College: The Five Year Party
In high-priced private colleges, students may become indebted by as much as $200,000 or more. If they graduate with a bachelor's degree in queer ethnic women's studies, literature, or social sciences, they may never pay back their college debt. In government-subsidised colleges, low tuition fees allow students more latitude in their leisure activities, without worrying so much about later debt to themselves. They can begin cultivating better tastes in liquor at an earlier age, in other words.
...artificially low fees attract some students to higher education who simply aren't suited to the academic rigors of a university. Ultimately, the presence of these lower-achieving students hurts those who are more academically inclined, as they end up in watered-down courses in which professors have to focus on bringing the low achievers along. _LATimes
Only students with IQs of 115 or higher should be studying for a rigorous 4 year degree. In the US, that might include 30% of Asian students, 25% of Europeans, 15% of Hispanics, and 5% of African Americans, to be generous. Even many of the brighter students can be uninterested in learning, when presented with all the other opportunities available at a party college -- and these days, what college is not a party college?
...only 10 percent of students are really interested in academics. The rest are there for mostly social purposes.
The slackers take dumbed down courses in which grade inflation results in 90 percent of students getting As and Bs. Learning is optional, neither required nor expected. Even mental midgets who do no work are too big to fail. Nobody fails. That would make the professor look bad, and the school would risk losing a paying customer. _UnionLeader
Why not just relax, party, accumulate debt (either personal debt or societal debt), and simply go for broke with the devil taking the hindmost? Take advantage of your 5 year party to learn about life (?!?) at parental or societal expense, in preparation for a lifetime of unemployment?
I suppose someone will have to pay for it all eventually, but there will be plenty of time to worry about that.
Five Year Party Blog
H/T Instapundit
Labels: Academic lobotomy, Psychological neoteny
posted by al fin at 7:35 am
2 Comments:
Since I have two college age kids and know many other of their friends my first-hand knowledge of how many spend their time does not square with this post. While there are certainly episodes of binge drinking it is the exception and not the norm. The real party-hardy kids have already dropped out. The rest have gotten or are on track to get their degrees. Now what, is the question. Even the ones with engineering degrees are struggling to find work. The others are looking at getting a M.S./Phd or working retail jobs. Majoring in Chinese or some other foreign language might have been a better course. None of the 50+ kids I know ended up with an unusual degree like ethnic studies or art. They are more serious about life than I was at 21 years old.
My husband, who is a high school teacher as a second career, tells the kids over and over again that they do not need to go deeply into debt to get a 4-year-plus college degree in order to earn a good living unless they have a specific field in mind that requires it.
SwampSon, in the meantime, has had to close down his business and has had to spend a couple winters out west working. He complains of "only" earning $22 or $23 per hour during a 40-hour work week, but he's usually working 7/12s. When, or if, the economy comes back, he'll go out on his own again.
He did not do well in high school (big surprise!) and neither did a bunch of his friends (who didn't go on to college either). They have their own businesses and/or are working in dangerous professions and making much more money than their college-degreed peers.
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