New College for the Proles

~ Clarissa

Yes.

As I said the other day, it’s so sweet and quaint when people denounce general education requirements in college as if anybody outside of a shrinking elite will ever get a chance of experiencing them. Or anything like what we understand as college.

A small group of people will go to university as it was historically conceived. They’ll live the life of the mind and their inner world will have enough depth to sustain it.

The rest of college education will consist of screen-dependent, emotionally dysregulated people with a bouquet of identity labels and diagnoses being trained by their class equals to spend even more time staring at screens.

Here’s more evidence of the wall being built between the small elite and the proles:

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Published by Clarissa

42 thoughts on “New College for the Proles”

  1. “A small group of people will go to university as it was historically conceived”

    Capital no longer needs educated people…..

    Capital barely needs people at all…..

    Depopulation is the point of a lot of policies.

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    1. Yes. That’s exactly it. But it’s impossible to get people to notice because they believe we are still in the era when piss-poor socialists gathered to dream about classless society.

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    2. Adam Smith promoted public education in the 18th century specifically to counteract the effects of capital dumbing down the workforce.

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      1. …which don’t have engineering departments.

        No idea what I’m supposed to do with my math kid when he reaches college age.

        -ethyl

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            2. Somewhat unrelated, but my university is trying to cut marketing. I’m kind of shocked because yes, AI is changing marketing but not eliminating it. I don’t understand what the thinking is.

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              2. Remember Obama? Hope and change? It was all there for everybody to see yet the only consistent criticism of him was that he’s a socialist which is beyond nuts.

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              2. Our physics department is already gone. They had a piss-poor strategy to save the department, for sure, but it is kind of shocking that physics is the only program that got eliminated so far.

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              3. I am quite sure that your physics department didn’t get eliminated because of the AI. The problem with sciences is that many of them have dropping enrollments while being at the same time service departments. The largest science department (in terms of undergraduate majors) is usually Biology. The other departments irrationally try to make bio-whatever science programs thinking to tap into the bio majors pool, but in the process drain their students into the new bio-whatever program. We all know what happens to programs whose number of majors is dropping. These are self-inflicted wounds, the cause is not the AI. The engineering programs at state flagship universities are growing. I am really not worried about the demise of engineering.

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              4. Oh yes, it’s not because of AI. They didn’t even let AI get to them, they folded so fast.

                Their strategy was stupid because they tried to play the nerd game of “let us show you why your stats blow” with the administration. And in this game, once you start nitpicking about numbers, you already lost.

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        2. The impression I get with engineering degrees is that they are job training. Your child will get well educated in disciplines relevant to their job but it’s hazier for a broader liberal arts education. But it certainly could be worse; universities and society at large still care about engineers being competent, it likely won’t be the babysitting for 18-22 year olds that Clarissa described in the post.

          I say this from the perspective of someone who’s known a couple of engineering majors, not someone with any deep knowledge of anything, so a better informed person is free to jump in and correct me on anything here.

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        3. None of the faithful Christian colleges does.

          As others have pointed out, land- grant universities are the thing: any out of the way A&M colleges in the Midwest or South, possibly with a thriving Orthodox parish nearby!

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            1. I never lived on campus. But when I was in college, I rented a 3br house for $600/mo, and split the cost with three roommates that I vetted myself.

              Could not do the same thing, in the same town, today. Crap-job wages have roughly doubled, while rents have tripled. I checked.

              -ethyl

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  3. I’m definitely seeing a clear bifurcation between the quality of education available to lower classes and those of the higher classes. It used to be possible to get a good quality education in most middle income areas, but lack of investment and good pay for teachers is taking that away. COVID was also a key accelerator of this bifurcation that was already in place.

    Don’t let them make you think it’s a money issue. We definitely have money, there just isn’t a push by the elites to keep educating the masses.

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    1. This is why we are wage-class.

      We looked around at the schools, we said “nope” and we homeschool them so they can get an OK education (which they’d have zero chance at, anywhere we’ve ever lived, in the public schools).

      We could instantly +50% or more our household income if we put the kids in school and I went back to work, and we became a double-income household. And it is not worth it. The schools are that bad.

      -ethyl

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      1. I totally get it. I would have had to figure something out if we couldn’t do our Christian school. The dysfunction in the public school system around here is growing. I don’t want to be anywhere near it and inflict this on my child.

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  4. oof.

    My eldest is most likely college-bound to some kind of engineering program in about four years.

    I already have so much anxiety about this.

    -ethyl

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    1. \ I already have so much anxiety about this.

      What is concerning about going to university? I can think only of financial costs.

      Otherwise, studying engineering at a university, one of most challenging things, is something I would be proud of for my child.

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      1. Our son is nearly a clone of us: very bright, emotionally immature for his age, credulous, socially inept, and white. Is teaching himself Trigonometry and flight physics at 14: has trouble making friends with kids his own age.

        25 years ago when we were in college, this was OK because you could be a bumbling idiot in all things as long as your academic performance was good.

        Things have changed a lot since then. Clarissa has talked about it at great length.

        -He’s a straight white male, raised in a conservative religious culture, going into an environment actively hostile to all of that, without the social acumen to navigate such treacherous seas.

        -Neither of his parents reached anything like emotional maturity until age 25. We expect he’ll be similar.

        -He would thrive in a masculine environment of academic rigor and intellectual competition. If he is instead forced into a feminized environment of covert social competition, it’ll be pure hell. We don’t know how to screen colleges for this sort of thing.

        -ethyl

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        1. Have him start in a community college where he can commute to from home. He can take gen ed requirements and prerequisites and then transfer to a University. It will give him a little more time to mature and he will also enter University as a non-traditional student freeing him from requirements to live on campus giving him more flexibility.

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          1. He will likely be done with gen ed by the time he’s 18, and certainly be doing that at our local CC. We are contemplating moving to whatever college town is adjacent to the uni he gets into, much like our immigrant acquaintances did back in the day.

            Alternately, we are considering putting him through a 2yr vo-tech program starting at 16, so that he can go to college with a viable job already in his pocket. That might be grounding.

            -ethyl

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            1. If you are worried about wokeness, do not let you child live on campus. Commuting from home is the best strategy. Most college STEM professors are too busy making sure they cover all the science topics on their syllabus and do not have time to make their classes woke, especially if they are running a research group with PhD students. They are not going to mistreat your son, especially if they see he has a genuine interest in what they are teaching. We love students who are smart and interested in learning! I am a professor in STEM and while I would feel completely comfortable with my child taking the classes in our department taught by my colleagues, I would absolutely not let them live on campus. Alas, many universities now enforce “live on campus” requirement for 1st year students (it is a money-maker). Nontraditional students, who come in as transfers from Community Colleges or go to school later in life are exempt.

              The most successful students come to the College/University with a plan and take as much advantage of what it offers as they can. You may be happy to hear that two of the most successful undergrad students I know were both white males, one now has a PhD in STEM and other got his MS in STEM and is happily employed in industry. They both knew exactly what they wanted to get from time at our University and got it. One of them somewhat fits the description of your son. One of these students was homeschooled until he entered the University and lived on his own near campus. Another student commuted to the University from home for all four years (both somehow managed to escape stay on campus requirement). I truly believe that your son can get good education, just have a plan going into it. If you can live near the school he will go to and he can commute, that is the best case scenario, in my opinion. A lot of problems that students suffer from are due to them being alone, away from their families and floundering.

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              1. Would not dream of sending him to live on campus. The lack of quiet and privacy would finish him the first year!

                -ethyl

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        2. Yes. What people don’t seem to know is that wokeness is worse in STEM. STEM people are all a little autistic (and I mean it in the best possible way). They have no irony. They take everything with deadly earnestness.

          Our physics department was trying to convince the administration that they are diverse because they have one Middle Eastern and one Chinese professor. It was painful to watch.

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          1. Now c’mon Kid, we do have an admittedly dry sense of humour ;-D

            • okay, have to explain for youngsters that the big hair girls (your grandmother) used a lot of Chlorofluorocarbons.

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              1. True, but shaving half of your head bald to “teach” guys a lesson for imaginary wrongdoings comes a very close second — remember all guys, even scientists, measure ;-D

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              2. IKR? My sister used to spend 3 hours before school in the mornings teasing and spraying her hair, and ironing her jeans and T-shirts. We shared a room and I was fascinated by this process… but never wanted to duplicate it.

                -ethyl

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          2. There’s the catch, you know. I’m excited for him to finally go and get to spend time around other people like him.

            I’m not thrilled with sending him into an environment where people like him are now *targeted* for all the crazy because they’re gullible and emotionally immature.

            -ethyl

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        3. Benedictine College in KS has engineering programs. Or maybe someplace like Harmel in Michigan or St Joseph the Worker in Steubenville?

          -A

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  5. One of mine too. I’m trying to give them the best secondary education possible under our circumstances and hoping for more clarity over the next few years.

    -K

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