COMMENTARY: Taxpayers should not pay for college indoctrination

It is unforgivable that any adult would suggest to any student that there might be a possibility to escape the level of accountability required for the reception of a loan. Actual experience has more value than all the lofty words taught from our dictionaries. If an academic degree is below a value the recipient is willing to repay, it certainly is below the value the taxpayer might be forced to repay.

Selective pardoning degrades successful paying achievers and is not morally justifiable. Fortunately, the Supreme Court has eliminated the legality of racism in college admissions in favor of merit-based admissions; this will inadvertently reduce the number of student loans as well as the percentage of such in default. We no longer must pretend that diversity without merit has value.

The equally important related questions are regarding the number of student loans made, or how many graduates we need for occupations that actually require them, and who should determine the criteria for obtaining such loans.

For more than a century it has been known that not more than one-third of any major population is capable of college/university-level academic work, yet we currently get reports from many states bragging of as high as 66% to 70% of the students of their high schools being admitted to colleges — twice the percentage as will be successful in doing actual college-level work. Government financed, unneeded and useless college degrees are being foisted upon barely credit-worthy families and students who should never have been admitted to any university. Since the colleges/universities must pay for their excess facilities and teaching contracts, we can expect that this waste will continue if the student loan money is made available by vote-buying politician lawmakers.

The waste of resources by admitting college students to remedial studies permits public schools to escape accountability for graduating students who cannot read or figure above elementary or middle school levels.

Of the low percentage of those who graduate, more than one-third show no improvement in critical thinking, and employers complain of their embarrassment for emails written by recent graduate employees. We graduated 11% of our 1970 population; now 30% of the population is degreed but half of these are no smarter or disciplined than the average non-graduate. Employers say college degrees are not good indicators of readiness. One-third of graduates have only a job historically performed by someone having only a high school diploma or equivalency; the waste of one-third the students’ college years and resources are an evil drain on national wealth.

The promotion of an inordinate number of useless degrees inadvertently has been accompanied by the surrender of 95% of professorships to a national college staffing by educators having what must be described as an anti-American political agenda. This agenda is poisoning the minds of worthy students needing degrees of real value as well as those studying for misled motives.

College professors falsely accuse conservatives of genocide and racism both in conversing with students and on social media, goading students to shout down (cancel or prohibit) invited conservative guest lecturers — even when it requires commandeering the stage while using profanity toward the speaker. At many colleges it is rare to find a conservative or a Republican professor. What draws liberal progressives to the educating professions? Or compels staffing to find them? You decide.

The more exacting the subject (STEM studies), the more likely is it to be taught by a conservative or Republican professor; but it is rare to find a conservative or Republican professor in a non-STEM subject. Other authors (Walter Williams and Thomas Sowell) have reported such statistics. Many colleges have become a focal point for the destruction of traditional American values. From student polling data they report: contempt for freedom of speech; labeling conservatism as “hate” speech; agreeing to shut down conservative speakers; disdain for patriotism; the shutdown of any offense to non-whites or non-Christians regardless of truth; all are prevalent in more than 50% of most student populations. From 70% of students proud to be Americans in 2003, only 47% were proud in 2018; proudest Americans are over age 50 and have the least college study; the least proud are nonwhites, especially those with college study or graduates. Teachers have been recorded telling students of America’s disdain for minorities, especially those not European; enlisting students in gun control politics; saying that capitalism is evil while socialism is preferable. The USA has by far the wealthiest per capita non-white population in the world (even without considering welfare benefits).

Only creditors or banks should be involved in determining the criteria for student loans according to the probability of repayment. An education should be like gold and respected even more so. Sell us education, not indoctrination. Stop degenerating our culture by teaching deviate behavior. We can get all the college-degreed people we are willing to pay for without involving the taxpayers.

Jim N. Taylor lives in Harlingen.