College: The Five Year Party

If college is a rite of passage, what is a five-year party of binge drinking, fornication, and indoctrination into dysfunctional philosophy and lifestyle a rite of passage into? If modern employers are forced to give remedial training and education to college graduates, what was that five-year party all about?

In high-priced private colleges, students may become indebted by as much as $200,000 or more. If they graduate with a bachelor's degree in queer ethnic women's studies, literature, or social sciences, they may never pay back their college debt. In government-subsidised colleges, low tuition fees allow students more latitude in their leisure activities, without worrying so much about later debt to themselves. They can begin cultivating better tastes in liquor at an earlier age, in other words.

...artificially low fees attract some students to higher education who simply aren't suited to the academic rigors of a university. Ultimately, the presence of these lower-achieving students hurts those who are more academically inclined, as they end up in watered-down courses in which professors have to focus on bringing the low achievers along. _LATimes

Only students with IQs of 115 or higher should be studying for a rigorous 4 year degree. In the US, that might include 30% of Asian students, 25% of Europeans, 15% of Hispanics, and 5% of African Americans, to be generous. Even many of the brighter students can be uninterested in learning, when presented with all the other opportunities available at a party college -- and these days, what college is not a party college?

...only 10 percent of students are really interested in academics. The rest are there for mostly social purposes.

The slackers take dumbed down courses in which grade inflation results in 90 percent of students getting As and Bs. Learning is optional, neither required nor expected. Even mental midgets who do no work are too big to fail. Nobody fails. That would make the professor look bad, and the school would risk losing a paying customer. _UnionLeader

Why not just relax, party, accumulate debt (either personal debt or societal debt), and simply go for broke with the devil taking the hindmost? Take advantage of your 5 year party to learn about life (?!?) at parental or societal expense, in preparation for a lifetime of unemployment?

I suppose someone will have to pay for it all eventually, but there will be plenty of time to worry about that.

Five Year Party Blog

H/T Instapundit