"A 1990 Gallup survey for the National Endowment of the Humanities, given to a representative sample of 700 college seniors, found that 25 percent did not know that Columbus landed in the Western Hemisphere before the year 1500, 42 percent could not place the Civil War in the correct half-century, and 31 percent thought Reconstruction came after World War II.
In 1993, a Department of Education survey found that, among college graduates, 50 percent of whites and more than 80 percent of blacks couldn't state in writing the argument made in a newspaper column or use a bus schedule to get on the right bus, 56 percent could not calculate the right tip, 57 percent could not figure out how much change they should get back after putting down $3 to pay for a 60-cent bowl of soup and a $1.95 sandwich, and over 90 percent could not use a calculator to find the cost of carpeting a room. But not to worry. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni's 1999 survey of seniors at the nation's top 55 liberal arts colleges and universities found that 98 percent could identify rap artist Snoop Doggy Dogg and Beavis and Butt-Head, but only 34 percent knew George Washington was the general at the battle of Yorktown."
Why such disastrous results? It is my hypothesis that American Colleges and Universities have become the Soviet Union. In Soviet Russia, perhaps the most sought after commodity was not diamonds or cavier, but "tuletnaya Bumaga" - toilet paper. Pensioners and wives might wait in lines in the bitter cold for 8 hours or more to purchase a single roll costing a days wages. Why would the soviet citizen put up with such nonsense? I asked this question myself and the perfunctory response I received was "potomy chto my dolzhni" (Pardon my transliteration - I never could combine english and cyrillic; my brain thinks in either one or the other - but never both at the same time) which means "because we must". There was no competition in the Soviet form of Communism.
Today I drove the 20 minutes to the campus I attend in order to see an academic counselor. I only need one to sign a simple form allowing me to select a degree program so that I may apply for financial aid. Upon reaching the campus and standing in a brief cue, I was told by the kindly desk attendant - "Oh, they are in a meeting today"; perhaps you could call later and see if they are out."
Clearly there is a problem. The posted hours of counseling are 9:00 - 1:00 on fridays and I was there at 9:00. If the school were a hamburger stand, and I were told the hamburgers were out today, I would boycott the stand, advertise to all I knew my displeasure, and on the basis of the laws of common markets the stand would be doomed and close. So why do I have to put up with such gross inefficiency in academia? Because I must.
As many of you know (this includes the one other person who reads this blog and my schizophrenic partner) I am preparing to go to medical school. The hoops I am encountering are necessary in order to apply. But they dramatically illustrate why our nation is enduring a precipitous decline in the arts, sciences and even hamburger distribution. If I want to attend medical school, I have no choice but to enjoin the services of a local institution of higher learning. There is no competition in the American higher educational system.
Above the cries of "Wait - that's not fair", and "What about the University of Phoenix online?" I must say that anyone who has recently attended college knows that I speak the truth. While online universities are indeed popping up everywhere; many of whom are fully accredited, those who wield academic authority are not seriously thinking of allowing them to supplant the gross bureaocracy found in most schools. When applying for a research position, even in todays "enlightened" world, non-classroom, or online study isn't going to cut it.
Though there was no competition in Soviet Russia, wouldn't the personal pride of the individual bring about a positive work ethic? Unfortunately, comrades Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Brezhnev and Gorbachov crushed the idea of the individual and so no personal pride was allowed to bloom and grow. In the university today, cronyism, nepotism and reverse upward mobility ensure that individuals with a creative bent are squashed at each turn. As an experiment, visit your local administration office and take a survey of how many family members and friends work there. The labor union movement has nothing on the college administrative fraternity.
What are the options? Well, one can be disgusted as I was for 3 decades and ignore the educational system, choosing instead to earn money and use entrepeneurship to advance myself and my family. But this leaves us with a feeling of inadequacy - education is a God-ordered gift,
2 Timothy 2:15 tell us to "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth"and in Acts 24, Festus (not the one on Gunsmoke) told St. Paul, 'Too much learning has made you mad!" to which he replied " I am not mad, most noble Festus; but speak forth the words of truth and soberness." Paul was a very learned man - having studied at the highest level of Jewish thought under Israel's greates teacher - Gamaliel. God wants us to be educated. Education is also a gift of mankind - no other creature in the world can learn as we can. A dog can learn to sit but it cannot learn the various muscular contractions necessary for this to occur, or the amino-acid sequences which provide its impuse.
We might just "go with the flow" which is the sad state of most students today. Better is to demand something more. Not through militancy, but through respectful correction to incorrect actions. Write letters, ask for public forums and hearings and vocalize your displeasure in a courteous manner.
A professor of mine recently told me that the dean of his department called him to tell him of students who were complaining that he was "making them study too hard". This is a shame. Rather, we ought to complain that the administrations of schools aren't working hard enough. Let's have the Soviet Union remain a parcel of history. American students deserve better.
