Diversity Is Necessary for Academic Excellence? |Walter Williams

  …What about diversity? Diversity is nothing less than a craze on most college campuses. Despite budget squeezes, universities have created diversity positions, such as vice chancellor for equity, diversity and inclusion; director of diversity and inclusion; manager of diversity recruitment; associate dean for diversity; and vice president of diversity. Some diversity chiefs — such as the vice chancellors of diversity at the University of California campuses in San Diego and San Francisco — have annual salaries that top $250,000. That doesn’t include the millions of dollars spent staffing and equipping diversity offices…

The academic vision of diversity calls for the celebration of people based upon their race, religion, genitalia and sexual behavior. And the last thing academic diversity means is diversity in thought, opinions and political affiliation. Taxpayers and irresponsible donors foot the bill for this deviancy.

Intellectuals argue that diversity is necessary for academic excellence, but what’s their evidence other than plausibility? Here’s what they need to explain. Japan is a nation bereft of diversity in anything. Close to 99 percent of its population is of one race. Whose students do you think have higher academic achievement — theirs or ours, who are diversity-rich? According to the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment, the academic performance of U.S. high-school students in reading, math and science pales in comparison with their diversity-starved counterparts in Japan…”

via Diversity Is Necessary for Academic Excellence? – LewRockwell.com.

It’s That Time Of Year Again | Market-Ticker

It’s That Time Of Year Again.  What time?  College decision time….

If you have one or more kids that are approaching the time when they fly the nest, you’re either involved in this in some way or likely will be.

I’ve hammered on this nail many times, but I’m going to do it again today, because right about now is when decisions have to be made about next year and bad decisions here can cripple or even economically destroy a young adult.

This is not overstating the case folks.

In the 1970s and early 80s you could spin pizzas or wash cars and put yourself through school, and many people did.  Today that is nearly impossible, and a big part of the reason is that schools have gotten predatory and treat young adults not as a mission but as a revenue source to be extracted from to the maximum possible extent.

I look at balance sheets literally all day long.  Guess what: So do colleges, and the balance sheets they’re looking at are yours, having essentially forced your disclosure through the FAFSA.

What we know and don’t know about Obama | Western Journalism

click image to jump to article at Western Journalism

Bachelor’s degree: Has it lost its edge and its value? | CSMonitor.com

… Once the hallmark of an educated and readily employable adult, the bachelor’s degree is losing its edge. Quicker, cheaper programs offer attractive career route alternatives while the more prestigious master’s is trumping it, making it a mere steppingstone.

Studies show that people with four-year college degrees earn more money than those without over their lifetime, that they are more likely to find jobs and, once employed, are almost twice as likely to be selected for on-the-job training.

This has prompted a stampede through college and university gates.

But studies are like photographs: They record the past. They say nothing about the clear and present danger that the bachelor’s degree is losing value… via Bachelor’s degree: Has it lost its edge and its value? – CSMonitor.com.

The Late 20th Century Western Lifestyle Isn’t Going To Be Around Much Longer | Mark Steyn / Investors.com

The Eurovision Song Contest doesn’t get a lot of attention in the United States, but on the Continent it’s long been seen as the perfect Euro-metaphor.

Years before the euro came along, it was the prototype pan-European institution, and predicated on the same assumptions. Eurovision took the national cultures that produced Mozart, Vivaldi and Debussy, and in return gave us “Boom-Bang-A-Bang” (winner, 1969), “Ding-Ding-A-Dong” (winner, 1975) and “Diggi-Loo-Diggi-Ley” (winner, 1984).

The euro took the mark, the lira and the franc, and merged them to create the “Boom-Bang-A-Bang” of currencies.

How will it all end? One recalls the 1990 Eurovision finals in Zagreb: “Yugoslavia is very much like an orchestra,” cooed the hostess, Helga Vlahovi?. “The string section and the wood section all sit together.”

Shortly thereafter, the wood section began ethnically cleansing the dressing rooms, while the string section rampaged through the brass section pillaging their instruments and severing their genitals. Indeed, the charming Miss Vlahovic herself was forced into a sudden career shift and spent the next few years as Croatian TV’s head of “war information” programming.

The Benefits Of A College Education | ZeroHedge

The Benefits Of A College Education | ZeroHedge.

Number of PhDs receiving federal aid more than tripled from 2007 to 2010 | Daily Caller

At some point, the question must be asked:  Is that useless degree worth it?? GE.

… According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, between 2007 and 2010, the percentage of people with a graduate degree who were on food stamps or were receiving another kind of federal aid more than doubled, reaching 360,000… In 2007, 9,776 people with PhD’s were receiving some kind of aid. In 2010, that number had more than tripled to 33,655. For people with master’s degrees, the number spiked from 101,683 to 293,029. Austin Nichols of the Urban Institute crunched those numbers for The Chronicle using census data…. via The Daily Caller.

Also see here:

The government’s college money pit | Jeff Jacoby

Year in, year out, Washington bestows tuition aid on students and their families. Year in, year out, the cost of tuition surges, galloping well ahead of inflation. And year in, year out, politicians vie to outdo each other in promising still more public subsidies that will keep higher education within reach of all. Does it never occur to them that there might be a cause-and-effect relationship between the skyrocketing aid and the skyrocketing price of a college education? That all those grants and loans and tax credits aren’t containing the fire, but fanning it?

Apparently not…

via The government’s college money pit :: Jeff Jacoby.

McGurn: What’s Your Kid Getting From College? – WSJ.com

via McGurn: What’s Your Kid Getting From College? – WSJ.com.

“The fundamental problem here is not debt but a broken educational system that no longer insists on excellence,” Ms. Neal says. “College tuitions have risen more than 440% over the last 25 years—and for what? The students who say that college has not prepared them for the real world are largely right.”