College can be well worthwhile and not all areas are hopelessly political. It does not have to be all that expensive. Students should be both smart and disciplined - and they should look at starting their college work while in high school via one of the college in high school / running start programs. This cuts the cost. ROTC can cut the cost for the period at the university. Just the college in high school approach can cut the cost in half.
Choose an appropriate major and make sure that you learn some employable skills along the way - those skills may get you your first job. As for political bias on campus - choose your major. Engineering and some of the business areas are far less political than anthropology et al. Ditto many of the STEM fields.
There were a number of working class students in my daughter's civil engineering classes, many with military backgrounds. They commonly chose construction as their specialty area. Probably a good match for their backgrounds, and nowhere as mathematically demanding as specialty such as structures.
Note that smart is really a requirement for some fields, average IQ's of some fields are well above 115 IQ. 50 Years ago the average IQ of college grads was ~ 115, now it is much closer to 100 (average). College offers more choices and opportunities to the smarter students.
Mr. Cox, your argument might be right that affordability and job preparation are the largest reasons for the decrease in positive evaluations of college educations, but to say "there’s not much evidence of indoctrination on campuses" is absurd. Haven't you seen the analyses of syllabi, showing ample coverage of leftist perspectives but almost no coverage of conservative ones on the same topics? Haven''t you seen the many universities that require courses in DEI, gender, race, and other topics beloved of the left, but few outside military academies requiring courses in military history, economics, the Constitution, or other right-coded areas? Of course professors don't see the bias, because they share it. Yes, affordability of college and preparation for well-paying jobs are big problems, but so is political bias: Why deny one to boost the other?
There is certainly substantial political bias on many campuses—the lopsided nature of faculty political affiliations almost makes it unavoidable—but I don't believe this is the same as indoctrination. I fundamentally agree on the need for ideological diversity on campus and openness to different perspectives. I argue as much in the piece.
If syllabi that include only leftist perspectives don't count as indoctrination, what does? What evidence would meet your criteria for indoctrination?
I also don't agree that lopsided political affiliations make political bias unavoidable. I keep my politics out of my coursework, and many other professors also do. I also have no idea what the politics were of the professors who taught my undergraduate courses, though I'm sure political affiliations were lopsided then too (though not quite as much as now.)
College can be well worthwhile and not all areas are hopelessly political. It does not have to be all that expensive. Students should be both smart and disciplined - and they should look at starting their college work while in high school via one of the college in high school / running start programs. This cuts the cost. ROTC can cut the cost for the period at the university. Just the college in high school approach can cut the cost in half.
Choose an appropriate major and make sure that you learn some employable skills along the way - those skills may get you your first job. As for political bias on campus - choose your major. Engineering and some of the business areas are far less political than anthropology et al. Ditto many of the STEM fields.
There were a number of working class students in my daughter's civil engineering classes, many with military backgrounds. They commonly chose construction as their specialty area. Probably a good match for their backgrounds, and nowhere as mathematically demanding as specialty such as structures.
Note that smart is really a requirement for some fields, average IQ's of some fields are well above 115 IQ. 50 Years ago the average IQ of college grads was ~ 115, now it is much closer to 100 (average). College offers more choices and opportunities to the smarter students.
Mr. Cox, your argument might be right that affordability and job preparation are the largest reasons for the decrease in positive evaluations of college educations, but to say "there’s not much evidence of indoctrination on campuses" is absurd. Haven't you seen the analyses of syllabi, showing ample coverage of leftist perspectives but almost no coverage of conservative ones on the same topics? Haven''t you seen the many universities that require courses in DEI, gender, race, and other topics beloved of the left, but few outside military academies requiring courses in military history, economics, the Constitution, or other right-coded areas? Of course professors don't see the bias, because they share it. Yes, affordability of college and preparation for well-paying jobs are big problems, but so is political bias: Why deny one to boost the other?
There is certainly substantial political bias on many campuses—the lopsided nature of faculty political affiliations almost makes it unavoidable—but I don't believe this is the same as indoctrination. I fundamentally agree on the need for ideological diversity on campus and openness to different perspectives. I argue as much in the piece.
If syllabi that include only leftist perspectives don't count as indoctrination, what does? What evidence would meet your criteria for indoctrination?
I also don't agree that lopsided political affiliations make political bias unavoidable. I keep my politics out of my coursework, and many other professors also do. I also have no idea what the politics were of the professors who taught my undergraduate courses, though I'm sure political affiliations were lopsided then too (though not quite as much as now.)