Comments on: Their overriding goal is not enlightenment

By: Scott

Scott — Mon, 18 Mar 2019 23:20:35 +0000

Albert Jay Nock figured this out 90 years ago.

https://mises.org/library/theory-education-united-states-0

By: CVLR

CVLR — Mon, 18 Mar 2019 05:13:36 +0000

Graham: “I always wondered, do universities police the number and type of people who audit classes? If so, how? Do you have to get written permission?”

Probably not. If you didn’t look entirely out of place, no one in admin or security would even notice. Verbal assent from the prof, probably enough.

By: Bill

Bill — Sat, 16 Mar 2019 22:51:47 +0000

I discovered an ominous trend when looking at US News college rankings yesterday (I was curious about USC). It turns out that the ranking system now promotes not only diversity on campus, but also graduation diversity.

In other words, it is no longer enough for colleges to give the opportunity to a more diverse group of students. The new algorithm only rewards the desired outcome, which is more diverse diploma holders.

This would be the “guaranteed outcome” problem we’ve all been worrying about.

By: Graham

Graham — Sat, 16 Mar 2019 21:51:49 +0000

I always wondered, do universities police the number and type of people who audit classes? If so, how? Do you have to get written permission?

By: TRX

TRX — Sat, 16 Mar 2019 06:11:24 +0000

What many people have a hard time understanding is that the “education” part of a Name college degree is valueless. Many of them put their entire curricula online, or you can show up in person and audit classes for free. You get the exact same education, but you don’t get the diploma.

That’s because colleges aren’t in the business of selling education, they’re in the business of selling diplomas. They restrict access to justify higher prices.

By: Adar

Adar — Fri, 15 Mar 2019 16:19:46 +0000

Schooling in the scholastic system, learned in the classics a thing long gone. Was used however until relatively recently even in universities such as Harvard. A knowledge of Latin, Greek, even Hebrew a requirement. Gone forever?

By: Say What?

Say What? — Fri, 15 Mar 2019 12:28:52 +0000

College was supposed to be about learning, cultivation, understanding one’s civilization, then preserving and adding to it. It was not meant to be a job certification center. Employers, businesses and general labor-mania have destroyed the “City of the Mind.” I highly doubt that all of this is necessary for the workforce, and said workforce protests a bit too much if this is brought up. We need a separation of education and work. Stop making people go to college who don’t belong there, school is for math, history, languages and the like. Stop letting the market infiltrate every aspect of life. The entire social system of the current west needs to be radically overhauled.

By: Graham

Graham — Fri, 15 Mar 2019 00:19:22 +0000

Well history was my passion and best subject from childhood. Thank goodness I got to study it at university level in the last days before the end.

I tend to think all the stuff one is taught in public and high school is to:

1. See if anything catches your fancy enough that it fires your imagination, you can be a real student of it, or at least one day use it at work or as a citizen. It’s all about student identification and possible direction here.

2. Give you some sense of just how much there is to know that you do not know, that you might want to tackle some of it, or at least come away with a sobering sense of your own ignorance.

3. Give you a corresponding sense of how much humanity in aggregate has learned, and the sense you can partake of as much or as little as you can, so that you know that despite #2, much can be learned and has been, and it’s available to you to take what you can handle. TO give you some sense of possibility.

Naturally, schools do not seem to think of it this way, or provide a realistic range to a realistic range of kids, what with the all go to college mindset. But I’d hate to have some of the more academic stuff removed from the menu off the bat. Not unless we really are ending liberal democracy.

Like progressives, I don’t want to be governed by the clueless. We just disagree on who they are.