Darwin writes here about how everyone’s getting a college degree these days, and the economic consequences. I was going to leave a comment, but I finally just decided to hit the ‘like’ button and be done with it.
Mr. Magundi laments the consequences of collegization for communities, but offers a hopeful solution:
We have raised the price of higher education to the point where it may simply be ruinous even for comfortably well-off families. And so we may end up abandoning the university system as we’ve built it up, in favor of a system where we stay home for most of our higher education, perhaps in community colleges, or in some similar institution we haven’t thought of yet. Educated people might get in the habit of thinking of the place where they grew up as home. And in spite of the disadvantages to Harvard and Cornell, I think that might be a very good thing.”
Am I the only one horrified that you can’t get a decent catholic college education without taking out a mortgage on your life? Though I think charities such as Mater Ecclesiae Fund have their hearts (and wallets) in the right place, I find it frankly predatory that catholic colleges will load students up with such levels of debt to begin with.
Yes, I meant that.
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Meanwhile, Public Discourse is running this essay. The gist: the political science education offered in the Ivy League in the 1990’s let ideology get in the way of reliable scholarship — to the detriment of the State Department today. Well, funny about that. Because those of us getting our int’l poly-sci degrees from Backwater State U, we were studying under some of these guys. Taking courses like “Islam, Politics and Revolution”.
–> And happily for the State Department, some our grads found their way to Washington. So not all is lost. Most of us local-U grads grow up to be, well, locals. But we let loose a tithe of our debt-free adventurers, to go assist our better-indoctrinated educated brethren up north.
So if our government should get something right, you know who to thank.
Just kidding. Sort of.