campus.

So you send junior away to Carlton to study Art History or Sociology. Junior takes fun classes and easily gets good grades. Plus, for four + years, junior gets a 24X7 dose of liberal pabulum as well as his useless education. Junior graduates and has no clue why nobody will hire him. However, the one thing he did learn in college was who to blame. It is those damn capitalists! Greedy, greedy, greedy! The Bourgeoisie is ruining it for the Proletariat, just like all professors told him they would!

Why send kids to college these days? More and more are wondering what the value proposition is. I sure am. Am I against education? Absolutely not! However the gulf between higher learning and becoming educated is getting wider all the time. And using your head these days, you can discover a whole lot of learning for free. Or you can spend $200K at Carlton and learn how the "Man" is keeping you broke and unemployed. Even with having that freshly minted Sociology degree.