JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: DEVELOPMENTS IN AMERICAN HIGHER EDUCATION OVER THE LAST 40 YEARS OR SO HELP EXPLAIN AN AUTHOR'S CONCERNS OVER THE UNIMPRESSIVE QUALITY OF A GOOD MANY AMERICAN ACADEMICS

John Chuckman


COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN RUSSIA INSIDER



“Neurotic and Dishonest Pseudo-Intellectuals Have Infested Academia, the Media, and the Medical Profession” 



Yes, and the truth is American post-high school education has experienced a huge, value-destroying inflation over the last 40 years or so.

Everyone wanted their kids, whether suited or not by ability, to be "college graduates," so government and institutions accommodated them.

New institutions were built, often rather marginal ones.

New staff were hired, again often rather marginal ones.

New programs of study were added, many with very little academic rigor or even prospects for generating future employment - examples: film studies, women's studies, aboriginal studies, television studies, communications, media studies, plus many more.

Standards for admission were steadily lowered so more "live bodies"" paying fees could be obtained.

The nation's high schools, under the same pressures, lowered standards and made it easy to graduate.

With many almost unqualified freshmen in the nation's colleges, standards started dropping in the colleges too.

And the US has always had the anti-academic system of giving places to athletes, even when they are simply not qualified for academic study. An excellent documentary film of some years ago called "Hoop Dreams" beautifully illustrates that.

The athletes help bring in money from alumni in various homecoming and fund-raising events. They are paid with scholarships instead of money.

The entire set of developments kept a lot of young folks off a declining job market too for significant time periods.

It has all become very corrupt, as so many things in America have, and much of it has almost nothing to do with classical higher education.

There are some schools which resist the trends, hoping to benefit from special reputation, and they do, often being extremely expensive places to go, but they do not characterize the whole system.

Pretty hard in general to keep any institution from being corrupted in a corrupt society.