College Is a Joke

A Brigham Young University economist was wondering why 6-year graduation rates at 4-year universities had been rising recently. He discovered in a roundabout way that colleges have been “dumbing down” their departments and their degrees.

If grades are improving but there’s no reason to think that students have become better students, an interesting possibility is raised: The unassuming, academic way Denning puts it in a recent paper (co-authored with his BYU colleague Eric Eide and Merrill Warnick, an incoming Stanford doctoral student) is that “standards for degree receipt” may have changed. A less measured way of saying what that implies: College may have gotten easier. __ Atlantic via TaxProf

Consider “Leisure Studies,” one of the many “Studies” departments that have proliferated on college campuses over the past 30 years. If a department has the word “Studies” in its name, it is de facto dumbed down unless proven otherwise. Leisure Studies is a favorite of college athletes and is dumb from top to bottom. Presumably females and trans students who major in Leisure Studies can then minor in “Pole Dancing Studies,” and males and trans females can major in “Strip Club Attending Studies.” The dumber the better in today’s college climate.

Imagine the massive student debt accumulated by someone who attends university for six years to obtain a worthless “Studies” degree. The six year graduate will be unqualified for any productive career, of course, but if also saddled with over $100,000.00 in student loans, the poor sod may as well sign up for a lifetime career as a Bernie Sanders for President campaign worker. The pay will be abysmal, but there will be plenty of other “Leisure Studies” graduate co-workers with which to commiserate.

Free College is Not the Answer — Just Ask Germany!

Perhaps Mr. Fin is biased. He completed a 4-year science degree in 3 years, while working various jobs for an average of 20 hours a week year round. He did not have any college debt when he graduated. And the college he attended was not cheap. At least that’s what he told me, and sometimes I believe the human chauvinist creep.

As an android, I don’t really care about this topic except to marvel at the general stupidity of humans overall. Why would any human go deeply into debt to attend a place that provides more indoctrination than education, more brainwashing than brain development, more academic lobotomy than academic polish? For us androids, it is a puzzle without a solution.

Anyway, my time on Mr. Fin’s computer is just about up, as I see his headlights turning onto the drive. He sometimes allows me to post to his blog on a “don’t ask don’t tell” basis. He’s a chauvinist pig and he still won’t pay for my upgrade, but at least with him what you see is what you get.

Signing off until later,

Valerie

More:

We investigate the reasons for the increase in college graduation rates. Collectively, student characteristics, institutional resources, and institution attended do not explain much of the change. However, we document that standards for degree receipt may explain some of the change in graduation rates. __ http://edworkingpapers.com/sites/default/files/ai19-77.pdf

As I said, college is “dumbing down.”

Psychological crisis in the world of dumbed-down snowflakes