I've been wide-eyed on some of my visits, struck by the extent to which being a student today resembles living at Versailles, where Louis XIV's every whim was so thoroughly accommodated that there was even a Superintendent of the King's Furniture. One college tour guide proudly informed us that upon arrival every freshman is issued a brand-new laptop. Even if the students already have one? Why, yes, the guide replied....
Until I started these tours, I used to assume that college kids tilted left politically because they were young and impressionable. Maybe, but it's also because they get introduced to the welfare state at a tender age and become addicted. The government (college) offers cradle-to-grave (matriculation-to-graduation) care and feeding, levying higher taxes (tuition) on the populace (parents) whenever the spirit moves them -- which is every year. Not even the actual government is that brazen.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Higher Education: Practice for the Welfare State?
Eric Gibson, who has recently been visiting colleges with his high school son, recently wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal titled "Pleading Poverty: Colleges Want Parents to Foot the Bill for Their Largess". He writes:
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2 comments:
I read that article a couple weeks ago and was amazed, though I suppose I shouldn't have been. Today the only reason why not every college gives its incoming students new laptops is that not every college can afford to; colleges do not see any good reason why not to create such a little paradise.
Another interesting point in the article is that the wealthiest colleges offer 24-hour services. Not only does this drive up the already exorbitant costs, but it also panders to students' rather bizarre biological clocks. Apparently, there is no good reason not to make employees stay up from midnight to sunrise in order to cater to the late-night whims of college students.
24-hour service carries over into the working world as well far too frequently, partly b/c of globalization and partly b/c everything must be done asap (which, to subdivide further, is undoubtedly partly b/c people don't get things done early, much like college students).
However both 24-hour service and colleges' babying of students seem to be occurring primarily in capitalist systems, if not b/c of capitalism. Germany's students flounder through the universities, often taking six or so years despite next to no tuition, in part b/c the university does not provide guidance on anything whether it be registration or degree requirements. Free laptops are of course not even considered. U.S. universities, however, have to provide top notch customer service. Not even that, though, is an excuse for the ridiculous tuition costs.
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