Friday, August 22, 2008

Make college mean something

Can a college degree mean anything if everyone gets one? To merely ask the question is to risk eliciting an anathema from the Egalitarian Inquisition. Shouldn't everyone have equal access to higher education? Shouldn't education be the common right of everyone in a democratic society?

Well, sort of.

The problem, however, is that there are people going to college who have no business being in college. I see it all the time: a student who is simply not a good student and who does not possess an education that should qualify him to get into any college worth its name applies to the state college, gets in, and four years later graduates not an appreciably better student nor any more noticeably educated than when he was accepted in the first place.

And that person's degree has the same title as mine: "bachelor's degree". I have known functional illiterates who have graduated from college. It just shouldn't be.

Now Charles Murray is taking on the Religion of Education. I hope he wins.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Larry Moran agrees with you, Martin.

Lee said...

Apparently, the fellow at the other end of the link thinks that calling some an "IDiot" is an argument.

Anonymous said...

No, Larry is making the same point that Martin does - some people don't belong in college.

Do you agree with these two?