The Real College Admissions Scandal

Having gone to high school in a sort of preppy town in central Pennsylvania, home of a somewhat prestigious (yet not Ivy League) University, there was a strong emphasis on furthering our education. In fact, we were pretty much told this is the only path to success in life and many of my classmates did go this route.

There are, without a doubt, many economic and social benefits that come with earning a college degree, starting with wages. For example, according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, in 2017 the median wage is $718 for high school graduates as opposed to $1,189 for those who have attained a bachelor’s degree. Not only that, if you can look past the conflict of interest and source, those who go to college are happier on average.

But missing in all those studies and statistics is the reality that correlation is not the same thing as causation. In other words, higher wages and happiness quotients may coincide with college graduation rates, yet that does not mean one thing caused the other. It could very well be that more positive and capable people, regardless of education level, are more likely to gain well-compensated employment and be happy with their lives.

Conversely, a college education, for someone who struggles with confidence and lacks the intellectual or social tools, could just mean taking on a crazy amount of debt. Hidden in the glowing numbers presented by college admissions recruiters is the reality that not all outcomes are equal. Yes, many of the best performing students cruise through the university experience and into lucrative professional careers, which skews the average, but not all.

College Does Not Create Success

The idea that education will turn a Neanderthal into the next great mind is a myth. Yes, there are many cases of those who have been born into terrible poverty and disadvantage who became extremely successful. However, was it their education that made the difference or was it their drive to rise above their circumstances and make something of themselves?

No, we probably only hear about these rags to riches stories because they are the exception.

What is far more likely is that the children of successful people are much more likely to go to college given their genetic, social and other inheritance, already being academically and financially capable individuals themselves, which is a pattern of success that continues into their careers.

The dirty little secret is that college, for a lower IQ person, will not turn them into the next Einstein. Sure, if they manage to work their way through the system their diploma will increase their chances of being employed, but it doesn’t mean that they will be earning the salary of an engineer, doctor or lawyer nor does it mean they have gained a significant advantage over those who did not go. In fact, it could simply mean that they carry more debt.

Not everyone qualifies nor does everyone benefit equally from the college educational experience. Those pushing the idea that sending more people to college is some sort of panacea are wrong. It was always ironic to me that my high school teachers, unaware of the cognitive dissonance, would both push the idea that college is the path to success and then complain about their teacher’s salaries.

Oops.

That is the first part of the real college admissions scandal. A guy who did poorly in school, with a bit of ambition, will probably be better off getting a CDL or learning a trade. Going deeply into debt right out of high school, paying for ballooning budgets of these educational institutions, may not be the wisest investment for those lacking the intellectual tools to thrive in a scholastic environment. There are many successful people who have no college degree.

Beware of the Educational-Industrial Complex

One of those things not mentioned in the college admissions brochure is the very real possibility of diminishing returns. Tuition costs have continued to skyrocket, but that does not mean that available jobs and salaries will increase equally or in proportion.

In fact, according to MarketWatch, the price of an undergraduate degree has gone from an inflation-adjusted $39,643 in 1987 to a whopping $103,616 in 2016. Meanwhile, starting salaries for bachelor degree holders have not increased since the 1960s and, unlike their predecessors who could work their way through college, they will come out with a mountain of debt.

This is not a sustainable trajectory and not driven by actual market forces either. No, the cost is being artificially driven up through government student aid grants and subsidies, according to a Heritage Foundation report:

During the 2010–2011 school year, total federal spending on student aid programs (including tax credits and deductions, grants, and loans) was $169 billion[56]—making total federal aid 142 percent higher than for the 2000–2001 school year (inflation-adjusted). In the 2010–2011 school year, federal grant aid increased to $49 billion, a 16 percent increase over the previous year—well ahead of the inflation rate.

Any time rich Uncle Sam gets involved in anything the result is higher costs for everyone, besides those on the take, and education is no exception. So, while some may benefit from these payouts and financial guarantees, universities especially, the end result is an increase in price for everyone else. In other words, those receiving this cash have less need to do things in an efficient or cost-effective manner.

Of course, rather than consider that these subsidies are artificially driving up tuition cost, many in the political establishment (on the left, in particular) are doubling down on their error and see this as a reason for student debt forgiveness and even more government involvement. When what would actually help is a drawdown of the existing subsidies and a return to truly market-based tuition.

However, I would not expect those who enrich themselves through the largesse of the public treasury to give this up without a fight. No, the educational-industrial complex has many powerful benefactors, including two sitting US Senators and Democratic Presidential primary candidates, one of them being Elizabeth Warren, who ‘earned’ $429,981 as a part-time Harvard law professor, and the other Bernie Sanders whose wife was paid hundreds of thousands while driving Burlington College into the ground.

Of course, those riding this gravy train would champion “free” education provided by you, the taxpayer, because how else would they be able to afford their lavish lifestyles? For them, it is just a way to buy votes and a means to pay off their next mansion. They could care less about the long-term harm they are doing to millions of Americans and the economy of this nation, what matters to them is that they keep the coffers full for themselves and their colleagues.

Those at the top of the scheme today will be long in the grave before the bubble will burst and especially if they can keep passing responsibility along to taxpayers and the next generation. And have nothing to fear as far as repercussions either, with the control they have over the educational establishment, they have the next generation so duped that it will take another generation to realize that these people were the villains rather than the heroes.

Restoring Vision to Higher Education

There is no doubt of the need for higher education, to thrive we need well-trained professionals, and the university system has provided us with doctors, engineers, chemists, etc. Unfortunately, the university system has been co-opted by political activists more concerned with obtaining control over the masses for themselves and manipulating the underprivileged identity group of the week than they are teaching marketable skills.

And it is not that they are all devious individuals either, many are not, many were indoctrinated by a prior generation and have gravitated towards the academic environment because it is the only place they can survive given their lack of practicality and underdeveloped discernment. Given a choice of pushing a wheelbarrow or pontificating to the next group of imbeciles who got tricked into paying too much for tuition, can you really blame them for buying into this self-important and sanctimonious delusion?

However, lest we forget, even slave owners were the benevolent heroes of their own narratives:

Though liberty is a sweet thing to such as are born free, yet to those who never knew the sweets of it, slavery perhaps may not be so irksome. […] And though it is true, that they are brought in a wrong way from their own country, and it is a trade not to be approved of, yet as it will be carried on whether we will or not; I should think myself highly favoured if I could purchase a good number of them, in order to make their lives comfortable, and lay a foundation for breeding up their posterity in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. (George Whitfield)

People on the “wrong side of history” do not identify themselves as such, they do not have a Snidely Whiplash mustache, and are often thoroughly convinced that they are right. And the same is true of the Neo-Marxists pushing things like “social justice” and identity politics. In their own mind, despite having never built or created anything of real tangible value themselves, through this ideological indoctrination of the next generation they are creating a better world—one where people like them will call the shots from the ivory towers of leftist academia.

Unfortunately, this is not a vision, but is Utopian idealism, and has become a nightmare wherever it has been fully implemented. Furthermore, allowing those privileged to be on a university campus to carve out “safe spaces” and act with violent intolerance towards any ideas that go against a far leftist dogma goes against the true mission of a university. A university should be an academically competitive environment, a place where iron sharpens iron, where assumptions are challenged, and not an entitlement for coddled bullies who are clueless and unteachable.

We need a university system that serves humanity by offering a useful education at a reasonable cost, not a breeding ground for radicalized hypocrites who bilk young people out of billions, turning them into debt slaves, while really only serving themselves. We also need to free ourselves of this notion that the university experience is necessary for success, at very least we need a shift of vision from feminist slam poetry to practical innovation, because the current paradigm of political correctness and conformity of thought is too costly to our future continue.

We need to restore the university as a bastion of free speech and critical thinking or pull our own children out. There are far cheaper ways to spend four years binge drinking, reenacting Lord of the Flies, while being indoctrinated with intersectional and “gender studies” nonsense. I hope someday that my own children can attend a university, that is something more than an indoctrination center for failed (albeit repackaged) far-leftist ideas, and so they can become professionals and positive contributors to society.

Alternatively, if the university system cannot be saved from itself, with the educational-industrial complex and progressive politics having rotted away the integral core of the institution, then it might be time to dismantle the whole structure, to salvage only what is useful and start again. There is no reason why this system should remain unchallenged in the current form, the costs are becoming prohibitive and the value questionable.

We’ve been hearing quite a bit about the parents who allegedly bribed their children, at great cost, into prestigious universities and the backlash. But the real scandal may be that so many are convinced that this is the only way to be successful in life and take on incredible debt so that they or their children can be enrolled at these institutions.