(08-06-2016 09:43 AM)usmbacker Wrote:  Should have happened long ago. But it’s the only thing these schools will understand, pull the money.

Quote:The social justice warriors making noise on campus are also making an impact on alumni. The NY Times reports some older, successful alumni are pulling back on donations because they are so turned off with what they see happening on their former campuses:

A backlash from alumni is an unexpected aftershock of the campus disruptions of the last academic year. Although fund-raisers are still gauging the extent of the effect on philanthropy, some colleges — particularly small, elite liberal arts institutions — have reported a decline in donations, accompanied by a laundry list of complaints.

Alumni from a range of generations say they are baffled by today’s college culture. Among their laments: Students are too wrapped up in racial and identity politics. They are allowed to take too many frivolous courses. They have repudiated the heroes and traditions of the past by judging them by today’s standards rather than in the context of their times. Fraternities are being unfairly maligned, and men are being demonized by sexual assault investigations. And university administrations have been too meek in addressing protesters whose messages have seemed to fly in the face of free speech.
Scott MacConnell, who graduated from Amherst in 1960, is registering his discontent with campus culture by writing the school out of his will:

"More important, because of the lack of an adequate core curriculum, English majors and even MAs graduate without ever having read a Victorian novel or a Romantic poem. One has to begin every class, whatever its theme, with a potted history lesson, because one cannot take for granted that students know when the World Wars or the American civil war occurred, or when Socrates lived or Shakespeare wrote. But all of them know the laundry list of ideas that should offend them. And all they can really write about is their own limited lives. As one colleague of mine says, the educational system is highly successful – it set out to inculcate self-esteem and it has done so.”

http://hotair.com/archives/2016/08/05/alumni-cancel-donations-over-social-justice-warrior-protests/

(08-06-2016 02:51 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  Americans' appalling ignorance of history is not new. It's been an afterthought in high school and college curricula for generations.

I'm more concerned about US universities becoming glorified trade schools, where the purpose of education is to get a good job, not to learn.

(08-06-2016 06:12 PM)owl95 Wrote:  

(08-06-2016 02:51 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  Americans' appalling ignorance of history is not new. It's been an afterthought in high school and college curricula for generations.

I'm more concerned about US universities becoming glorified trade schools, where the purpose of education is to get a good job, not to learn.

Actually my concern is almost the opposite, there is a huge difference in ROI between taking a degree in a "money" profession, ie something you can come out of college with and have an actual career doing vs a frivolous degree that gets you a job at Starbucks, but with the same student debt. I don't think young people today are being given enough awareness of this while in school to make a an educated choice.

(08-06-2016 06:12 PM)owl95 Wrote:  

(08-06-2016 02:51 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  Americans' appalling ignorance of history is not new. It's been an afterthought in high school and college curricula for generations.

I'm more concerned about US universities becoming glorified trade schools, where the purpose of education is to get a good job, not to learn.

Actually my concern is almost the opposite, there is a huge difference in ROI between taking a degree in a "money" profession, ie something you can come out of college with and have an actual career doing vs a frivolous degree that gets you a job at Starbucks, but with the same student debt. I don't think young people today are being given enough awareness of this while in school to make a an educated choice.

(08-06-2016 07:15 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  

(08-06-2016 06:12 PM)owl95 Wrote:  

(08-06-2016 02:51 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  Americans' appalling ignorance of history is not new. It's been an afterthought in high school and college curricula for generations.

I'm more concerned about US universities becoming glorified trade schools, where the purpose of education is to get a good job, not to learn.

Actually my concern is almost the opposite, there is a huge difference in ROI between taking a degree in a "money" profession, ie something you can come out of college with and have an actual career doing vs a frivolous degree that gets you a job at Starbucks, but with the same student debt. I don't think young people today are being given enough awareness of this while in school to make a an educated choice.

"Education" =/= "career", at least once upon a time. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, then that's exactly the problem.

(08-06-2016 03:30 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  It has appeared to me that Rice has only bent to the will of the overly PC crowd (or, should I say tried to avoid them) with regards to O-Week, where they started pushing for certain activities to be banned/discontinued (dumping water on students during a group picture, jumping in the Herman Park fountain, to name a few)...

(08-06-2016 08:46 PM)owl95 Wrote:  

(08-06-2016 07:15 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  

(08-06-2016 06:12 PM)owl95 Wrote:  

(08-06-2016 02:51 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  Americans' appalling ignorance of history is not new. It's been an afterthought in high school and college curricula for generations.

I'm more concerned about US universities becoming glorified trade schools, where the purpose of education is to get a good job, not to learn.

Actually my concern is almost the opposite, there is a huge difference in ROI between taking a degree in a "money" profession, ie something you can come out of college with and have an actual career doing vs a frivolous degree that gets you a job at Starbucks, but with the same student debt. I don't think young people today are being given enough awareness of this while in school to make a an educated choice.

"Education" =/= "career", at least once upon a time. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, then that's exactly the problem.

And we have over $1.2 Trillion in student debt in the US to prove your point exactly. I took sociology and history classes at Rice because I like those subjects, but I knew I wasn't going to make a living in them. If you are worried that Americans are generally pretty ignorant across a variety of subjects, it's not because it wasn't covered in school, it's because the average American doesn't care enough to retain the information in their brains. When surveys show that Americans can't name the 8 planets in our Solar System or recall the dates of the Civil War, do you honestly think it's because no teacher ever taught it to them in class?

(08-06-2016 11:35 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  

(08-06-2016 08:46 PM)owl95 Wrote:  

(08-06-2016 02:51 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  Americans' appalling ignorance of history is not new. It's been an afterthought in high school and college curricula for generations.
...

... If you are worried that Americans are generally pretty ignorant across a variety of subjects, it's not because it wasn't covered in school, it's because the average American doesn't care enough to retain the information in their brains. When surveys show that Americans can't name the 8 planets in our Solar System or recall the dates of the Civil War, do you honestly think it's because no teacher ever taught it to them in class?

Actually, yes. In my high school history was taught by the least-qualified teachers. But my point was more to your POV - an education that doesn't lead to a "'money' profession is "frivolous."

(08-06-2016 11:35 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  Actually, yes. In my high school history was taught by the least-qualified teachers. But my point was more to your POV - an education that doesn't lead to a "'money' profession is "frivolous."

(08-06-2016 10:20 PM)JOwl Wrote:  

(08-06-2016 03:30 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  It has appeared to me that Rice has only bent to the will of the overly PC crowd (or, should I say tried to avoid them) with regards to O-Week, where they started pushing for certain activities to be banned/discontinued (dumping water on students during a group picture, jumping in the Herman Park fountain, to name a few)...

That's interesting, I remember the Lovett masters discontinuing the water-during-pictures thing at least 20 years ago during O-Week. One of the black girls had straightened hair, which apparently gets seriously messed up by water. As an analogy, imagine all the O-Week advisors having everyone out on their absolute best clothes, and the experience that would be for the folks in suede, silk, etc. Didn't feel like an overreaction when it was explained to me.

(08-07-2016 08:45 AM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  

(08-06-2016 10:20 PM)JOwl Wrote:  

(08-06-2016 03:30 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  It has appeared to me that Rice has only bent to the will of the overly PC crowd (or, should I say tried to avoid them) with regards to O-Week, where they started pushing for certain activities to be banned/discontinued (dumping water on students during a group picture, jumping in the Herman Park fountain, to name a few)...

That's interesting, I remember the Lovett masters discontinuing the water-during-pictures thing at least 20 years ago during O-Week. One of the black girls had straightened hair, which apparently gets seriously messed up by water. As an analogy, imagine all the O-Week advisors having everyone out on their absolute best clothes, and the experience that would be for the folks in suede, silk, etc. Didn't feel like an overreaction when it was explained to me.

I went through Lovett O-Week a couple years ago and they dumped water on us then.. Must have been a short-lived ban.

(08-07-2016 09:43 AM)cr11owl Wrote:  

(08-07-2016 08:45 AM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  

(08-06-2016 10:20 PM)JOwl Wrote:  

(08-06-2016 03:30 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  It has appeared to me that Rice has only bent to the will of the overly PC crowd (or, should I say tried to avoid them) with regards to O-Week, where they started pushing for certain activities to be banned/discontinued (dumping water on students during a group picture, jumping in the Herman Park fountain, to name a few)...

That's interesting, I remember the Lovett masters discontinuing the water-during-pictures thing at least 20 years ago during O-Week. One of the black girls had straightened hair, which apparently gets seriously messed up by water. As an analogy, imagine all the O-Week advisors having everyone out on their absolute best clothes, and the experience that would be for the folks in suede, silk, etc. Didn't feel like an overreaction when it was explained to me.

I went through Lovett O-Week a couple years ago and they dumped water on us then.. Must have been a short-lived ban.

Think Sid ended it in 2010 for the same reason, now they use silly string. Also ended the root beer keg that accompanied mock beer bike because it might be considered "hazing". I figured if a kid was smart enough to get into Rice they could distinguish between that and real hazing but these days all it takes is one complaint.

(08-07-2016 08:08 AM)owl95 Wrote:  

(08-06-2016 11:35 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  Actually, yes. In my high school history was taught by the least-qualified teachers. But my point was more to your POV - an education that doesn't lead to a "'money' profession is "frivolous."

I should not have used the term frivolous, but when education puts a 21 year old $200K in debt, it's something the student should enter into with eyes wide open instead of being sold a fairy tale. That was my original point, that my concern is colleges have sold an entire generation on fairy tales to generate the $1.2 T in student debt, most of which happened within the last 20 years.

(08-07-2016 11:00 AM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  It all comes back to the notion of a college education being the means to a successful career, not education for its own sake.

(08-07-2016 11:00 AM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  

(08-07-2016 08:08 AM)owl95 Wrote:  

(08-06-2016 11:35 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  Actually, yes. In my high school history was taught by the least-qualified teachers. But my point was more to your POV - an education that doesn't lead to a "'money' profession is "frivolous."

I should not have used the term frivolous, but when education puts a 21 year old $200K in debt, it's something the student should enter into with eyes wide open instead of being sold a fairy tale. That was my original point, that my concern is colleges have sold an entire generation on fairy tales to generate the $1.2 T in student debt, most of which happened within the last 20 years.

The fairy tale is that a diploma - any diploma - guarantees a good career. Believing that, students with a lack of will or aptitude choose majors that are truly frivolous, just to get the piece of paper, and too many universities happily take their money. There's nothing frivolous about a history degree from a university with a well-regarded history program, but it's easier to get an area studies degree cobbled together from survey-level history and social sciences courses. That, coupled with open disparagement of those who pursue a trade or craft as having settled for a menial profession, leads to kids working at Starbucks to pay off a huge debt because they're too proud - or ashamed - to make six figures as a plumber.

It all comes back to the notion of a college education being the means to a successful career, not education for its own sake.

(08-07-2016 11:25 AM)GoodOwl Wrote:  

(08-07-2016 11:00 AM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  

(08-07-2016 08:08 AM)owl95 Wrote:  

(08-06-2016 11:35 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  Actually, yes. In my high school history was taught by the least-qualified teachers. But my point was more to your POV - an education that doesn't lead to a "'money' profession is "frivolous."

I should not have used the term frivolous, but when education puts a 21 year old $200K in debt, it's something the student should enter into with eyes wide open instead of being sold a fairy tale. That was my original point, that my concern is colleges have sold an entire generation on fairy tales to generate the $1.2 T in student debt, most of which happened within the last 20 years.

The fairy tale is that a diploma - any diploma - guarantees a good career. Believing that, students with a lack of will or aptitude choose majors that are truly frivolous, just to get the piece of paper, and too many universities happily take their money. There's nothing frivolous about a history degree from a university with a well-regarded history program, but it's easier to get an area studies degree cobbled together from survey-level history and social sciences courses. That, coupled with open disparagement of those who pursue a trade or craft as having settled for a menial profession, leads to kids working at Starbucks to pay off a huge debt because they're too proud - or ashamed - to make six figures as a plumber.

It all comes back to the notion of a college education being the means to a successful career, not education for its own sake.

There are many people who are plumbers, HVAC professionals, electricians etc... who end up having much more stable and satisfying 'careers' and make a lot more than many college grads these days--without all the debt. I understand good welders are very difficult to find these days.

I know a guy who dropped out of university to start a valet parking business and his parents went crazy--until he bought them a house in cash after he'd expanded his business and made several million. Or guys who start in construction in the summers and go on to be builders.

My point is, college is great and valuable experience but in no way the only means to success in this country. I agree that rationally evaluating whether that specific degree will actually lead to reasonable job and factoring inn the level of debt one incurs in order to get that degree is something many do not do. You don't hear about co-op students very much these days either.

One huge problem is that because of massive increases in the number and amounts of Government loans and grants available, many act as is college is free or near free. Now we have people running for high office promising to make this so. If the government stopped artificially inflating and subsidizing college costs, most colleges and universities would have to drop their prices back down to reasonably affordable levels without putting many students in massive debt to start their after-college work careers, if they can even get a job. A few of the traditionally elite colleges, Rice being one, might well have higher costs and keep them there, as there would always be competition for the best and the brightest, so supply and demand would allow them to continue to charge more, but even they would probably drop prices some if the artificial government interference was dropped.

The quote in the OP about wealthy alumni who are fed up with the level of SJW indoctrination and are reducing or eliminating giving to their schools points to this idea. When students who freely agree to take loans and incur massive debt to get degrees in subjects that in few ways allow them to pay those debts back, then on top of it when they outright demand those debts be just wiped away with no consequences for their decision, because "it should be free," well, Houston we have a problem.

This is the fundamental problem with the viewpoint that governement should just pay for everything instead of allowing individual responsibility and a merit-based system.

Watch Neil Cavuto embarrass this naive SJW who has zero idea of what reality is in a recent interview:

(08-07-2016 11:00 AM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  

(08-07-2016 08:08 AM)owl95 Wrote:  

(08-06-2016 11:35 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  Actually, yes. In my high school history was taught by the least-qualified teachers. But my point was more to your POV - an education that doesn't lead to a "'money' profession is "frivolous."

I should not have used the term frivolous, but when education puts a 21 year old $200K in debt, it's something the student should enter into with eyes wide open instead of being sold a fairy tale. That was my original point, that my concern is colleges have sold an entire generation on fairy tales to generate the $1.2 T in student debt, most of which happened within the last 20 years.

The fairy tale is that a diploma - any diploma - guarantees a good career. Believing that, students with a lack of will or aptitude choose majors that are truly frivolous, just to get the piece of paper, and too many universities happily take their money. There's nothing frivolous about a history degree from a university with a well-regarded history program, but it's easier to get an area studies degree cobbled together from survey-level history and social sciences courses. That, coupled with open disparagement of those who pursue a trade or craft as having settled for a menial profession, leads to kids working at Starbucks to pay off a huge debt because they're too proud - or ashamed - to make six figures as a plumber.