I had an interesting conversation the other day. Are Ivy League Schools immune from 4th Turnings?
It seems that our “educational” systems in this country carry on regardless of what happens in the world.
Look at most Ivy League schools (like Harvard, Princeton, Cornell, etc.), they’ve been around for centuries!
Including many previous “4th Turnings.”
Continue reading “Are Ivy League Schools immune from 4th turnings?”
Guest Post by Walter E. Williams
For many parents, August is a month of both pride and tears. Pride because their teenager is taking that big educational step and tears because for many it’s the beginning of an empty nest. Yet, there’s a going-away-to-college question that far too few parents ask or even contemplate: What will my youngster learn in college?
Authored by Andrew Moran via LibertyNation.com,
Generation Z is already learning from the millennial generation’s mistakes…
For years, millennials have scoffed at the notion of fixing someone else’s toilet, installing elevators, or cleaning a patient’s teeth. Instead, they wanted to get educated in lesbian dance theory, gender studies, and how white people and western civilization destroyed the world. As a result, student loan debt has surpassed the $1 trillion mark, the youth unemployment rate hovers around 9%, and the most tech-savvy and educated generation is delaying adulthood.
But their generational successors are not making the same mistakes, choosing to put in a good day’s work rather than whining on Twitter about how “problematic” the TV series Seinfeld was. It appears that young folks are paying attention to the wisdom of Mike Rowe, the American television host who has highlighted the benefits and importance of trade schools and blue-collar work – he has also made headlines for poking fun at man-babies and so-called Starbucks shelters.
Continue reading “What Gen Z Learned From Millennials: Skip College”
Submitted by Hardscrabble Farmer
Why a college degree is not a guarantee of future earnings and why the money spent on one can create more problems than the credential can solve.
It all became real the summer before my senior year of college. It was 2010, and my home phone still had a cord, which I wrapped around my fingers as I waited not-so-patiently for the apathetic representative on the other end to tell me the bad news about my student loan debt. My father was in front of me, his typically ruddy face redder than usual. “A 9.25 percent interest rate?” he yelled, “How can you put that on a kid?” It was clear he was worried, and he had every right to be — as the cosigner of my loans, my debt would be his responsibility, too.
The loan, ironically called a “Smart Option” loan, has a variable interest rate that fluctuates based on changes in the financial market — which may have been explained to me at the time (I truly don’t remember), but I know I didn’t fully grasp what that meant. Either way, neither of my parents wanted me to take it — I could tell that much. My mother didn’t even have to say it, as she sat wordlessly next to me on the couch. Like most working-class parents, she couldn’t fathom paying more than $30,000 a year for my education (let alone $60,000). My father, an electrician who worked nights driving Amtrak trains to put himself through trade school, only earned his associate’s degree in his mid-30s. My mother held a few random part-time jobs over the years while she devoted herself to raising my brother and me, but she never graduated from high school. The concept of attending a private college, let alone paying for it, was completely foreign to them. They wanted me to chase something bigger than they ever had access to. They just didn’t want “bigger” to mean drowning for the next 20 years in an all-consuming pile of debt.
Continue reading “I’ve Paid $18,000 To A $24,000 Student Loan, & I Still Owe $24,000”
By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com
My oldest graduated from college last weekend so my family and I attended the convocation for the College of Business on Friday and the commencement on Saturday. It was a great few days with us hosting a dinner party for family and friends at a restaurant in the lively college town after the ceremony; and followed by relaxation in and around the hotel pool later in the evening.
With the college courses taken during high school, my graduate finished a semester early with two majors and a minor, Magna Cum Laude (3.89 / 4.00 GPA), and with Honors (i.e. – through the Honors Program); plus, was nominated by the faculty to be a Convocation Student Marshal for the College of Business.
Amidst all of today’s ceaseless millennial bashing and never-ending doom porn, I was reminded this past weekend regarding the relevance of milestones, of personal achievement, and succession, against the larger cincture of generational gyrations; this current Fourth Turning in particular.
Over the past few years, individual wealth grew for all Americans. But that doesn’t mean everybody is on level ground. HowMuch.net’s graphic below shows the net worth disparity between racial groups, both with and without a college education.
Continue reading “Is Going To College Worth It? (Yes, If You’re White!)”
A flyer hung at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs by a self-described social justice group suggests veterans at four-year universities are a disruptive threat that should be banned from campus.
The flyer, put up at the public university Thursday by a group calling itself the “Social Justice Collective Weekly,” argued veterans openly mock safe spaces and diversity efforts, which violates the school’s mission.
The flyer, which used a newsletter-style format, added it is “frightening” for some students to have vets in their classes, describing former service members as “overwhelming” and a distraction. It also suggests the “military culture” is akin to a “white supremacist organization,” and that veterans are typically associated with “right-wing groups such as the tea party and NRA.”
Continue reading “Campus flyer: ‘Ban veterans from four-year universities’”
Dear ___,
You asked how college was when I was a kid, in the late Epicene, and what I thought of schools today. Herewith an answer which I will probably post on my website as I think the matter important:
Much has changed.
Long ago, before 1965 say, college was understood to be for the intelligent and academically prepared among the young, who would one day both provide leadership for the country and set the tone of society. Perhaps ten percent, but no more than twenty percent, of high-school graduates were thought to have any business on a campus.
It was elitist and deliberately so. Individuals and groups obviously differed in character and aptitude. The universities selected those students who could profit by the things done at universities.
Incoming freshmen were assumed to read with fluency and to know algebra cold. They did, because applicants were screened for these abilities by the SATs. These tests, not yet dumbed down, then measured a student’s ability to handle complex ideas expressed in complex literate English, this being what college students then did.
There were no remedial courses. If you needed them, you belonged somewhere else. The goal of college was learning, not social uplift.
Continue reading “College Then and Now: Letter to a Bright Young Woman”
Criminals and trouble makers = black people = justice involved individuals
Orwellian doublespeak in all its glory.
The Obama administration has ordered the nation’s colleges and universities to stop asking applicants about criminal and school disciplinary history because it discriminates against minorities. Institutions are also being asked to offer those with criminal records special support services such as counseling, mentoring and legal aid once enrolled. The government’s official term for these perspective students is “justice-involved individuals” and the new directive aims to remove barriers to higher education for the overwhelmingly minority population that’s had encounters with the law or disciplinary issues through high school.
Students meander toward graduation, taking courses that expose them to a little of everything and not much of anything
Getty ImagesOnce upon a time, when postwar industrial America was in full steam, a young person could leave school with basic skills and get a job that would support a family. That America is no more.
To succeed in today’s fast-changing, knowledge-based economy, young people need more skills than ever before. And the jobs that used to require work boots, a good set of tools, and a steady hand now require advanced math, science, and reading — and, typically, also a certificate or degree beyond a high school diploma.
Business leaders have long known this. But ample evidence suggests that many high schools have yet to fully grasp the reality of these new demands.
Despite widespread rhetoric around college and career-readiness for all students, just 8% of graduates from public high schools complete a full college- and career-preparatory course of study. Rates of college- and career-ready course-taking are consistently low across all student groups, according to The Education Trust’s new report, “Meandering Toward Graduation: Transcript Outcomes of High School Graduates.”
Continue reading “47% of high school grads aren’t prepared for college”
COLORADO SPRINGS, CO—Saying the turn of events will greatly benefit the 17-year-old’s economic security, sources confirmed Friday that local high school senior Emily Harrison’s failure to get into the University of Southern California, a private academic institution, will be the single most financially responsible act of her entire life. According to reports, Harrison’s rejected application, which she spent weeks preparing in hopes of spending four years at her “dream school,” will save the young student a total of nearly $370,000, including $205,768 in tuition, $3,714 in fees, $57,392 in room and board, and $101,670 in student loan interest payments. The rejection, which led a visibly devastated Harrison to agonize over whether she should have participated in more extracurricular activities or obtained additional letters of recommendation, will reportedly allow her to avoid a period of 10 years or more in which she would have struggled to repay her loans, inevitably racking up credit card debt to cover basic necessities and ultimately leaving her unable to buy a home. Sources said the teen will still face financial disaster if she follows through on her long-term plan to enter a PhD program, which would require her to spend approximately one-fifth of her adult life bringing in little to no income.
A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat, and was very much in favor of the redistribution of wealth.
She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch Republican, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his.
One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the addition of more government welfare programs. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father. He responded by asking how she was doing in school.
Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn’t even have time for a boyfriend, and didn’t really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying.
Guest Post by The Lonely Libertarian
If you’re forced to pay school taxes, then you should have a voice in what programs are offered. My old high school started phasing out vocational programs in the mid-90s and was very proud of being named one of Texas’ premier college prep schools. The problem was, in the following decade, they saw a rapid increase in drop-outs. They were shocked, SHOCKED, and immediately launched a committee to study the issue. One of my classmates, Gary Crabtree owner and master mechanic of Crabtree Automotive, was included as he was considered a successful businessman and graduate. Nothing was mentioned about the fact that he spends his time, under hoods and on creepers, covered in grease fixing the cars of bankers, doctors and lawyers. He was a “businessman”.
In their first committee meeting, Gary brought up the issue that not all students were cut out for college, their interests and aptitudes were in the vocational arts which the school district decided to ax due to “budget” and “lack of interest”. He pointed out that forcing a teenager who wanted to work on HVAC unit to study Shakespeare and calculus was like making a fish climb a tree because that’s evolution. Around 2009, vocational programs started making a comeback in the local schools. Programs were designed in partnership with local community college to offer dual enrollment for not only academic classes, but also vocational programs. Now you can graduate high school with most of the work done for a CNA, paramedic/EMT, plumber’s apprentice, automotive, diesel, etc. Enrollment and matriculation is back up. Success is about more than GPAs and how many students get accepted to tier 1 colleges. It’s about preparing ALL students for life, regardless of the path they choose.
Ronald Reagan was president the last time those on the right outnumbered those on the left
College students have a reputation for being liberal, but first-year students haven’t described themselves as this liberal by this measure since 1973, when the Vietnam War was winding down and the draft was ended.
Some 33.5% of students described themselves as liberal or far left, compared with 31.7% in 2014 and 29.6% in 2012, UCLA’s annual CIRP survey of first-time, full-time freshmen found. In 1973, the total was 36.4%.
On the other side of the political spectrum, 21.6% described themselves as conservative or far right, slightly more than the 21% that said so in 2014. In 1973, 14.9% described themselves that way, the survey found.
The last time those on the right outnumbered those on the left among college freshmen was in 1981, just after Ronald Reagan was elected president. Among the shrinking plurality that describes themselves as middle of road, more have shifted liberal than conservative since then.
Continue reading “College freshmen haven’t been this liberal since the Vietnam War”
