Higher Ed Must Evolve or Die

[rangerrebew]

 Higher Ed Must Evolve or Die

Thanks to lockdowns, the industry is now teetering on the brink.
by John Jiang
May 5, 2020, 12:42 PM
 
by Doug Bandow
 
I am intimately familiar with the frustrations that typify the higher education bubble from my vantage point here at one of America’s liberal arts institutions. To list a few, there is the omnipresent and overfunded diversity bureaucracy, the overreliance on international students for revenue, the incessant relitigation of comically marginal issues (every other campus event is about “trans women of color” or some variation thereof), the litany of useless degrees, and the archaic “gen-ed” curriculum that turns a two-year education into a bloated four-year “experience.”

Beyond providing training in a select few highly cerebral or technical fields, colleges play an increasingly parasitic role in society: they’ll take four years from your life and a few hundred thousand dollars out of your wallet in return for a bachelor’s degree that you only need because everyone else has one. Even the loftier ideals of spiritual and aesthetic edification have been supplanted by mandatory mediocrity under the guise of identity politics, a scourge felt in every aspect of campus life from student theater to activism.

https://spectator.org/higher-ed-must-evolve-or-die/

[catfish1957]

Higher Ed Must Evolve or Die

Thanks to lockdowns, the industry is now teetering on the brink.
by John Jiang
May 5, 2020, 12:42 PM
 
by Doug Bandow
 
I am intimately familiar with the frustrations that typify the higher education bubble from my vantage point here at one of America’s liberal arts institutions. To list a few, there is the omnipresent and overfunded diversity bureaucracy, the overreliance on international students for revenue, the incessant relitigation of comically marginal issues (every other campus event is about “trans women of color” or some variation thereof), the litany of useless degrees, and the archaic “gen-ed” curriculum that turns a two-year education into a bloated four-year “experience.”

Beyond providing training in a select few highly cerebral or technical fields, colleges play an increasingly parasitic role in society: they’ll take four years from your life and a few hundred thousand dollars out of your wallet in return for a bachelor’s degree that you only need because everyone else has one. Even the loftier ideals of spiritual and aesthetic edification have been supplanted by mandatory mediocrity under the guise of identity politics, a scourge felt in every aspect of campus life from student theater to activism.

https://spectator.org/higher-ed-must-evolve-or-die/

This guy gets it, and nailed it spot on.  I especially love his analogy of how academia has become a parasite. 

Back in my day, a degree meant something.  By the time I retired, some of the candidates I was reviewing for employment had  degrees weren't much more than a particpant trophy. 

Then add the fact, that a lot of academia is now basically a hotbed of left leaning brain dead zombied professors, who outside of tenure, would not have any jobs or function in society.

[EdinVA]

More than 1 million student loan borrowers each year go into default.
Outstanding education debt in the U.S. has tripled over the last decade and now exceeds $1.5 trillion, posing a greater burden to Americans than auto or credit card debt.For many, the payments are proving unmanageable. By 2023, nearly 40 percent of borrowers are expected to default on their student loans. That’s when a person has not made a payment toward their education debt in roughly a year, triggering it being sent to a third-party collection agency.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/13/twenty-two-percent-of-student-loan-borrowers-fall-into-default.html

[Fishrrman]

"Thanks to lockdowns, the industry is now teetering on the brink..."

I'd be happy to see this "industry" collapse altogether.

Perhaps then the remains could be restructured into a higher education system that was actually meaningful and productive...

[Absalom]

From Ancient Times till the Enlightenment, Man was self-tutored.
Then credentialed and structured education became the norm.
Compare the Art and Science Man produced from Eden to around
1750, to that which he produced after that; then ask the question.
Which time period produced far superior quality and results???