By Liz Wolfe
I attended the College of William and Mary from fall 2014 until winter 2016, during the arguable height of social justice outrage. The infamous University of Missouri protests happened soon after I started school, where professor Melissa Click threatened a student journalist with physical violence.
At Yale, the Christakises were protested for arguing against over-coddling administrators telling students what they should not wear for Halloween. The Rolling Stone story, “A Rape on Campus” that was later found fraudulent came out during my first year of school. It’s not for these reasons alone that college was futile, but the leftist insanity that perpetually surrounded me certainly played a part.
This spring was set to be my graduation from college. Had I not sped things up and graduated in two years, instead of four, I would have walked across the stage, taken pictures with my family, and graduated with $40,000 in debt. I wouldn’t have been able to earn editing and writing experience (like bylines at The Daily Beast, Newsweek, Reason, and The Houston Chronicle). I recommend the same path to other young conservatives — escape debt and leftist indoctrination, if you can. Choose work experience, trade school, or a fast-tracked route through college instead.
College Often Isn’t Worth Your Time and Money
Elite colleges aren’t designed for critical thinking or open inquiry anymore. According to Catherine Rampell at The Washington Post, “A fifth of undergrads now say it’s acceptable to use physical force to silence a speaker who makes ‘offensive and hurtful statements.’”
The same survey indicates that about four in every ten students believes the First Amendment does not allow “hate speech.” Meanwhile, even at elite colleges like the liberal arts school Pomona, nearly 90 percent of students say their campus climate chills speech because they fear saying things others might find offensive.
Those illiberal trends are bad enough on their own, but the format of college also makes little sense. Its incentives are poorly aligned with what is valued in the workplace. Students are incentivized to be obedient and compliant, not to set themselves apart from the pack. Many college students end up slinging impressive sounding extracurriculars together that any hiring manager can easily see through. Mastery of a skill, and understanding what will be valued in the marketplace, fall by the wayside.
Too often, college is merely a signal students use to show bare minimum competence to employers. But is that signal still valuable as college becomes more about leftist indoctrination, coddling, and delayed adulthood?
As the “college experience” (or “the best four years of your life”) has become more mythologized, adulthood becomes increasingly delayed as students seek limitless fun without consequences. Colleges often require students to live in dorms, eat in dining halls, and engage in absurd icebreaker activities.
Parents, too, must be oriented at many elite schools. All of this sends the message that college is more like extended, boozed up summer camp than the start of adulthood. It’s no wonder so many of the traditional markers of adulthood are also being delayed.
http://thefederalist.com/2018/08/16/identity-politics-rapidly-destroying-value-college-degrees/
