The Failures of University
September 2024
The mantra of the need to get into college is pushed to all children. The average person seems to see that it is not necessarily true, yet still chants the mantra themselves. “You need to do better so you can get into a college”, “You should be doing extracurriculars to look better when applying for college”, “Don’t you want to make a lot of money?”, and “Do you want to work fast food your whole life?” are the mantras on pre-collegial life. Parents, to teachers, to student advisors all chant the mantras. “You will learn a lot in college” and “College is such a valuable experience” are the mantras on collegial life. Yet, when we speak of post-collegial life, we often hear “We’re running out of plumbers and electricians” and “People don’t know enough about their other options.”
I did go to a university, and I can say I did not learn all that much. Having been a graduate for several years now, I know people my age who did and did not also go, I know people who went to college after I did, and, of course, I know people who went much before I did. I know people who took various different paths in that time and I know people who went to very different universities. The near universal experience of my contemporaries around my age and younger seems to be that they also felt their experience was a waste of their time. The cash cow of universities is incentivized to push more courses on students. This has inevitably become a watered-down education, taking the form of: (A) Required, additional, unnecessary courses that have nothing to do with why one is there, and (B) Required, on-topic courses which do not provide anything of substance. The unquenchable need to extend the amount of time a student is giving money to the university necessitates filling the gaps with superfluous classes — even ones which seemingly are relevant to the area of study.
School tests from 100 years ago show that young children were learning, and apprehending, Latin, as well as many other topics which are entirely disregarded by current education. Attending college in the 19th century would usually assume that one would graduate with a fair grasp of either Latin or Greek. Now, students are required to take foreign language classes that they barely grasp — and are barely incentivized to grasp anyway due to failing upward. The bar of pre-collegial education is abysmally low, as would attest anyone who has attended schooling in the last 20 years and many current teachers, though it is not their fault. The incentive now is to merely attend and get passed on to the next set of teachers to try to pick up the pieces of compounding years of failing upward. I would often hear adults say to others: “Well, you better get your act together now because college will be a lot more difficult” or something akin to that. The truth is that nothing was easier than university. In fact, I would say schooling typically was only easier and easier with each year, and I am not the only one who would say so. That’s not to say there were no difficulties in high school or college, of course there were, but that does not discount anything I have said.
Many I have spoken to, both my age and younger, all attest that there was a considerable amount of “fluff” to their education. I can only agree wholeheartedly. Many classes were required that they could only question why they were there. Many classes, which seemingly would be relevant to their chosen path, and were required, only needed a bare minimum of effort. Some of these “required”, “relevant” classes barely provided anything relevant to begin with in my opinion. Teachers increasingly rely on technology in ways which only hinder their objective. Some seem to not care.
I often wonder what the university experience was truly like, for instance, three decades ago. Was it actually like what people who attended college at that time make it out to be? It was, at the very least, obviously more valuable than it is now. With the subsidized influx of college students, the value of a degree has only lessened. Certainly, one could assume, the quality of education was also better. If education so long ago required so much expectation, and if that expectation is so low now, then there should be an assumed gradient between the two points in time. Do the older generations not realize what they are pushing on the younger? It seems they do to some degree, considering that they oppose a lot of the Leftist aspects infecting the universities. Yet, they do no better to not suggest any alternatives and only perpetuate the thing they oppose. They only chant the mantras, promoting something that does not exist. The politicization of the university system provides a whole host of other issues which are too large for this, but only begs the question: Is it worth it to send one’s children into its jaws? To trade some debt for possibly providing one’s child with more money, yet not guaranteeing that? To possibly have one’s child indoctrinated? If it is not, is it worth it to then lend the upper echelons of society to those that are indoctrinated?
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Certainly, some avenues of college provide better education than others. Some provide more value than others. Yet, the same pernicious problems infect them all to some degree.