How Dumb Are America’s College Students?
Power Line,
by
John Hinderaker
Original Article
Posted By: MissMolly,
2/25/2020 4:46:28 AM
Heather Mac Donald is one of America’s great heroines. For no reason other than love of her country, Western civilization and common sense, she ventures repeatedly into the bizarre and hostile world of America’s colleges and universities. If students listened to her, they would learn a lot. Alas, most of them are not up to that task.
Heather has often been subjected not just to rudeness, but to threats of violence. I can draw on my own experience here. Last year, my youngest daughter invited Heather to give a talk at her college. My wife and I drove Heather down to the college, but before we set out we were told
Reply 1 - Posted by:
DCGIRL 2/25/2020 5:25:50 AM (No. 328932)
Very dumb. I have a granddaughter that goes to college. She is bright but common sense stupid. I believe we all were that way until we grow up. I turned around with Jimmy Carter and became a republican.
62 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
ARKfamily 2/25/2020 5:59:11 AM (No. 328942)
Well, when wisdom comes from God only, it might be a clue. . .I tend to believe this is a generalization about college students. There are some very bright students but if you don't have a relationship with God, how will you have the life skills to apply your knowledge and skills?
46 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
globalwarmer 2/25/2020 6:32:20 AM (No. 328963)
I'd ask; how dumb are the parents of college students for dropping their hard earned cash on a commie indoctrination program?
108 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
Ditto1958 2/25/2020 6:46:59 AM (No. 328976)
It’s downright scary.
37 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
proactus 2/25/2020 7:02:06 AM (No. 328989)
“So this is college? I didn’t miss nothin.”
Carmone Sabitoni-The Freshman
20 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
Paperpuncher 2/25/2020 7:05:57 AM (No. 328990)
The author missed Accounting as a worthwhile degree. Oops, you will never be unemployed if you are a good accountant. Every business needs them.
45 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
Rinktum 2/25/2020 7:07:56 AM (No. 328992)
Think about it, this was the progressive plan. Take practical courses out of high school and feed the kids the lie that you must go to college in order to be successful. They had to get the kids into class in order to indoctrinate them in their evil ideology and it worked! The only thing most of them learn is how to whine, claim victimhood, and insist they are entitled to whatever they want in life. They are angry, ignorant, and even violent. They refuse to listen to anything that opposes the dogma they have embraced. One thing is for certain, the progressive have succeeded in this anti-American endeavor and the country is suffering greatly because of it. They want to ban anyone who speaks the truth because they know that for some it will strike a chord and change the way they see things. Fight to get the truth into your schools and universities because these institutions are ruining your children. Find a better alternative and teach your kids early the values and truth you want them to learn. You are an effective advocate.
51 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
Lala 2/25/2020 7:17:40 AM (No. 329003)
Wow, she is one brave woman.
33 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
4Justice 2/25/2020 7:27:30 AM (No. 329012)
That's true, you need to have parents who teach their children not only good values, but good critical thinking skills. I spent most of my formative years discussing the news, world events, politics, history and nearly every other subject with my mother (and to a lesser extent with my father). My mother was probably the most knowledgeable and intelligent woman I have ever met in my life. I was blessed to have the benefit of her wisdom daily for the first 18 years of my life. I feel I was the luckiest person in the world. Most of today's children don't get anything of substance from their parents these days--certainly not at the level I did. I was lucky my mother sacrificed her career to stay at home for us. In my book, she was a saint! Anyway, if parents spent just a fraction of their time with their kids that my mother and I spent together talking, our society would be doing much better, our children would have better critical thinking skills and they'd be more able to discern truth from lies.
58 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
Krause 2/25/2020 7:28:05 AM (No. 329013)
Colleges are putting out defective products, like China.
44 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
janjan 2/25/2020 7:32:18 AM (No. 329015)
I have been in IT management for 25 years. When I am hiring I avoid recent college grads. They (not all but most) are immature, entitled, opinionated, lack a work ethic and have no real skills. This is what parents pay for. Several years of gettIng knocked around by real life usually clears their heads. Becoming a tax payer is the best education they will get.
63 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
RayLRiv 2/25/2020 7:50:16 AM (No. 329030)
Don't trust anybody over 30...who still lives at home with his parents...
32 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
PostAway 2/25/2020 7:52:59 AM (No. 329033)
Antonio Gramsci was an Italian communist, active at the turn of the last century, who advocated the long march through American cultural institutions, called cultural hegemony. This march includes universities and is meant to plant an irresistible crop of communists to bend us into a communist country. A recently deceased professor at Notre Dame enthusiastically helped lead this effort in the U.S., writing books and essays as well as founding The International Gramscian Society, devoted to the genius of Gramsci. He did all this with the help of his wife and son. Now his son, Pete Buttigieg, wants to be President.
55 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
agrunt 2/25/2020 7:58:58 AM (No. 329038)
They don't know the difference between come here and sic em.
15 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
Braincramp 2/25/2020 8:01:49 AM (No. 329042)
My cousin's daughter who is in her early 20's grew up in a strong Christian home, spent 9 of her early years with her family when they were missionaries to Spain, went to a fairly liberal Christian school and college, and her dad is now a pastor. She is extremely intelligent and creative, and she received a scholarship to attend a secular university to pursue a master's degree. What my sister reports from this young woman's Facebook page is that she's become rabidly anti-Trump since 2016, and is considering going to Washington, D.C. after graduation to become an ''advocate'' for who knows what.
My sister and I fear this lovely young woman is lost in more ways than one and we grieve for her. She's also indoctrinating her parents with her hate and lies about President Trump. All we can do is pray for her and try to talk to her parents and tell them the truth about the Left and what they want to do to destroy this wonderful country-- that is, if they also aren't lost. They thought it was incredibly wonderful that their daughter was accepted to this prestigious university for further education, but we couldn't share their enthusiasm because we knew what would happen. We're very sorry and sad that we were right.
42 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
Dodge Boy 2/25/2020 8:12:20 AM (No. 329054)
A close friend of mine went into a state of shock after "losing contact" with his grand daughter who is attending Colorado University in the people's republic of Boulder. Coming from a staunch republican family, she was quickly re-educated on campus and spews the leftist dogma every day now. It is impossible to discuss anything political or social with her without her going into a maniacal rage at the first hint of disagreement. And she thinks that Sanders is the only solution to "save America". It's a heart breaker, but, today's methods of brainwashing are effective.
39 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
fayebeck 2/25/2020 8:17:56 AM (No. 329057)
You have to admit that it was the "greatest generation" and the subsequent generations of "smart" people who created this system of "education". Building the schools, curriculum, hiring the "educators", buying homes in a "great neighborhood" with good schools to educate the kids. And all that tripe.
13 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
MNluxiegal 2/25/2020 8:22:42 AM (No. 329067)
To 4Justice, are you my sibling? I also had a very intelligent Mother, full of wisdom that cannot be gotten from book and universities. A good dose of God-fearing belief would do wonders for these infantile young adults in the colleges and universities of the USA. 'You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free". These are very wise words, but if these kids cannot use reason, and have no wisdom, how will they recognize the truth when they face it?
22 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
Jebediah 2/25/2020 8:59:35 AM (No. 329113)
We all sat back, paid huge amounts of $ to colleges for our children's admissions, and then watched them be brainwashed by any number of ultra liberal professors WHO HAVE NEVER LIVED IN THE REAL WORLD: undergrad, grad school, degrees and the never never land of college and university teaching. But it actually starts even earlier, often with "history" or social studies teachers who teach at the high school level and didn't make it to the college big leagues. Even CATHOLIC colleges are often horrendous. NOW WE PAY THE PRICE. Our kids are CLUELESS as to history so of course they think Bernie's (and the others on the stage--be realistic) socialism is terrific, even as the Scandinavian countries he cite insist they are capitalists.
20 people like this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
dovestar 2/25/2020 9:01:58 AM (No. 329117)
A couple of posters touched on the reality that Wisdom comes only from God. I am firmly convinced that young people, even smart ones from good Christian families, are not just indoctrinated by college studies. The moment they engage in premarital sex they become distant from God and start to lose their God given Wisdom. There's a reason the Church prized celibacy and virginity, and the liberals have succeeded in destroying that. Immorality makes one blind.
18 people like this.
Reply 21 - Posted by:
Strike3 2/25/2020 9:29:02 AM (No. 329144)
#12, I have a background almost identical to yours. I have always received better performance from older workers except for one bright kid I knew personally before I hired him and he was a very good programmer. The only minority I ever hired turned out to be a total putz and we were gathering evidence to fire him when he did us a favor by resigning. His degree from Ohio State was apparently less than worthless.
The problem with most fields is that they are closed loop systems and have the college degree in their list of mandatory qualifications. I came from a background that gave me extensive technical experience and with only a few college classes in business and accounting they had to promote me into management because I was the most qualified and they could not find anybody else even close. Many fields have government requirements for a degree, like teaching school, when a degree should be the last requirement on the list. With 100% of our public school teachers having degrees, look at the results compared to other countries - pathetic.
One point made above, good parents are necessary to prepare a student for college, otherwise that mush brain will do nothing but absorb more mush. I would wager that a significant number of the Bernie Bros are college graduates and their main accomplishment was in learning to spell "socialism" but not in learning what it is.
24 people like this.
Reply 22 - Posted by:
jacksin5 2/25/2020 9:36:10 AM (No. 329150)
Are they dumb? Not particularly. When schools and colleges substituted education for indoctrination, students were no longer required to think independently or forced to use Reason to create their beliefs or opinions. All they have to work with is the dogma they are being force fed by so-called educators.
Employers are starting to abandon college graduates, finding it much more efficient to train people with the willingness to learn, rather than these zombies who feel they already know it all, and want CEO salaries for entry level positions.
15 people like this.
Reply 23 - Posted by:
clayusmcret 2/25/2020 9:48:43 AM (No. 329161)
I've been promoting technical schools over college for more than a decade. Parents send usually patriotic children to college, only to receive back ranting marxists. College is very successful, not at educating our young adults but in indoctrinating them in radical agendas pushed by the 60's LSD users who took over the institutions from inside and created a factory for pushing out brain dead ideologues. The absolutely worse investment a parent could make in their child's life is to pay to turn their child into something trained to hate them, their country and God.
16 people like this.
Reply 24 - Posted by:
Italiano 2/25/2020 10:05:56 AM (No. 329181)
The popularity of Bernie Sanders is living proof. He was a national joke his entire career until this generation came along, and still is, or should be.
We were lucky. Our daughter barely survived UC Davis and we are steadily re-programming her back to normality. So far so good.
Our college-educated sons became U.S. Marines. Enough said. Antifa Bernie Bros in the streets would be wise to avoid them.
14 people like this.
Reply 25 - Posted by:
Right Time 2/25/2020 10:12:01 AM (No. 329187)
If you are going to send a child to college, I believe that there are only two choices for most parents.
Either send them to a military academy or to an engineering school.
If its a decent engineering school, the kid's course load will be heavy, the workload will be high, the engineering professors generally conservative, and he will learn a life lesson about hard work and develop a sense of accomplishment. Best of all, the kid won't be brainwashed, and come out of school as a lazy leftist.
But the kid's social and interpersonal skills will likely be stunted but correctable.
Spoken from experience
17 people like this.
Reply 26 - Posted by:
hurricanegirl 2/25/2020 10:40:38 AM (No. 329214)
Actually, there's one other excellent choice of places to send kids to college, and that's a Christian university--I recommend the smaller ones.
As always, do your homework before dropping your kids off, though. Professors at Christian universities can go off the rails, too.
8 people like this.
Reply 27 - Posted by:
pros7767 2/25/2020 10:45:45 AM (No. 329217)
All 3 of mine went to liberal colleges. One joined the Marines afterward.
The second is successfully running his own business and the third is currently looking for a job having just recently graduated. We paid for all three and none have student loans.
While more socially liberal, they have retained most of their conservative values as a result of constant dialogue in our home and knowing how hard both their parents worked to give them a debt free college education. They watch us pay outrageous taxes to support everybody else and they resent it. I guess we're lucky, but continuing dialogue is the key!
9 people like this.
Reply 28 - Posted by:
IdSpud 2/25/2020 10:54:44 AM (No. 329220)
Re #26. A couple of alternatives to engineering schools. One, is a community college to earn a trade. Many trades earn more than respectable incomes and since those schools, much like engineering sciences, require much work, there is not much time for indoctrination. Another alternative is Hillsdale College. It receives no government money, hence it doesn't have to compromise it's curriculum. Both good alternatives.
13 people like this.
Reply 29 - Posted by:
Readaholic 2/25/2020 10:55:43 AM (No. 329221)
Valiantly casting pearls before swine. If one of these ignoramuses is ever unreasonably accused of rape he might have cause to remember her words.
6 people like this.
Reply 30 - Posted by:
LC Chihuahua 2/25/2020 11:11:12 AM (No. 329234)
It starts before college folks. A student must be prepared for college. Its a totally different environment.
A student absolutely must be able to think for himself, and question what they are being taught. Its not a problem in the more technical fields, but it is a problem when the courses are more philosophical. A student is there for an education, not an indoctrination full of garbage. You have to know what you are there for. You want a degree in a field that will yield a good paying job.
To this day, I remember taking a History course on Soviet Socialism. It defied common sense and logic which made it very difficult for me. Most of the students wouldn't even question the teacher who happened to be the Dean of the History department. Most of the class were History majors. it was also poorly taught. The teacher seemed to ramble. No notes and didn't follow the books. I squeaked by with a C. Most of the History majors were more familiar with the curriculum and were more able to parrot what the teacher was saying. Hindsight being 20-20, I should have dropped the class.
The other thing to do is not stay on campus. I recall the police being called to the Student Union building on multiple weekends to deal with drunks and violent students. You are suppose to be there to learn, not to 'party'.
I also think it might be wiser to start college a little later. Work for a few years, stay at home, and save some money. I did five years of college over an eight year period. Start college a few years later after maturing a little bit. You have to enter college with a plan on what you are intending to do. The first two years of college were the most difficult because high school never prepared me. I had to learn my interests and capabilities. I also had to improve my learning and study habits.
Also many colleges are charging over 100k tuition. Don't fall for that. Either your parents or you will be in debt up to your eyeballs. I graduated from a good local college owing a total of $400.
10 people like this.
Reply 31 - Posted by:
Aubreyesque 2/25/2020 11:15:02 AM (No. 329239)
Im sorry but there ARE some professions where it is a necessity to obtain a college degree, especially if that person is to have any professional merit at all. Would you go to a heart surgeon that taught himself? Or received his degree online...or training by some other means than the traditional consortium required for doctors to go through? How about engineers? Do you trust that person who just followed his dad around but didnt go through the state testing and certification for installing electricity or plumbing or bridge building or designing a high rise to withstand high winds and provide comforts for the many office workers? I know there are journeymen organizations and a lot of that latter IS done through hands-on training but there ARE standards that have been established and must be met and a lot of times, colleges and junior colleges are the only places to get such certification. My daughter wants to be a veterinarian technician - its not the level of a full fledged veterinarian but she STILL has to go to college to receive the training and certification in order to become a trusted and verified vet-tech.
I get that we've let the colleges run amok with the money paid in and the lefties have not let go since WWII. But bashing colleges as being utterly useless is not helpful, especially when there ARE benefits that we've obviously taken for granted.
2 people like this.
Reply 32 - Posted by:
Aubreyesque 2/25/2020 11:23:27 AM (No. 329248)
Sorry for the 2nd post but I have to respond to #29
Trade schools are excellent choices. I would never argue that. But my husband has been in the engineering business for the last 30 years with only an Associates Degree from an excellent "trade school" established by Texas A&M. He's done darn near the work of a full fledged 4 yr engineer and with a greater amount of professionalism and success and understanding of engineering principles.
HOWEVER....
His pay scale can only go so far, and he can only advance so far because he only has a 2 yr degree. And there's a reason for that. Its all well and good to promote trade schools for those who do not want to go to a full fledged career...but those degrees in the hard sciences still mean something.
I would suggest that for the STEM fields, there needs to be separate schools that ONLY offer degrees in a specific STEM field. If you go to medicine, you go to a school that ONLY teaches medicine...nothing else. If you go into engineering, you to go to a school that ONLY teaches a certain area of engineering. Nothing else. Trade schools can only take one so far, and if a person finds that they are really successful and good at that field then they should be able to pursue that field without any hindrance at all. But JUST trade schools is not the solution for the stupidity of our current universities.
3 people like this.
Reply 33 - Posted by:
moonlightflip 2/25/2020 12:02:35 PM (No. 329295)
these ignorant college students will be graduated and enter government jobs in order to make life miserable for the rest of us. plus, they want "free" college. so effin gross!
3 people like this.
Reply 34 - Posted by:
Mofongo 2/25/2020 12:12:44 PM (No. 329305)
I went to college in the 70s in order to - put your coffee down - get educated. I wanted to learn about what Matthew Arnold characterized as “the best that has been thought or said.” In those ancient days, that’s what many serious students wanted out of fine schools, and that breadth of knowledge and shared appreciation of the wonders of the world was what was expected of smart, educated people. Fast forward to today, and that mindset is all but incomprehensible. Higher education has become either a route to a profession or an indoctrination program, take your choice. IMO, we’re the worse for it.
4 people like this.
Reply 35 - Posted by:
NYbob 2/25/2020 12:23:09 PM (No. 329310)
I didn't realize the value of growing up on a dairy farm till late middle age. All the hard work prepped me for my first wage earning job and every job since then. When you have to actually work, you understand in a real muscle memory way the value of your time and you quickly build a store of ambition to get a better job and better skills. Being a babied snowflake your entire life is a good way to sour someone's potential. If the punks who swallow all the lies of the left weren't so darn obnoxious, it would be sad.
6 people like this.
Reply 36 - Posted by:
Smart11344 2/25/2020 1:02:39 PM (No. 329344)
The truth hurts. Far too many are dumb as a rotting post...The Professors are even more rotten. God help our higher education.facilities.
5 people like this.
Reply 37 - Posted by:
b4lucy 2/25/2020 2:24:35 PM (No. 329432)
Well 32, Your brother is doing quite well without a college degree...College is just not the answer to a large percentage of young people...His military service put him in a position to go directly into a world of opportunities...That seems to be a good path for many young people....
4 people like this.
Reply 38 - Posted by:
watashiyo 2/25/2020 3:26:53 PM (No. 329485)
Proof is CNN's Acosta.
2 people like this.
So sure of themselves, yet uneducated, ignorant and self-absorbed.
1 person likes this.
Reply 40 - Posted by:
Heraclitus 2/25/2020 7:27:38 PM (No. 329686)
#10, I could have signed my name to your Comment! I was blessed for ever to have an extraordinary Mother; my Dad wasn't around as much, but he expected us to think for ourselves, to shun the crowd, i.e., to avoid hanging out with other kids for the sake of not standing alone. Maybe it's temperament, but I never made decisions in order to conform. I just did not care... as long as I had books to read, or the quietude to think.
Parents must watch their children like hawks. Never assume that what they taught them has remained stuck in their brains OR hearts. The social pressure to conform is so immense; most people can't stand feeling ostracized. When one's beliefs seems to be under assault by a majority, it's hard to REALLY resist (the so-called resist movement is really just a bunch of band-wagonners).
There are many ways to get a good education without having to live on a campus. I think campus life is the real source of peril: too many temptations, too few encouragements to stay the course. IF more parents were keeping their children at home or nearby, universities might feel the financial pinch and begin to change from being re-indoctrination centers to true education and enlightenment.
I'm not very hopeful. God is driven out of the public square. The demons of envy, jealousy, immodesty, irrationality, hatred and violence have been let loose.
1 person likes this.