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March 19, 2019

By George Friedman

American Universities Are in Crisis Elite universities are once again looking for social conformists rather than disrupters. Last week, dozens of wealthy parents were charged for allegedly paying a firm to cheat on college entrance exams or bribe officials to get their children accepted into elite colleges. The number of people involved in the scam is small, so the case itself has proved little except that all human institutions can be corrupted. But there’s a broader point that must be considered. This case is an indicator of a profound crisis at American universities. I know that profound crises have become a dime a dozen, manufactured by people like me with writing deadlines, but I ask you to bear with me.

We live in a knowledge-based economy. Our universities are the social institutions designed to produce and educate the next generation that will participate in that economy. But the best universities do more than this. They teach those outside elite circles the manners and customs of power. They allow them to meet others who will form the networks of authority that are indispensable to society. If you go to Harvard, you likely won’t learn any more about biology in your freshman year than you would at a state school. But you will learn something that isn’t taught by professors but is still vitally important: how to fit into the structure and customs of influence.

Harvard is blunt about this, though it might be unaware how blunt it is. The school’s website lists several factors considered in the admissions process. One is particularly striking: “Would other students want to room with you, share a meal, be in a seminar together, be teammates, or collaborate in a closely knit extracurricular group?” In other words, the school wants to know if an applicant will conform to the social order. Eccentrics and non-conformists – people who have radically different views that might be offensive to some – are not really welcome. There is, of course, always the socially acceptable oddity, but the real outlanders, the ones who have beliefs or interests that would cause them not to attract roommates, are screened out.

According to the Harvard Crimson student newspaper, about 12 percent of Harvard’s student body is Republican. But it’s unlikely students with conservative views would, for example, wear MAGA hats or organize pro-life rallies because most students likely wouldn’t want to room with them if they did, and that would make them a bad fit for Harvard. What’s missing in all this is the idea that you should be required to work and learn with people who you profoundly disagree with and face the fact that those who disagree with you may be not only reasonable but even right.

Many will leap on the political imbalance in the student body, but the more important issue is that Harvard bases its admissions policy on social conformity. And in doing so, it undermines one of its most important claims: that it promotes social diversity. As in the 1920s, elite schools now are looking for students who would fit in, not those who have different or uncomfortable perspectives on life. It should be the role of a university to, as H.L. Mencken and others said about newspapers, “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”

The American university system was transformed after World War II by the GI Bill, which provided educational assistance to veterans. They flooded the nation’s universities and were admitted into some of its top schools. They did superbly and created the mass professional class that powered the nation through the 1970s. The GIs were mostly men, many of whom faced the abyss and saw it smile back at them. Many others had not been in combat but understood discipline and knew that life did not have to be pleasant, but had to be lived. They had to live with strangers they may not have liked. They never expected to be surrounded only by people who had similar views and experiences as they did. They understood diversity in a personal way and were there to learn the skills they would need in the next phase of life.

During this time, money flowed into universities from the federal government. The Manhattan Project, the U.S.-led effort to develop an atomic bomb, turned universities into centers for national security research. They were an integral part of American life and, in the 1950s and 1960s, included the best of Europe’s emigre scholars. While teaching for a short time at Louisiana State University in the mid-1990s, I remember discovering that the legacy of German political philosopher Eric Voegelin, who fled Germany in the 1930s and taught as LSU, was still alive and well.

When I went to college, candidates were still judged on their merits, but the ideological battle had already surfaced at Cornell and was developing into a discussion of what was and wasn’t socially acceptable at Harvard. Having the wrong point of view (and I always seemed to have the wrong point of view) could get you barred from grad school parties, and debates on the Vietnam War began redrawing the lines of propriety as they had been before the war.

Today, that divide seems even deeper. According to a study cosponsored by the College Board, there are 800,000 veterans or family members of veterans enrolled in U.S. colleges under the Post-9/11 GI Bill. Only 722, however, are enrolled at the country’s 36 most selective universities. That’s a stunning reversal of the numbers under the previous GI Bill. What that bill broke open more than 70 years ago is now closed.

This is part of the nation’s upward mobility problem. The lower-middle class has an average annual income of about $35,000. That leaves a take-home pay of about $2,500 a month, barely enough to rent an apartment, much less buy a house. I grew up in a lower-middle-class family. We had a small house and a car, but these days, that would be nearly impossible. For families facing such circumstances, getting a university education gives some hope that they’ll be able to improve their lot in life. Some of these students may even have the qualifications to get into an elite college, but the question remains whether they would be accepted in such schools. Would, say, a devout Catholic from a lower-middle-class home in Michigan be welcomed at Harvard? Would the university support such diversity?

Here’s a radical idea. I taught political philosophy for many years, and I noted that my students were less than thrilled to prowl through Plato. At 19 years old, a student’s hormones are raging and the desire to be liked by others is at its peak. Plato has little to do with any of this. The idea of going to university at this age originated in the Middle Ages when the university was created and life expectancy was in the mid-30s. Now, life expectancy is about 80, and a 40-year-old would be far more willing to learn about Plato than a 19-year-old. A 40-year-old student can understand the importance of justice; a 19-year-old can understand only that class will be over shortly.

Universities are failing in two ways. First, they have slipped back into the role of gatekeeper for the conformists. Second, they seem incapable of playing their historic role in not just promoting upward mobility but integrating the brightest of the poor with the existing elite. That was a vital function, and as everyone knows, unrest begins when the most intelligent youngsters have no hope left.

The university has become the major bar to the kind of social ferment the United States has always enjoyed. The problem started when universities stopped focusing on achievement and tried to admit students based on personal characteristics that were impossible to verify. The result was inevitable. They recruited students who were intelligent, likeable and liked. Plato wrote about Socrates, who was put to death for being an ass. I guess he wouldn’t have been accepted into Harvard either.

gflight mentioned yesterday that being too outspoken may lead to folks retaliating against you, for which he took some heat. Not too far off base IMO. People have long reacted irrationally to outsider views. Maybe the critical thinkers here will reflect on that!

I can only speak for myself, but I didn't have a single college professor who had a profound impact on me, especially politically. Heck, I can only remember the name of 2 professors I had, and one of them I remember because the guy was a total dweeb.

For me, college was a period defined by independence and personal responsibility. That's where the REAL education was...learning how to be a grown up and make my own decisions for the first time. I learned far more about life living on my own, working full time between semesters and part-time during classes, paying bills, and the sweet rewards of not relying on anyone but myself.

The end result of my education, a degree, provided opportunities that I would have never had without it. But the actual time spent in the classrooms wasn't that memorable.

Just my 2 pennies and a pocket full of lint.

Matt

So many are rightfully critical of colleges for limiting certain views or philosophies, but fail to recognize how much effort they put into stamping out anyone who does not get on the Trump train.

Was he playing on 'The Ohio State University' thing? He might of been joking, but probably not if he was that nerdy. Lol!

Here's something kind of funny. I was working at GE Capital when I started as an adjunct for where I am now. I thought folks were a little elitist for a community college, and so I kiddingly named our college 'Harvard on the Prairie'. it has stuck, and now it it commonly called that.

Matt

Of course, that was 40 years ago, and I know times have changed. Back then, college admittance was based mostly on scholastic merits, not subjective things like personality and likability. Now, the process seems more like a frat or sorority recruitment, which I find silly and shallow.

Matt

I also favor kids entering the workforce for few years between HS and college. It's downright retarded to expect kids to make such highly leveraged decisions while they're still asking permission to use the bathroom and have such little perspective on the world.

You and I wouldn't be selected Matt;)

Kevin,

GE was elitist when I worked for them. Jack Welch was at the helm, and he had a couple philosophies that produced. Any business GE was in was either number 1 or 2, or it was dumped. They also got rid of the 10% bottom performing managers every year.

One of the most successful conglomerates during that time frame. Made a lot of folks very rich, including line workers like my FiL. I bet the stockholders would welcome those days back, as it is just a former shell of itself and predicting losses for '19. I have no complaints, they treated me fine.

You can get a great education, and at the end of the day, when you are done with college, your resume will still say "Whatever State U".

I actually agree with Matt's post. I think both sides put too much credence in the ability of higher education to brainwash. Your family is proof positive of what is important-FAMILY. You done good, a lot to be proud of. That's why I have always respected you Chad!

I am on spring break, and between work for myself and doctors appointments I am trying to be entertained. The mass shooting thread bothers me, so I decided to stir a little.

Those elite universities are well worth IMHO. Your daughter must have a different personality than you, if we are to believe the article;-). Just kidding!

I chose my school more-or-less simply by looking at several schools' catalogues.

One of my criteria was that I didn't want to go to a school in a big city. Another was that decent duck and goose hunting needed to be near by.

I had an interest in golf course architecture but back then at least, Texas A&M was the only school which offered that major but I really didn't want to live in Texas

My other interest was wildlife management and I looked at Colorado State, Montana State and Utah State because they all have superior programs in that discipline.

I never visited any schools before deciding on Utah State, which turned out pretty well for me, even though I switched majors to Political Science one quarter into my sophomore year.

As far as fraternities go, I really knew nothing about them until I started school. What I then learned, I did not like.

So instead of being an SAE, etc,. I became a 'GDI' as they were referred to. GDI stood for God-Damned Independent.

It looks like I might stand corrected about the elite schools being better. A published article in the WSJ today draws the conclusion that they do not necessarily provide better results. I did go to Harvard once-while in Boston I made it to the campus;-) I looked out of place though.

Door opening, I think is true. knowledge gained... I think there may be opportunities at say Harvard that you dont get at U of Minn/Mass/Wis etc... But I am confident that those schools can provide a motivated student ample opportunity to gain more knowledge/skill than an "average" student at, say, Harvard or other "ivy".

Couple examples. Sorry, this is sort of long... then again, when is a post of mine not - ha!

While in undergrad I was at a state U and my girlfriend was at Cornell. We were in similar enough fields, that there were courses that crossed over (biochem, various nutrition courses and physiology courses). While talking to her classmates, and when we would see a professor and chat with them, it struck me as odd that I seemed to know more than all these Ivy league folks, despite my little state U education. It made me realize that my parents telling me "you get out of your education what you put into it" was true.

Years later after a road race in Atlanta, my wife and I went to her advisers (from Emory where she did her undergrad) for Thanksgiving dinner. He's also from north central MN, so they were friends and we still go visit him back in MN when there on vacation visiting her family. Any way, here we are, all these professors, and several graduate students from Emory in different bio/health science fields hanging out chewing the fat - literally and figuratively. Again I was surprised that with my state U education (that was pre grad school, which for me was also a state school - Ohio U) had me keeping up with all these folks.

Now, the difference is that if my resume says XYZ State... and Your's says Hahvahd (written phonetically, for a Bostonian), but the rest is identical... You get the nod.

That's the biggest difference to me, when it comes to power/ivy schools, they may have more $ and connections to create opportunities beyond the base curriculum in a major which help... and the name on the resume as well as the network you create likely help grease wheels...

Matt

On a serious note, most people I know aren't in a career related to what they were majoring in...they went on to do something different. And, even more so, most of what I would call "highly successful" people never went to college, but rather got where they are as a result of being in the right place at the right time, networking, and making the most of those opportunities through hard work and determination. I don't believe a major college degree is as important in getting ahead in the world as it once was...especially when you consider the debt that comes attached to it, and the fact that the world is becoming more trade specific.

Your anecdotal evidence is exactly opposite of mine. Almost every "highly successful" person I know has a degree of some sort. And most of them used their educations to accomplish their success. There are exceptions, obviously, like some of my friends with "liberal arts" degrees, for example.

Matt

It gets dicey sometimes, I think at the graduate level upwards. For example Umass Med School has two Nobel prize winners on staff and most in the biotech world would argue, it's second to no one in that area. That's an exception, but at the grad level... the world compresses and folks know where the exceptions are. For example Wayne state used to be the best school in the world for folks interested in education for special needs students. Not sure it is still, that was in the 60's... You get that cycle where a few really amazing prof's career is built or sustained at a school, and suddenly in that field, a degree from X school is viewed as the best - even if the school is not "ivy" or MIT ish so to speak on other levels.. Under grad, I dont believe that really happens, certainly not to the same degree.

Don't wear a MAGA hat to your school interview.

GG, we have a lot of Colorado kids attending school here in Hays. I ask them why and virtually all tell me that it is cheaper to pay out of state here than in state in Coloraod. Living here is also a lot cheaper.

Most of the people I know who are wealthy do not have post-secondary degrees. The successful professional people generally do well financially, but not as well as the business owners who built up a business while others were spending time and money at school.

People with degrees on average make more, but it is often more attributable to their natural abilities, work ethic, and attitudes toward life. Of course some professions require a degree to get in the door.

At present, students attending trade schools are doing better than students attending CC or universities. Hard to say how that will work out over a lifetime.

BTW elementary and HS teachers get paid the same in most places, so that would apply to all PK-12 teachers.

Our railroad, welders etc. have 100% employment out the gate. I have pushed for a skilled machinist program. We have a shortage of the trade skills trained big time right now.