There’s bad news in higher education, but my alma mater gets kudos. Walter E. Williams, the conservative economics professor at George Mason University who also subs for Rush Limbaugh on occasion, wrote two columns (here and here) about the decline of higher education.
He cites several examples of how we’re spending more money than ever on high education, both in tuition to private colleges and taxpayer subsidies to public ones, but getting less and less in return. One university offers a course in “Canine Cultural Studies.” What’s on the mid-term? The ethics of sniffing another’s behind? And I recently highlighted the Aquatic Management degree at Salem State College.
Meanwhile, you have college students who can’t tell you, not just what year Columbus landed in the New World, but can’t even tell you if it occurred before or after 1500.
But not all colleges are tainted. Williams highlights several that still provide a good education and don’t cost and arm and a leg, and my alma mater of Franciscan University of Steubenville is one of the three he mentions. That’s pretty darn good.
