COMMENTARY: College: Errors and evils
By JIM N. TAYLOR, Special to the Star
For more than a century, it has been known that not more than one third of any sizable human population is capable of college level academic work, and of that group, another third will lack proficiency.
The statistics from the U.S. Dept. of Education and the National Conference of State Legislatures shows colleges wasting resources on remedial studies for students who should not have been admitted to any college.
I refrain from mentioning race differences to escape emotionalism by readers.
By admitting college students to remedial studies, we: 1) permit public schools to escape accountability and responsibility (many high schools are graduating students who don’t read or figure above elementary to middle school levels) and; 2) waste taxpayer, parental or student loan funds to overburden young persons/families for many students who should never have been admitted to any university.
Observe the low percentage of these who graduate from college/universities, more than one third show no (zero) improvement in critical thinking (C book: “Academically Adrift: …” by Richard Arum) and employers complain of the embarrassment caused by emails written by recent graduates.
We’ve gone from an adult college degreed population of 11% of the nation’s finest in 1970 to 30% degreed of the current adult population, half of whom are no smarter or disciplined than the average person.
Employers say that college degrees say little about job readiness.
One third of college graduates have a job historically performed by someone having only a high school or equivalent diploma (janitors, parking lot attendants, bartenders, taxi drivers, construction contractors, traders; all with college bachelor’s degrees).
A third of college graduates is a large number of people to be thusly employed. Face it: college is not for everyone.
Many colleges have become a focal point for the destruction of traditional American values that made this a great nation.
Contempt for the First amendment (student polling data): 50% think conservative speech is hate speech (it isn’t); that hate speech is not protected by the 1st amendment (it is); 51% think it is acceptable to shut down a speaker with whom they disagree; 50% say that colleges should prohibit speech and viewpoints (regardless of its truth) that might offend certain people.
Polling adults reveals only 47% are extremely proud to be Americans. In 2003 it was 70%.
The least proud are nonwhites, young adults and college graduates (of any color); the proudest are over age 50 and with the least amount of college exposure or academia.
Teachers have been recorded telling their students that “America has never been great for minorities” and “if you are not European, you are an immigrant.
You are an illegal immigrant because you came and took it. This is not your country.” At the same school, students were given homework to write a letter asking lawmakers for stricter gun control laws.
UCLA history professor told her class “Capitalism isn’t a lie on purpose; it’s just a lie.” Also she said capitalists “are swine … They’re just bastard people.”
An English professor at Montclair University, N.J. told students “Conservatism champions racism, exploitation and imperialist war.”
At the U of CA at Santa Barbara, a faculty member: “The U.S. is the greediest, most selfish country in the world.”
How can it be that colleges can permit such teachings when polls worldwide and applications for migration indicate the USA is the most sought destination among 630,000 migrants?
There is little question that colleges/universities stand at the forefront of an attack on America and Western values. Presently, they are a force for evil.
Jim Taylor is a Harlingen resident who regularly is published in the Valley Morning Star.
