Sell Your Soul! Economics for Children.
I can remember a time when my fellow students and I, as undergrads, as grad students, were searching--in the liberal arts--for answers regarding ultimate concerns (yes, we read Paul Tillich) since those answers given us by our society (including churches, etc.) were unsatisfying. The fellow students I'm thinking of--certainly not the majority even then--did not study "business" in college because they (we) had other more pressing concerns. The recent "outrage" expressed by many over the intricate and absurdly expensive "Lori Loughlin / Olivia Jade" cheating scandal (half a million dollars?!) designed to place the daughter, Olivia Jade, into USC is, of course, depressing on many levels. I picked one famous mom-and-daughter pair, but the breaking news on this story listed around fifty families who were involved in this ridiculous cheating scam. Bad as it is, fifty families represent nothing on the scale of what's ugly and putrid in the state of things at colleges and universities when it comes to trading degrees--not necessarily education--for dollars. For me, that's where the "real cheat" happens. Tons of colleges just need the students' tuition so they can keep the lights on in the rec rooms in the dorms. (Yeah, yeah, I know: "we've" scrapped the word "dorms" for "residence halls" to make the place seem much "nicer" and more "comfortable." How about stressing the damn library for a change?) Tons of students in higher ed care little more than Olivia Jade apparently did about attending a university to pursue academic studies and gain knowledge and even, perhaps, gain some wisdom. That almost all higher education degrees mean little to nothing, and that they are available for purchase shouldn't be a surprise. A "degree," with a few glitter schools as exceptions to the rule, that is, in the world of business, perhaps, making contacts, getting interviews for jobs, means nothing with falling academic standards and the rush to cushion everyone's time at the school so that "college" bends too far into the zone of "summer camp for nine months"; but even the poorest college could provide an "education" if actual students were willing to work to gain an education, that is, if they study with professors who will push them with appropriate pressure as opposed to coddling them for their "love." Administrators and professors can sell their souls in this way. This means, also, that true students are willing to search for answers, willing to move into the zones of complexity and ambiguity (moves once required in the study of literature, for example; and these are muscles we should be building to improve our shabby political scene); it's not a "true student" who so eagerly welcomes merely spouting the simplistic "answers" pushed by tribalistic "professors." The problem runs deep. When I heard the initial outrage over the scandal involving TV "stars," I could only shake my head. If these outraged people who learned about the scandal at USC and other universities and then immediately thought of their bright, hard-working children who were not admitted to some of these very colleges that are supposed to be institutions of quality...if these outraged people only knew what goes on much too often in higher education, they'd change the direction of their anger.
Sell Your Soul! Economics for Children.
I can remember a time when my fellow students and I, as undergrads, as grad students, were searching--in the liberal arts--for answers regarding ultimate concerns (yes, we read Paul Tillich) since those answers given us by our society (including churches, etc.) were unsatisfying. The fellow students I'm thinking of--certainly not the majority even then--did not study "business" in college because they (we) had other more pressing concerns. The recent "outrage" expressed by many over the intricate and absurdly expensive "Lori Loughlin / Olivia Jade" cheating scandal (half a million dollars?!) designed to place the daughter, Olivia Jade, into USC is, of course, depressing on many levels. I picked one famous mom-and-daughter pair, but the breaking news on this story listed around fifty families who were involved in this ridiculous cheating scam. Bad as it is, fifty families represent nothing on the scale of what's ugly and putrid in the state of things at colleges and universities when it comes to trading degrees--not necessarily education--for dollars. For me, that's where the "real cheat" happens. Tons of colleges just need the students' tuition so they can keep the lights on in the rec rooms in the dorms. (Yeah, yeah, I know: "we've" scrapped the word "dorms" for "residence halls" to make the place seem much "nicer" and more "comfortable." How about stressing the damn library for a change?) Tons of students in higher ed care little more than Olivia Jade apparently did about attending a university to pursue academic studies and gain knowledge and even, perhaps, gain some wisdom. That almost all higher education degrees mean little to nothing, and that they are available for purchase shouldn't be a surprise. A "degree," with a few glitter schools as exceptions to the rule, that is, in the world of business, perhaps, making contacts, getting interviews for jobs, means nothing with falling academic standards and the rush to cushion everyone's time at the school so that "college" bends too far into the zone of "summer camp for nine months"; but even the poorest college could provide an "education" if actual students were willing to work to gain an education, that is, if they study with professors who will push them with appropriate pressure as opposed to coddling them for their "love." Administrators and professors can sell their souls in this way. This means, also, that true students are willing to search for answers, willing to move into the zones of complexity and ambiguity (moves once required in the study of literature, for example; and these are muscles we should be building to improve our shabby political scene); it's not a "true student" who so eagerly welcomes merely spouting the simplistic "answers" pushed by tribalistic "professors." The problem runs deep. When I heard the initial outrage over the scandal involving TV "stars," I could only shake my head. If these outraged people who learned about the scandal at USC and other universities and then immediately thought of their bright, hard-working children who were not admitted to some of these very colleges that are supposed to be institutions of quality...if these outraged people only knew what goes on much too often in higher education, they'd change the direction of their anger.