Friday, April 13, 2012

COP: What’s your kid doing in college?

Joseph Farah calls for the free market to be unleashed in ‘higher education’

By Joseph Farah


Publisher, Whistleblower magazine

You hear the complaints all the time:

gas prices are too high;
electricity costs are too high;
ATM fees are exorbitant;
Starbucks charges too much for a cup of coffee;
and, of course, taxes are too high.

For sure the complaints have validity.

But I hear fewer people griping about what colleges and universities are charging us to miseducate and even indoctrinate our kids.

I was even more shocked than Rush Limbaugh by the testimony of Sandra Fluke about the high costs of contraceptives and demanding that the government do something about it. Here’s a woman attending Georgetown Law School. Does anyone know what it costs to go to Georgetown? All told, with living expenses, etc., you’re looking at $150,000. By comparison, even a sexually promiscuous woman (and I’m not saying Ms. Fluke is) can get all the protection one needs for $10 a month. How, with a straight face, can someone faced with a choice to pay $150,000 for a law school degree complain about $10 a month that can be completely avoided by simply abstaining from sex?

I don’t get it.

But that kind of logic is actually being defended by most of the mainstream media.

So why aren’t people complaining more about the high costs of a college education?

Here’s my guess. Those costs are only being paid by the small percentage of people who can actually pay them. The rest are getting a free ride through taxpayer subsidies of one kind of another – or at least very generous government-backed loans that can be paid off over time.

In other words, we’re all paying for college whether or not you choose to send your kids to these institutions.

This is a bad deal all around for the following reasons:

Colleges and universities are not accountable to consumers for what they are teaching! With very few exceptions, the curriculum is determined by activists who have no appreciation for the dollar, hate America, hate God and worship the gods of multiculturalism, feminism and socialism.
By insulating consumers from the inflated costs of college of what we euphemistically call “higher education,” we actually drive the costs up even higher for those with financial means. It’s like a vicious cycle of inflation.
Without a free market at work, which responds to the laws of supply and demand, colleges and universities are even less responsive to consumers – and so it goes.

As a result, the places that were we formerly referred to as bastions of “academic freedom” have become gulags of political correctness run amok.

And that’s how Sandra Fluke came to the attention of the world.

Meanwhile, parents and young people are constantly told that you won’t go anywhere in this world without a college education.

That’s also a crock.

Some of the most gifted and talented and entrepreneurial people in the world today did not graduate from college. Many of them never even attended.

The situation is dire, though, for those who seek technical training in fields like medicine, science, mathematics or engineering. Those poor souls, who must pursue advanced degrees, also must face years of undergraduate and graduate school indoctrination in addition to the course work they actually need.

So what am I saying?

I’m saying there are better ways to spend upwards of $150,000 than to throw it away.

There are better ways to spend your time than sitting in classrooms being lectured by people with extremist political and social agendas.

If you’ve got kids or grandchildren considering this option, think again – especially if they are thinking about the 99 percent of colleges and universities participating in this scam.

Yes, there are some good schools out there – but precious few. Be discerning. Exercise good judgment before throwing good money after bad and sacrificing the mind and morals of the young people you love.

Guess what will happen if people heed this call? The prices will come down, and the teaching will get better.

Joseph Farah is founder, editor and CEO of WND and a nationally syndicated columnist with Creators Syndicate. He is the author or co-author of 13 books, including his latest, “The Tea Party Manifesto,” and his classic, “Taking America Back,” now in its third edition and 14th printing. Farah is the former editor of the legendary Sacramento Union and other major-market dailies.

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