printBy Myron Robert Pauli
President Obama has proposed making college education free for everybody. It used to be considered that college education was for people with IQ in excess of 110 – e.g. 20% of the population; however, the solution to that problem is, of course, to dumb down college. Apparently, college reading levels are now at the 7th grade level [1]. It is interesting to see what was required for completion of 8th grade in “lowly” Kentucky with the modern curriculum [2]. I would hardly be surprised if Masters Students were reading “Run Spot Run” in 2015.
There are still a few isolated spots of higher education left. I have admiration for serious students of “fine arts” who wish to be next Vladimir Horowitz or Enrico Caruso. Aside from the Church of Global Warming, political correctness has often left the hard sciences and engineering alone. Here is a sample of the 61 graduate students studying Materials Science at Columbia University [3]: Cao, Chang, Chen, Chen, Chen, Chuang, Duan, Gao, …, Li, Li, Li, Liang, Liao, Lin, Lin, 3 Lius! , Lu, Lu, Luan, … ,7 Wangs!, Wong, Xu, Xu, Yang, Yang, Ye, Yue, Zhang, Zhang, Zhao, Zhen, Zhen, Zheng, Zhong, Zhou. Those damn Xu’s are running things! Affirmative action means that for every 2 students from Shanghai, one is chosen from Beijing!
Arguably, many of our enlightenment-era leaders such as Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Hamilton received a thorough “liberal arts” education which included history, philosophy, the sciences, geography, logic, and literature classics such as Homer and Shakespeare. But a few blocks away from the Chens and Wangs working on understanding nature and producing products, Columbia is also teaching English [4]. Check out the link to find that in our “top 10 University”, the kids/parents/taxpayers shelling out over $200,000 are paying for courses in LGBT Lit (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender), “Clarissa”, “Frankenstein”, “Postmodern Poetries”, and “Medieval Women Adventurers” (and G-d knows what junk is even in the normal-sounding offerings?).
Remember that the English Department is a “classical” department. How about Ivy League University of Pennsylvania’s course offerings in the “Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies [5]? I guess you can first earn a Bachelors in Bitchery and rise higher with a Masters in Male-Hating and a Doctorate of Dyking.
Here is what passes for advanced Social Sciences “Research” at elite Cornell University: “Network Evolution and the Beauty Advantage”, “Innovation Through Imitation”, and “Failing to See or Failing to Seize Opportunities to Build Social Capital? The Role of Neuroticism” [6]. I’m NOT making phony Ivy League websites!!!! No sense picking on the “second rate” schools who merely follow in the footsteps of the elite.
Recently, there was an academic “scandal” involving the football and basketball players at the (30th ranked nationally) University of North Carolina [7]. The “scandal” is that talented players like Julius Peppers did not actually “attend the classes” of moronic phony parasitical blowhards like faux-Injun Ward Churchill [8]. In other words, guys like Michael Jordan did not sit and watch Lone Ranger and Tonto re-runs. Can anyone seriously tell me that ATTENDING seminars in “White People Really Really Suck” is a productive use of anyone’s time? Failing to attend is a “scandal”?!!
Sure, send EVERYONE to college [9]! Why not??! Here is a one minute advanced look at an elite American university education in the 22nd Century. When I was 11, I read “Planet of the Apes” by Pierre Boule mistaking it for fiction instead of prophesy. And I am talking about white Americans also – they are merely following in the politically correct footsteps as their minority brothers and sisters.
REFERENCES
[1] http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/education/item/19867-education-expert-says-college-freshmen-read-at-7th-grade-level
[2] http://www.bullittcountyhistory.com/bchistory/schoolexam1912.html
[3] http://matsci.columbia.edu/materials-science-engineering-graduate-students_6653
[4] http://english.columbia.edu/files/english/content/Spring%202015%20Course%20Distribution%20Vrs%202.4.pdf
[5] http://www.sas.upenn.edu/gsws/pc/term/2015A/GSWS
[6] http://sdl.soc.cornell.edu/research
[7] http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaab/acc/2012/12/20/north-carolina-basketball-football-julius-peppers/1782113/
[8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Churchill
[9] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonzo_Goes_to_College
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Barely a Blog (BAB) contributor Myron Pauli grew up in Sunnyside Queens, went off to college in Cleveland and then spent time in a mental institution in Cambridge MA (MIT) with Benjamin Netanyahu (did not know him), and others until he was released with the “hostages” and Jimmy Carter on January 20, 1981, having defended his dissertation in nuclear physics. Most of the time since, he has worked on infrared sensors, mainly at Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC. He was NOT named after Ron Paul but is distantly related to physicist Wolftgang Pauli; unfortunately, only the “good looks” were handed down and not the brains. He writes assorted song lyrics and essays reflecting his cynicism and classical liberalism. Click on the “BAB’s A List” category to access the Pauli archive.