However terrible American universities are, they are still needed in a highly technical society. Is there any possibility of reforming them?
Every now and then, someone suggests a topic for an article. I appreciate when people make such suggestions. A friend from Harvard asked if there is any way to fix our defective and destructive universities. This is a very important question.
Let’s think about some of the really disastrous ideas and actions that the Obama-Biden people have given to the American people:
– A fully open border with millions of unvetted aliens from dozens of countries coming through.
– A woke military that cannot meet its recruiting requirements and that forced women into combat roles, at the expense of force readiness.
– DEI before equality/merit, giving us such luminaries such as Kamala Harris, Claudine Gay and the bald guy with the stolen dresses taking care of our nuclear waste.
– A weakened overseas posture that allowed Russia, Iran, and China to flex their muscles against US allies and interests.
– A willy-nilly departure from Afghanistan that left 13 Marines dead, billions in military equipment behind, and the loss of a completely renewed Bagram Airfield.
– Forcing healthy people, children, and those who already had Covid to take an experimental vaccine or lose their job, be kept out of school, or be forced out of the military.
– Another $10 billion in sanctions relief for Iran while the latter is preparing to build nuclear weapons.
This list is not intended to be complete; if it were complete, there would be no other articles on this website. The point I want to raise is that all of these dumb policies and ideas were put into effect by people who went to university. Many of them went to top schools, and no small number have multiple degrees, including advanced diplomas. With such failures from America’s best and brightest, one might be tempted to simply shut down colleges and universities, with the premise being that the results could not be worse. The problem is that such a Maoist Cultural Revolution approach will not work.
For all of their grave failings including very high prices and declining graduation rates, universities still produce our doctors, lawyers, engineers, accountants, and other professionals that an advanced society needs. Sure, there is a lot of fat with majors in Near Study Studies and courses like Gender Disparities in the Hobbit, but in the end, if we want accredited professionals, community colleges, online degrees and technical schools will not provide the full solution at this time.
As is well known, universities are the places where every door knob is on the left. Professors and students identify at well over 90% as liberal or even socialist. Donations skew well over 90% to the Democrats. Graduates take their leftwing ideology with them to their professions. Whether it be Harvard Medical School professors gurgling about “birthing people” or ChatGPT engineers skewing their algorithms to favor a climate emergency or Trump as fascist, the left-leaning universities and their products are often a destructive force in American culture. The question is whether we can change a situation where for every Hillsdale College there are hundreds of leftwing indoctrination centers.
Let’s imagine that one sets a goal for universities and colleges having intellectually diverse populations of students and professors in which half of those on campus would describe themselves as conservative or centrists by the end of JD Vance’s second term (12 years hence). How could you achieve such a goal? One of the problems is that the students who come in may not be as strident in their views as when they leave, but they too are certainly left-leaning before they ever hit campus. The best bet for success is to get the universities back to teaching and research and out of the politics and ideology business as much as possible. What tools does the government have to achieve such an outcome?
– Tax endowment income at 25% if 90% of incoming students do not graduate within four years. Maybe such a threat would make universities focus more on teaching and less on anti-Israel riots or post-Trump victory therapy sessions.
– End all federal backing for student loans. Many fewer students will be able to afford college, and schools may be starved of enough money to start shedding their massive administrative deadweight, including 2 DEI deans for every student.
– End all federal funding for schools that cannot reign in antisemitism or anti-Americanism. People have the right to express themselves and protest; the US government has the right to put our tax dollars where it will do best.
– Demand that federal funding be tied to mandatory classes on civics and American history based on approved textbooks that do not portray the US as a racist, terrible country built on slavery.
One of the worst features of the schools is their rampant anti-Americanism. It is only through the good graces and abundance of the United States that these schools exist and function. When I first came to Israel, I could not understand why every protest against whatever government was in power included Israeli flags. Vietnam protests generally did not have American flags, as those protesting were against the reigning government. Here, each group believes that it has the correct view of Israel and the flag belongs to it. Thus whether it is the left protesting Netanyahu or the right protesting the lefty High Court, there are always Israeli flags present. American universities and their students need to have a love and affinity for the country that has given them everything they have. They must show respect for the freest and fairest country on Earth. The US is not perfect, but I promise that if you go somewhere else, your life will be more expensive and less free. If students and faculty cannot show basic respect for the country in which their school sits, then the schools should be put out of business. Watching pro-Hamas students and others threaten Jewish students infuriates me. Seeing the same people burning American flags or putting a keffiyeh on a statue of Ben Franklin angers me no less.
I don’t know if there is any way to really reform our leftwing, garbage universities. That said, an effort must be made, because the defective graduates they are producing are a clear and present danger to the near-term and long-term success and stability of the Republic. This effort should be a top priority of the incoming administration.
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