Can The Current Universities Be Saved? By Victor Davis Hanson

[mystery-ak]

Can The Current Universities Be Saved? › American Greatness
Victor Davis Hanson
5–7 minutes

Elite higher education in America—long unquestioned as globally preeminent—is facing a perfect storm. Fewer applicants, higher costs, impoverished students, collapsing standards, and increasingly politicized and mediocre faculty reflect a collapse of the university system.

The country is waking up to the reality that a bachelor’s degree no longer equates with graduates being broadly educated and analytical. Just as often, they are stereotyped as pampered, largely ignorant, and gratuitously opinionated.

No wonder polls show a drastic loss of public respect for higher education and, specifically, a growing lack of confidence in the professoriate.

Each year, there are far fewer students entering college. Despite a U.S. population 40 million larger than 20 years ago, fertility rates have fallen in two decades by some 500,000 births per year.

Meanwhile, from 1980 to 2020, room, board, and tuition increased by 170 percent.

Skyrocketing costs cannot be explained by inflation alone, given that campuses have lightened faculty teaching loads while expanding administrative staff. At Stanford, there is nearly one staffer or administrative position for every student on campus.

more
https://amgreatness.com/2024/05/02/can-the-current-universities-be-saved/

[Free Vulcan]

Short answer is no. Let them crumble.

[LMAO]

Short answer is no. Let them crumble.

That’s probably the best course of action considering the circumstances

[Millee]

Cities, universities, education - anything that the left has a stronghold of have been completely destroyed.  I don't see how this country doesn't completely fall apart. 

[mountaineer]

The pro-Palestine BS protests are just a mixed salad of the usual leftist demands.

Joseph A. Wulfsohn
@JosephWulfsohn
NEW: I visited the encampment at the University of Chicago where the anti-Israel students listed their demands from the school. Among them were defunding the police, reparations, and cutting carbon emissions by 50% in 2030.
9:57 AM · May 2, 2024

Jason Rantz on KTTH Radio
@jasonrantz
Remember: these folks are driven primarily by their anarcho-socialist views.  While they are antisemitic, this isn’t about Israel vs Gaza — it’s merely an issue they’re using to radicalize young people. They did it with Black Lives Matter.
10:50 AM · May 2, 2024

Student demands at University of Chicago encampment include defunding police, reparations, cutting emissions
Among the chants heard at the rally include 'Long live the intifada!' and 'Smash the settler Zionist state!'
By Joseph A. Wulfsohn Fox News
Published May 2, 2024 5:00am EDT

... "The U Chicago Popular University For Gaza demands that you, Chicago, divest from the Gaza genocide," the protester told the university. "We demand that you, Chicago, divest from weapons manufacturers arming Israel and its partnerships with militarized Israeli universities, and cut ties with the Israel Institute. We also demand that you, Chicago, divest from all interrelated forces of death and violence into which it is currently complicit, especially fossil fuel production, UCPD and construction projects that fuel South Side displacement."

She then led chants of "We won't rest til you divest!"  ...

[DefiantMassRINO]

These failing and flailing institutions are being propped up by Federal Subsidies - Government backed student loans.

End the Federal Government backed student loan program, then, you'll have college administrators' undivided attention.

[mountaineer]

These failing and flailing institutions are being propped up by Federal Subsidies - Government backed student loans.

End the Federal Government backed student loan program, then, you'll have college administrators' undivided attention.

[Bigun]

These failing and flailing institutions are being propped up by Federal Subsidies - Government backed student loans.

End the Federal Government backed student loan program, then, you'll have college administrators' undivided attention.

How about we just get government out of the "education" business entirely?

[Fishrrman]

No.

Close the universities.
Send the students home and tell them to get a real job.
Fire the faculties and administrators and BLACKLIST them from ever working in education again.
Give the campuses away to the homeless and illegals, they'll make better use of them.

Keep ONLY the professional schools (medical, scientific, technical) where the students might actually LEARN something. But give those institutions a "good cleaning out", as well.

Perhaps keep a modicum of private schools that accept NO government funding. Hillsdale is an example.
Forbid "student loans" -- make them pay up in advance, or borrow the money privately.

Have I made myself clear?