I remember how it was -- JR
Will the Decade-Long Decline in College Enrollments Continue?
After 2020, truly an annus horribilis for American higher education, most veteran observers thought college enrollment would start growing again this fall. Preliminary data from the National Student Clearinghouse show it did not, with undergraduate numbers down over three percent from last fall’s already depressed count. But this is not just pandemic-related: American collegiate enrollments today are down meaningfully from a decade ago, 2011. The proportion of the total American population attending college today has fallen over 15%, I believe something that is historically unprecedented in periods without major wartime activity.
To be sure, as I have stated before, not all colleges or academic programs are created equal. The highly selective schools had enrollment gains this fall—the flight to quality is continuing more than ever in this era of the Varsity Blue admissions scandals. Similarly, graduate enrollments were up, albeit modestly, and international students are again increasing in number. However, the weaker, less well known schools had on average pretty steep enrollment declines. Community college enrollments continue to fall. The massive flight towards quality continues.
Why is this happening? At least four major explanations are probably at least partially responsible. First, college has become too expensive and its value is increasingly questioned. For most of the past decade, college tuition fees and other expenses were rising faster than the inflation rate and the Law of Demand was at work—when something becomes costlier, people buy less of it. That is not true in the past year or two, however. The College Board reports that inflation-adjusted tuition fees actually have fallen in the past year, albeit very little. Prediction: fees next fall will rise significantly less than surging rates of inflation, causing all sorts of angst on college campuses.
The decreasing value proposition of higher education, however, applies much less obviously to the elite schools. Earnings of graduates of top colleges (and majors) are vastly higher than at the College of Last Resort, and since the elite schools also have more money for scholarship assistance, their discounted costs often are not much more than at the lower reputation institutions. Indeed, earnings of graduates of schools of lesser distinction are often not dramatically greater than for high school graduates taking jobs in high demand, perhaps after completing a relatively short course in learning to drive big trucks, how to weld or do computer coding.
Second, the fall in births in the 21st century has reduced the primary pool of potential future students. There were fewer babies born in 2003, the birth year of many of this fall’s freshmen, than 43 years earlier, in 1960. In my state of Ohio, more people died in 2020 than were born, and that is not unique. Large portions of the eastern U.S. and Midwest are particularly feeling the birth dearth, and large scale-immigration is not filling the gap. Looking at births, a significant reversal of the enrollment decline based on population growth is not likely in the next decade or two.
Third, the rapid rise in incomes characterizing 20th century America has slowed down considerably. In the 1990s, for example, American output rose 3.2 percent per year on average. By contrast, in the 2010-2019 period, that growth slowed to 2.3 percent. Our ability to fund colleges is being crimped, especially since the nation on the macro level has gone on a spending and debt binge that history tells us will have profoundly negative effects on future generations.
Fourth, increasingly colleges look like scary, hostile places for many Americans. In 1980, there were roughly one male student for each female; today, women far outnumber men, who often don’t like the campus rhetoric about “white male privilege” and other utterances coming from an army of diversity coordinators and activist students. Parents seem increasingly skeptical about the wisdom of sending their kids into what seems like a hostile environment. Colleges are increasingly out of tune with the culture of the broader American population.
I repeat for the umpteenth time what I think is undisputable: American institutions of higher education are utterly dependent on the general public—taxpayers, philanthropists, and others, for their daily bread. Colleges cannot live by tuition fees alone, and ignore that reality at their peril.
https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=13840
*************************************Woke Tales: Anti-Semitism at Yale, Mask Madness at Cornell
Guy Benson
Administrators at Yale Law School spent weeks pressuring a student to apologize for a "triggering" email in which he referred to his apartment as a "trap house," a slang term for a place where people buy drugs. Part of what made the email "triggering," the administrators told the student, was his membership in a conservative organization. The second-year law student, a member of both the Native American Law Students Association and the conservative Federalist Society, had invited classmates to an event cohosted by the two groups. "We will be christening our very own (soon to be) world-renowned NALSA Trap House … by throwing a Constitution Day Bash in collaboration with FedSoc," he wrote in a Sept. 15 email to the Native American listserv.
In keeping with the theme, he said, the mixer would serve "American-themed snacks" like "Popeye’s chicken" and "apple pie." ... Within minutes, the lighthearted invite had been screenshotted and shared to an online forum for all second-year law students, several of whom alleged that the term "trap house" indicated a blackface party..."I guess celebrating whiteness wasn’t enough," the president of the Black Law Students Association wrote in the forum. "Y’all had to upgrade to cosplay/black face." She also objected to the mixer’s affiliation with the Federalist Society, which she said "has historically supported anti-Black rhetoric."...
Just 12 hours after the email went out, the student was summoned to the law school’s Office of Student Affairs, which administrators said had received nine discrimination and harassment complaints about his message. At a Sept. 16 meeting, which the student recorded and shared with the Washington Free Beacon, associate dean Ellen Cosgrove and diversity director Yaseen Eldik told the student that the word "trap" connotes crack use, hip hop, and blackface. Those "triggering associations," Eldik said, were "compounded by the fried chicken reference," which "is often used to undermine arguments that structural and systemic racism has contributed to racial health disparities in the U.S." Eldik, a former Obama White House official, went on to say that the student’s membership in the Federalist Society had "triggered" his peers. "The email’s association with FedSoc was very triggering for students who already feel like FedSoc belongs to political affiliations that are oppressive to certain communities," Eldik said. "That of course obviously includes the LGBTQIA community and black communities and immigrant communities."
This is all bonkers, and it's a frightening, ludicrous pageant of grievance and victimhood to watch unfold at one of the most prestigious institutions in the country, featuring tomorrow's elite attorneys, no less. As indicated above, thankfully, there was a fierce backlash, and the student (a person of color, in fact!) was spared. To his credit, he also refused to apologize or bend the knee to the jackals. The Washington Free Beacon played a major role in the coverage of this whole episode. As a follow-up, they've now uncovered another incident at Yale Law, again involving the "diversity director:"
The Yale Law School administrator caught on tape pressuring a student to apologize for an allegedly racist party invitation pushed the Yale Law Journal to host a diversity trainer who told students that anti-Semitism is merely a form of anti-blackness and suggested that the FBI artificially inflates the number of anti-Semitic hate crimes. The comments from diversity trainer Ericka Hart—a self-described "kinky" sex-ed teacher who works with children as young as nine—shocked members of the predominantly liberal law review, many of whom characterized the presentation as anti-Semitic, according to a memo from Yale Law Journal editors obtained by the Washington Free Beacon..."I consider myself very liberal," a student quoted in the memo said. But Hart's presentation, delivered Sept. 17 to members of the prestigious law review, was "almost like a conservative parody of what antiracism trainings are like."
The controversy began when a law journal editor asked Hart why her presentation had addressed inequities like "pretty privilege" and "fatphobia" but not anti-Semitism. According to the memo, which collected feedback on the training from 33 law journal editors, Hart responded that she'd already covered anti-Semitism by discussing anti-blackness, because some Jews are black. She also raised questions about FBI data showing that Jews are the most frequent targets of hate crimes—implying, in the words of one journal editor, that the people compiling those statistics had an "agenda." "She basically said anti-Semitism is a subset of anti-blackness," the editor told the Free Beacon. "She didn't recognize there could be anti-Semitism against white people."
That characterization is corroborated by two students quoted in the memo, and by a third who spoke on the condition of anonymity...Reactions to the training were almost uniformly negative, with 82 percent of editors saying they would not invite Hart back even if she incorporated their feedback. Over a third expressed distress at her treatment of anti-Semitism—"shocking," "offensive," and "upsetting" is how three separate editors described it—while several more mocked her account of "white supremacy culture," which one editor called "goalpost-moving, unfalsifiable nonsense."
It's a commentary on Yale and elite academia more broadly that bigoted grifters like this are invited to conduct "trainings" on "diversity," "inclusion," "equity," and "anti-racism," along with any other buzzwords I've excluded. It's at least somewhat encouraging that some of the students, including liberal ones, were contemptuous of the incoherent claptrap they were being served. At least high-level law students can think for themselves, it seems; it's harder for younger students to stand up to nonsense being railroaded into their heads by ideologues, which is why so many parents are up in arms over racialized curricula in K-12 education. At Yale, will the "diversity" apparatchik suffer any consequences for bringing an anti-Semite to campus on the same day he pressured and threatened a student to apologize over a preposterous micro-aggression? This blunt observation is more accurate than many people would like to admit:
Meanwhile, at Cornell:
Los Angeles Requires More ID To Enter A Building Than Georgia Does To Absentee Vote
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Australian Labor Party states push back on positive history curriculum bid
Federal Education Minister Alan Tudge’s hopes for a national curriculum that presents a positive view of Australian history is facing a challenge from Labor states, with ministers in Victoria and Western Australia accusing him of trying to reignite culture wars over the nation’s past.
Mr Tudge will head into the final education ministers’ meeting of the year next Friday having graded the draft curriculum a “C” last month, saying it would teach students a “negative, miserable view of Australia” and future generations would be unwilling to defend the nation against threats to its liberal democracy.
The meeting is the last formal opportunity this year for education ministers to discuss the final draft curriculum, which requires a consensus to be implemented, unless an additional out-of-session gathering is scheduled. But the path to agreement, particularly over the history content, is unclear, with Labor ministers in Victoria, Queensland, WA, the ACT and the Northern Territory critical of Mr Tudge’s comments.
Victorian Education Minister James Merlino said Mr Tudge’s remarks were aimed at “inciting culture wars”, adding Victoria would advocate for a curriculum “that will produce the thoughtful and proud Australians of the future”.
“We have long called for Australia’s Indigenous heritage to be firmly embedded in our curriculum – not at the expense of other important aspects of the Australian story, but as part of a balanced, diverse history offering that covers both the inspiring and challenging parts of our nation’s history,” Mr Merlino said.
WA Education Minister Sue Ellery said it was important students learned different perspectives on the past as well as the skills to form their own judgments.
“I don’t think going again to the fake so-called history wars has added anything to the review as history is always judged by the perspective of who is looking at it,” she said.
Queensland Education Minister Grace Grace said it had been unhelpful for Mr Tudge to comment on the review before it had been completed.
“I don’t think it helps to provide a running commentary on the teaching of Australian history and other subject matters,” she said.
A spokeswoman for ACT Education Minister Yvette Berry said she did “not share Minister Tudge’s concern regarding the history learning areas of the draft curriculum”.
NT Education Minister Lauren Moss said the independent review process “should be respected” and she supported attempts in the draft to strengthen Indigenous history content.
“Critical to two-way teaching and learning is being honest about the many facets of our history, and the Australian curriculum review seeks to improve this, including the ongoing impact of colonisation on First Nations Australians,” she said.
Mr Tudge’s criticisms of the draft curriculum included that Anzac Day should not be taught as a “contested idea” but as the most sacred day of the year. He has also argued the curriculum struck the wrong balance when it came to teaching Indigenous perspectives, saying they should be included but not “at the expense of dishonouring our Western heritage”. It is unclear whether these concerns have been addressed in the final document.
Mr Tudge did not respond directly to questions about whether consensus could be reached at next week’s meeting. In a statement, he said his concerns went well beyond the history content.
“I’ll be reviewing the final draft curriculum closely. Parents, guardians and school communities would expect nothing less,” he said.
Liberal education ministers in NSW, South Australia and Tasmania declined to say whether they agreed with Mr Tudge’s criticisms of the draft when approach for comment.
Speaking at NSW budget estimates this week, Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said students should have a “proud understanding of Australian history”.
The review was undertaken by the independent Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, which has held briefings with ministers on the final revised curriculum this week.
According to the timeline agreed by education ministers in June last year, the review process should be completed by the end of 2021, with the new curriculum documents made publicly available from the start of the new year.
“Once endorsed by Education Council, the revised F-10 Australian curriculum will be published on an improved website platform and be available for implementation from the start of 2022,” the terms of reference for the review state.
Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority chief executive David de Carvalho told Senate estimates last week the board had signed off on the final draft of the curriculum on October 14 and it had been sent to senior state and territory education officials for review before the ministers’ meeting.
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My other blogs: Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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