This week, Columbia Law School
students demanded—and got—delayed
exams to compensate for the trauma the fragile things
experienced over the Eric Garner case. Also in response to the
Garner case, Smith College President Kathleen McCartney
had to apologize for insisting that “All Lives Matter” when the
acceptable sentiment of the moment is that
“black lives matter.” And at the University of Iowa,
David Ryfe, director of the School of Journalism and Mass
Communication, insisted “I would follow the lead of every European
nation and ban this type of speech” after an
anti-racism art installation misfired and upset students who
are defintely not spending years of their lives at an institution
of higher learning to have their ideas challenged or their feelings
bruised.
If this was all, it would still be enough reason for me to start
contemplating just how much motorcycle my kid’s 529 can buy. But of
course there’s more. College, after all, is where Rolling
Stone
went dumpster-diving in eager expectation of finding seamy
tales of sexual assault, and instead unearthed the revelation that
students dipping their toes into adulhood are unpredictable,
perhaps unstable—and that its own journalistic practices suck.
And those students (and their families) pay a pretty penny to be
treated as delicate flowers prone to tantrums while navigating a
sexual minefield. As I
noted a few months ago, “When I was a college freshman in 1983,
average tuition, fees, room and board at private, nonprofit
colleges added up to $18,143 in 2013 dollars. This year, that
number has risen to $40,917. Public colleges are cheaper than their
private counterparts, but they’ve seen similar soaring costs.”
Government policies encouraging easy borrowing and subsidized
repayment for college students put wings under these soaring
costs.
“The basic problem is simple,” wrote the Cato Institute’s Neal
McCluskey at
U.S. News & World Report. ” Give everyone $100 to
pay for higher education and colleges will raise their prices by
$100, negating the value of the aid.”
The sheepskin at the end of that expensive ordeal (and gauntlet
of inoffensiveness) is still worth the time and money for many
graduates—a declining number. “Not all degrees are equally useful,”
noted The Economist in April. “And given how much they
cost—a residential four-year degree can set you back as much as
$60,000 a year—many students end up worse off than if they had
started working at 18.”
That expense now includes marinating in a culture of
politically correct weirdness from which graduates must be
deprogrammed by employers in the real world into which they
inevitably emerge. At what point do those employers say, “screw it,
hiring University of Iowa/Smith/Columbia Law graduates is more of a
pain in the ass than it’s worth?”
And at what point to students and families start looking for
alternatives to what’s turned into a spendy excursion through
Bizarroland?
Instapundit Glenn Reynolds thinks the higher education bubble is
already popping. He
told Reason TV, “Given how expensive it is to go to college,
there has to be a return sufficient to make it worth the time and
especially the money. You’re seeing declining enrollment in some
schools and you’re seeing much more price resistance on the part of
both parents and students.”
In fact, enrollment has
declined for two years in a row.
Keep that decline coming—and driving demand for higher education
alternatives with more competitive price tags and a closer
connection to the real world. Cuz I’m looking at that 529, and I
see a new motorcycle in my future.
from Hit & Run http://ift.tt/1BfRXjY
via IFTTT