Thanks to Mark (ZP) too for your perspective on how college administrations bear much of the blame for driving up costs.

I don’t agree with everything Nock has to say(and Nock is certainly not a Marxist), but I do find his ideas well thought out, well constructed, and rigorous.

For a good read, you would find entertaining, I find it compelling, check out Nock’s “Our Enemy the State” Here’s a link to the whole book.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/nock1.html

If you want to understand the gestalt of the pure Conservative mind, a complete read of Nock is essential. I have about 8 or 9 of his books for download over on my blog for anybody that’s interested. I urge any liberal to fully read Nock and challenge his beliefs.

I might further add that I have 45 classics that everyone should have read in college for anyone that might be interested, and I also have 26 full books for download that are market related. My blog isn’t just right wing rants or boring market stuff. A friend of mine has a great take on education that is never brought up here as homeschooling is an anathema to many liberals.
Since she doesn’t want her works linked on other blogs, PM me and I will send a link to her good article.

Jeff

Not everyday JW lines up with the Marxists, huh?

College is not something just for geniuses, generally held by psychometricians to be those with an IQ of approximately 140. As you probably noticed, most college students are not genius material – frankly most of their professors outside of theoretical physics are not geniuses either. The accepted minimum IQ figure for completing a 4 year college degree is 115, a little under a standard deviation above average intelligence. In practice there are a lot of college degrees in not terribly rigorous fields/schools where you can make it with less brainpower.

There’s nothing morally or socially wrong with vocational training or 2 year technical degrees. A number of what really constitute vocational programs for socially prestigious occupations masquerade as “grad school” but they are no harder or broader intellectually than becoming an electrician or computer programer.

The real purpose of an undergraduate university degree was (and should be) liberal education and the acquisition of critical, reflective, independent thinking and lifelong intellectual inquiry. It isn’t supposed to be a career-specific process or indocrination in empty, politicized, fluff – a liberal education is as beneficial to a plumber as it is to a podiatrist. It also benefits the nation by cultivating an informed and critical citizenry. We need to get back to that.

The rising costs of higher education, which are pricing middle class (never mind working class) students out the decent schools is not a market driven phenomena. The rates of tuition increases are largely political and bureaucratic-administrative in nature and are not caused by evil Republicans, Ronald Reagan or capitalism but because most universities operate like public utilities do when the corporate officers ( presidents, provosts, trustees) lack any real accountability to anyone. They squeeze workers (professors) and customers (students) alike to maximize the resources under their institutional discretionary control while minimizing the quality of the service provided. They hire part timers instead of tenure track, string 4 year degrees out to 6 years, use TA’s wherever possible, and so on.

Here’s a full download of what he says and you can skip to page 18 or so to get to the education part.
http://fee.org/wp-content/files/Cogitations.pdf

Jeff

Whether the gap is 5% or 30% or 90%, though, the dynamic I’m describing is real. And the observation at the end about China and India ought to terrify anybody who cares about our place as a world leader.

Just sayin.