More worthless than a degree from a diploma mill

During a golf game recently, the president of Bowdoin College hit up a prominent philanthropist for money and the man refused, calling Bowdoin “a ridiculous liberal school that brings all the wrong students to campus for all the wrong reasons.” After that, the philanthropist was castigated by the president as a knuckle-dragging troglodyte, who had dared (gasp!) to express disapproval of “diversity” as it is now practices.

The description of Bowdoin could apply to almost any liberal arts college today:

…Bowdoin has become an intellectual monoculture dedicated above all to identity politics.

The school’s ideological pillars would likely be familiar to anyone who has paid attention to American higher education lately. There’s the obsession with race, class, gender and sexuality as the essential forces of history and markers of political identity. There’s the dedication to “sustainability,” or saving the planet from its imminent destruction by the forces of capitalism. And there are the paeans to “global citizenship,” or loving all countries except one’s own.

The Klingenstein report nicely captures the illiberal or fallacious aspects of this campus doctrine, but the paper’s true contribution is in recording some of its absurd manifestations at Bowdoin. For example, the college has “no curricular requirements that center on the American founding or the history of the nation.” Even history majors aren’t required to take a single course in American history. In the History Department, no course is devoted to American political, military, diplomatic or intellectual history—the only ones available are organized around some aspect of race, class, gender or sexuality.

Other than non-dischargeable debt, just what are these kids getting for their money? What are their parents getting? Nothing of value that I can see. I suppose they are qualified to get a job at Starbucks and whine to the world about social injustice, but the money that is spent on such an “education” is wasted.

In my opinion, identity politics is useless trash, bordering on evil, for it denies individual autonomy and freedom. To indoctrinate young people in such swill is bad enough, but to call it “education” and charge them for it amounts to fraud.

In short, they are being systematically swindled. I think they should sue and demand their money back. Make the schools cough up the money that the hoodwinked kids owe.

OTOH, steeping these kids in absolute identitarian idiocy might be a good way of separating wheat from chaff. If I were hiring or recruiting, I would look for the kids who were savvy enough not to drink the party Kool Aid, especially those who had creatively rebelled.

There are plenty of them. I even know some.


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14 responses to “More worthless than a degree from a diploma mill”

  1. Will Avatar
    Will

    Hold on Eric, while Bowdoin College may not be as prestigious a provider of “Patents of Nobility” as Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton or Yale; but it does provide (somewhat lesser) patents for those few graduates who have or build the “right” connections. It’s not about what they learn or accomplish but rather who they get to know and call fellow activist or friend.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowdoin_College#Bowdoin_alumni

  2. Eric Scheie Avatar

    I’m not putting down Bowdoin or any other school in particular; just the worthlessness of a college education today. If all that tuition money is being spent to obtain the right friendships and connections, might there be other, cheaper ways to get them?

  3. jurisdebtor Avatar

    “Other than non-dischargeable debt, just what are these kids getting for their money?”

    Bowdoin Eliminates Student Loans While Vowing to Maintain its Commitment to Low-Income Students, Jan. 24, 2008

    http://www.bowdoin.edu/news/archives/1bowdoincampus/004745.shtml

    “Bowdoin College announced Jan. 18, 2008, that it will eliminate loans for all new and current students receiving financial aid, replacing those loans with grants beginning with the 2008-09 academic year.

    Bowdoin is one of only two colleges with endowments of less than $1 billion to eliminate loans for both new first-year and current students.¹ Bowdoin is the first college in Maine to eliminate loans for all students . . .”

  4. jurisdebtor Avatar

    “In my opinion, identity politics is useless trash, bordering on evil, for it denies individual autonomy and freedom. To indoctrinate young people in such swill is bad enough, but to call it “education” and charge them for it amounts to fraud.”

    So, one’s subjective beliefs on a subject dictates whether others are being “indoctrinated” (a bit hyperbolic in the context of students choosing to attend a particular university/college with at least a basic understanding of the dominant politics on that campus). For instance, if one said that Austrian Economics is “useless trash,” then obviously GMU is indoctrinating its econ students.

  5. Eric Scheie Avatar

    Identity politics is akin to Austrian Economics? Really?

  6. Brett Avatar

    In the political sphere, university employees are forever demanding we “give back” to society, by which they mean government. Naturally, they overlook the fact that it is they who have received careers and pensions from the government, not the independent private sector they would bill so imperiously.

    Considering the crippled economy, it is time for the university communities to give back to society. I suggest a 50% cut in employee compensation, across the board. Why not? They should live more sustainably, with a smaller carbon footprint. Besides, they love their intellectual work so much they would do it for nothing. Right?

    Or perhaps they are just run of the mill humans, self-aggrandizing and self-interested, and their pronouncements should be viewed as sceptically as any commercial advertizing campaign.

  7. TheAJ Avatar
    TheAJ

    According to Wikipedia, Bowdein alumni have mid-career salaries of around $100K.

    In other words, they are doing pretty well for themselves, and if this can be considered being “hoodwinked” then please, sign me up. I didn’t know that Starbucks paid that well.

    “In 2003, the Wall Street Journal ranked Bowdoin among the top twenty colleges and universities in the United States based on the percentage of the school’s alumni who attend a “top-five” graduate program in business, law, or medicine.”

    Please, Eric, tell us, what exactly have you accomplished with your life that allows you to jump on a high horse and look down upon the university’s alumni? As far as I can tell, the alumni are quite successful, doing well, and the data validates this statement. Why not compare the data instead of speaking out of your ass (“look, liberals, at a liberal arts schools! They all work at Starbucks!”)

    Anyways, this is a private institution doing its own thing, apparently, fairly successfully, so why do you really care? I’ve never really understood why right-wingers get so up in arms about what left-wingers are up to. Jealousy much?

  8. Simon Avatar

    “Please, Eric, tell us, what exactly have you accomplished with your life that allows you to jump on a high horse and look down upon the university’s alumni?”

    Well let me chime in AJ. I became an aerospace engineer without benefit of a degree. Does that qualify?

    Worked my way up from bench technician.

    You really don’t need a degree. What you need are some brains – a commodity in somewhat short supply and ambition – a commodity in much shorter supply.

  9. Eric Scheie Avatar

    Did I put down Bowdoin alumni or look down on them?

    What I look down on is the poor quality of a liberal arts “education.” That I think they are being ill served is hardly an attack on them; in fact it’s the opposite.

    Connections alone cannot prevent the bare lie from shining through.

    Simon, you are right that brains are in short supply.

  10. TheAJ Avatar
    TheAJ

    Well let me chime in AJ. I became an aerospace engineer without benefit of a degree. Does that qualify?

    Um, no. On becoming an engineer without a degree – congratulations. But again, I don’t understand how being an aerospace engineer without a degree allows you hold someone who received a degree in something with so much contempt.


    You really don’t need a degree. What you need are some brains – a commodity in somewhat short supply and ambition – a commodity in much shorter supply.

    I’m glad you were able to accomplish what you did, but it is a mistake to consider exceptions to be the rule.

    Based on WSJ data, the average default rate of Bowdein graduates is 2%, the average grad rate is 92% and the median debt is $18K. And the (self-reported) data indicates the graduates go onto successful careers for the most part.

    Its annoying when data gets in the way of dickish assumptions and stereotypes but the data cannot just be ignored.

    I mean, I understand there’s the “we are liberterians therefore we must hate (students, liberal arts majors, private school attendees, teachers, insert another group into ever-growing shit-list) but I dunno, do you think this is a winning proposition?

  11. Simon Avatar

    I don’t understand how being an aerospace engineer without a degree allows you hold someone who received a degree in something with so much contempt.”

    Well lets see.

    I can’t tell you the number of times I replaced a degreed engineers who didn’t know what the F they were doing. All that money and time and it seems they couldn’t do the job.

    I remember one time I predicted total disaster – a PC board was designed wrong. Bad wrong. There were about ten degreed hardware engineers in the section I was working with – they laughed at me. (I was called in because they were short handed) The first prototypes worked. The preproduction prototypes worked. More laughter. Then production. About 90% failure off the line and 99% field failures of those that passed the line. Only one person laughing. Me.

    And the information they needed was in the manuals for the parts they were using. I showed it to them. Right from the beginning.

    All that money spent educating those boys. Wasted. And they didn’t even know it. Until they designed a disaster.

    =================

    Of course exceptions aren’t the rule. That is why they are exceptions.

    But with the cost of degrees up and the value of them down people may have to start finding their inner ambish.

    On line education is available. And getting better. When I started all I had was books. With no one to ask questions of the way you can do online these days.

    =====================

    I mean, I understand there’s the “we are liberterians therefore we must hate (students, liberal arts majors, private school attendees, teachers, insert another group into ever-growing shit-list) but I dunno, do you think this is a winning proposition?

    Yes. When I signed on for this gig:

    http://www.ecnmag.com/tags/Blogs/M-Simon/

    I flat out said few things:

    1. I have an abrasive personality
    2. I don’t respect chains of command
    3. I hold in contempt the majority of degreed engineers

    They said #1 and #2 were no problem and as engineers themselves and having seen the run of the mill they understood – despite holding degees themselves.

    So yes. I do think it is a winning proposition because in fact it is reality.

    Most people train for a job. I trained because I love it. Who is most likely to turn out better?

    ====

    And the cost of my training was negative – I got paid every step of the way.

    ====

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/mcdonalds-job-advert-demands-new-employees-have-a-degree-and-two-years-experience-qualifications-previously-required-only-in-corporate-and-managerial-roles-8559953.html

    He added: “Combine that with government meddling in the student loan market that has artificially inflated the cost of higher education and young people are getting screwed over even worse than the country overall”.

    =====

    Any more questions AJ?

  12. […] AJ was asking a few questions at Eric’s More worthless than a degree from a diploma mill. He believes in the value of schooling. I do not. I believe in the value of education. Specifically […]

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