Putting all generational gaps aside, I'm pretty certain that I am not the only person shaking their heads in utter disbelief over what is happening to academia in the western world, specifically in private colleges and universities. I've no interest in the public education template, that system is inherently flawed to not meet a student's or instructor's standard of education. You can't get what you pay for if you don't pay. It's basically a class struggle that diminishes a student's drive to excel in learning because of their social status. This environment of sociology-politics is causing a major shift in academia and how education is dispersed to the individual student.
Some of you college grads will remember this saying about the pitfalls of higher education: "You have to have gone to college to say/do something that stupid." This pointed jab at college-level learning is ironic but in many ways true. I'm not trying to apply this to the hard sciences or traditional academia, mind you--I'm talking about the injecting of cultural Marxist values into areas of cultural/social/gender studies. This phenomena is not new to those types of curriculum, and the majority of those types of college-level classes are electives anyway. But, to me, it says something about the value that educators put on these accredited courses that, quite frankly, won't further your situation in life or give you a skill set to master in the real world. Student political activism aside--I'll be blunt and say you can't hide behind privilege to get a real degree in the humanities or cultural studies--it just doesn't work that way outside of a classroom or ideological bubble.
The way technology has consolidated information and education, there's definitely a social trend or political activist bent to the way people are being formally educated. I can say from experience that the value of a private education is still substantial over a government subsidized one, and that the class struggle is what, pervasively, makes students more politically motivated to change traditional education templates.
As a sometime educator and social worker, it's not hard to see the machinations of higher learning and the politics behind formal education. It's amusing to see where the radicalized educators and activists push the political envelope on issues of ethics or moral imperatives or cultural appropriation. Issues that, ultimately, will impact how future generations of people are schooled.
by sonofject
The Wall