College, the Diversity Scam and Outrageous Tuition

College tuition prices have sky rocketed far out of proportion with other prices over the last 40 years.

Source: MJ Perry

As MJ Perry puts it, 

I would have to check to verify this, but I'm not sure there is any other item in the CPI [Consumer Price Index ~ OS] that has gone up faster since the 1970s than "college tuition and fees." We hear a lot about rising medical costs, but those increases (5.8% per year from 1978 to 2011) are relatively minor compared to the increases in tuition (7.45% per year over the same period).  As as you can see from the graph, tuition increases have accelerated over the last decade.  Since 2000, college tuition costs have doubled while medical costs have gone up by "only" about 52%.

A great deal of the price increase is the result of administrative bloat.

Johns Hopkins professor Benjamin Ginsberg reports that although student-faculty ratios fell slightly between 1975 and 2005, from 16-to-1 to 15-to-1, the student-to-administrator ratio fell from 84-to-1 to 68-to-1, and the student-to-professional-staff ratio fell from 50-to-1 to 21-to-1. Ginsberg concludes: "Apparently, when colleges and universities had more money to spend, they chose not to spend it on expanding their instructional resources, i.e. faculty. They chose, instead, to enhance their administrative and staff resources." 

What did that enormous increase in prices buy American students and parents?  For that, we turn to Prager University.



Apparently, college administrators' argument is that American universities are sexist, racist, homophobic hotbeds of rape that everyone should attend, and pay tens of thousands per year for the privilege.  Makes perfect sense, doesn't it?

And since we know that college professors and administrators overwhelmingly vote for, and donate to Democrats, and they're the ones who run these sexist, racist, homophobic institutions, that means they are also arguing that "Liberals" and Democrats are racist, sexist homophobes.

Good Advice for Girls, Wrapped in Snobbery Toward Men

It's Valentine's day, and Susan Patton writes some very good advice for young women in the Wall Street Journal.

If you spend the first 10 years out of college focused entirely on building your career,

when you finally get around to looking for a husband you'll be in your 30s, competing with women in their 20s. That's not a competition in which you're likely to fare well. If you want to have children, your biological clock will be ticking loud enough to ward off any potential suitors. Don't let it get to that point....
Those men who are as well-educated as you are often interested in younger, less challenging women....Casual sex is irresistible to men, but the smart move is not to give it away. If you offer intimacy without commitment, the incentive to commit is eliminated. The grandmotherly message of yesterday is still true today: Men won't buy the cow if the milk is free. [That's too much common sense.  She's sure to get flamed over that one! ~ OS] ...So what's a smart girl to do? Start looking early and stop wasting time dating men who aren't good for you: bad boys, crazy guys and married men.

Here, here, Ms Patton!  I plan to give the same advice to my kids of both sexes.  In fact, though I attended college later than average, one of my goals was to find a wife, because I knew I'd have a much tougher time finding a high quality girl in the Army.  And I did find a high quality girl in college.

Aimee definitely followed this advice.  She was 19 when we met in college and 22 when we married (I was 28 and a spankin' new 2nd Lieutenant).

Ms Patton deserves credit for writing good advice that goes against the Feminist grain, especially since she will undoubtedly receive loads of grief because of it.  Unfortunately, she marbles that good advice with a hefty dose of snobbery toward men, or, more accurately, a certain kind of man.

...the task of finding a life partner who shares your intellectual curiosity and potential for success is difficult....Could you marry a man who isn't your intellectual or professional equal? Sure. But the likelihood is that it will be frustrating to be with someone who just can't keep up with you or your friends. When the conversation turns to Jean Cocteau or Henrik Ibsen, the Bayeux Tapestry or Noam Chomsky, you won't find that glazed look that comes over his face at all appealing.

Let's apply Ms Patton's logic to Ms Patton.  Chances are that if I pontificated about the effects of valve overlap and lift on power and torque at varying rpm in an Otto cycle engine, or the difficulties of extracting petroleum and natural gas from the Green River Formation vs the Marcellus Shale, Ms Patton's eyes would glaze over.  By her logic, that means Ms Patton is neither my intellectual, nor professional equal.

The irony is that she undoubtedly relies on the Otto cycle engine and the products extracted from the Green River and Marcellus Formations every single day, multiple times a day, which means my chosen topics of conversation are more relevant to her life than the ones she used as examples.  In fact, her life wouldn't even be possible without those products.

But I'm not the kind of man at whom Ms Patton aims her snobbery, because I hold degrees in mechanical and geological engineering (or, maybe I am, since I earned my degrees at podunk state schools, not an Ivy League snob factory).  Ms Patton reserves her snobbery for men without university credentials.

College is the best place to look for your mate. It is an environment teeming with like-minded, age-appropriate single men with whom you already share many things. You will never again have this concentration of exceptional men to choose from.

Again, this isn't bad advice, but what's wrong with men who work in skilled trades?  After all, they make Ms Patton's life, with luxuries and comforts King Solomon could not have imagined, possible.  They extract the fuels and generate the electricity she uses to make a living.  They keep that electricity flowing and swoop in to the rescue when that flow is interrupted.  They build the roads on which every single product Ms Patton owns and uses reached its intended destination, and drove those products to her.  Surely, the fancy restaurants Ms Patton frequents cook with natural gas.  Where does she think that natural gas originated?  How did it reach her favorite restaurant?  She probably doesn't think about those questions, because the men who make it happen do their job so well she doesn't have to think about it.

So, why does she think these men are beneath college educated women?

And if you start to earn more than he does? Forget about it. Very few men have egos that can endure what they will see as a form of emasculation.

Here we get to the crux of the issue.  How valid is this fear?  Do we have any empirical evidence by which to evaluate it?  Thankfully, we do, because it turns out that college educated women are increasingly "marrying down".

A record number of American women are “marrying down,” tying the knot with a husband who is less educated than they are, according to a new study. 

Nearly 21% of married women in 2012 were better educated than their spouses, a threefold jump from 1960, according to the Pew Research Center. By contrast, a bit less than 20% of men had more formal education than their wives. 

In the more than half-century that Pew has tracked the issue, this is the first time that a higher percentage of women than men have married down.

But wait, there's more.

Even with their superior education, however, women aren't necessarily marrying down when it comes to income, according to the report.   

About 58% of better-educated women earned less than their husbands. Only 39% of women earned a higher salary. 

In other words, they're not "marrying down"!  How is it possible that a near-super-majority of women who marry men with "inferior" educations earn less than their husbands?  It's all about choices.

Consider, for example, how men and women differ in their college majors. Here is a list (PDF) of the ten most remunerative majors compiled by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Men overwhelmingly outnumber women in all but one of them:

1.   Petroleum Engineering: 87% male 

2.   Pharmacy Pharmaceutical Sciences and Administration: 48% male 

3.   Mathematics and Computer Science: 67% male 

4.   Aerospace Engineering: 88% male 

5.   Chemical Engineering: 72% male 

6.   Electrical Engineering: 89% male 

7.   Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering: 97% male 

8.   Mechanical Engineering: 90% male 

9.   Metallurgical Engineering: 83% male 

10. Mining and Mineral Engineering: 90% male

And here are the 10 least remunerative majors—where women prevail in nine out of ten:

1.  Counseling Psychology: 74% female 

2.  Early Childhood Education: 97% female 

3.  Theology and Religious Vocations: 34% female 

4.  Human Services and Community Organization: 81% female 

5.  Social Work: 88% female6.  Drama and Theater Arts: 60% female 

7.   Studio Arts: 66% female 

8.   Communication Disorders Sciences and Services: 94% female 

9.   Visual and Performing Arts: 77% female 

10. Health and Medical Preparatory Programs: 55% female

In other words, there is likely nothing "superior" about the wives' education, because they probably majored in some form of "Liberal" indoctrination, as opposed to something useful.  If they married men who work in the skilled trades, it's no wonder they make less than their husbands.

Contra Costa County’s Los Medanos College offers a Process Technology, orPTEC program, that trains students for in demand jobs at local refineries and large factories.  These positions pay $45,000 to $65,000 to start and many former students earn six figure salaries after just a few years on the job. 

At the heart of the North Dakota shale oil boom, Bismarck State College’s National Energy Center of Excellence offers affordable online degree and certificate programs to students throughout the nation. With California’s Monterey Shale estimated by the Department of Energy to hold 15 billion barrels of oil, the University of  Southern California (USC) says this resource could create 2.8 million new job opportunities here. Those with the right training can expect to be among the first in line for these good jobs.

But wait, there's more!  Because training in skilled trades is far less expensive than a university degree, especially the ivy league colleges Ms Patton undoubtedly had in mind when she wrote her article.

There are a number of avenues available for those interested in a career in the skilled trades.  Some community colleges offer programs and at $46 per unit, or less than $150 for a typical three unit class, California’s community colleges are still one of the best deals in the nation. 

In other words, a man who trains for a skilled trade can graduate sooner, start working sooner, start earning a good salary sooner, and do all of that with little to no debt, which puts him far ahead of Ivy Leaguers who buy useless degrees with piles of debt.

So, why the snobbery?  I don't know.  I don't get it.  But it's exactly the kind of destructive, counterproductive attitude Mike Rowe, of "Dirty Jobs" fame, attempts to combat with his Mike Rowe Works Foundation.

For the record, college can be worth the investment in time, money and effort, if one avoids debt and learns a useful skill.  On the other hand, majoring in anything that ends in the word "studies", is a waste of time, money and effort.

The snobbery towards people (the vast majority of them men) who choose to work with their hands and their brains needs to stop.

California Protects Pedophile Teachers - National Review Online

California Protects Pedophile Teachers | National Review Online

In 2012, the Assembly considered a bill making it easier to fire teachers who sexually abuse students. Consider for a second that word “easier” — should anything be easier than simply firing somebody who molests children? The bill was written in response to the case of a Los Angeles elementary-school teacher who was fired after being accused of sexually abusing his students, and who challenged his firing. Rather than act in accord with thehorrifying details of the case, the school district paid the teacher $40,000 to drop his appeal. That’s small change compared with the $30 million settlement the district is paying to the teacher’s alleged victims as a result of the case, or, for that matter, compared with the $23 million bail requirement that is keeping teacher Mark Berndt behind bars as he awaits trial on 23 felony counts of gruesome sexual abuse. 

Against that background, making it easier to fire teachers facing credible accusations of sexual abuse seems like a pretty straightforward proposition. But the California Teachers Association and other unions presented a united front against a bill passed by the state senate, and it died in the Assembly.

 But we're the crazy ones for home schooling.  Right?  Read the rest at the link, if you have the stomach for it.

Double Standards (Political Edition)

Remember when Sarah Palin said that "you can see Russia from Alaska"?  No, she never said, "I can see Russia from my house".  That was a Saturday Night Live parody that political ignoramuses ascribe to her.  Sarah Palin was, of course, right.  You can see Russia from the Alaska across the Bering Straight.

"Liberals", naturally, ridiculed her for making a factually accurate statement.  They always know better, even when they're wrong. 

Compare that with how they treat Pres Obama's many geographical errors.

Mr. Obama’s geographical confusion has become habitual. He once claimed that he had been to all “57 states.” He also assumed that Kentucky was closer to Arkansas than it was to his adjacent home state of Illinois. 

In reference to the Falkland Islands, Mr. Obama called them the Maldives — islands southwest of India — apparently in a botched effort to use the Argentine-preferred Malvinas. The two island groups may sound somewhat alike, but they are continents apart. Again, without basic geographical knowledge, the president’s commentary on the Falklands is rendered superficial. 

When in the state of Hawaii, Mr. Obama announced that he was in “Asia.” He lamented that the U.S. Army’s Arabic-language translators assigned to Iraq could better be used in Afghanistan, failing to recognize that Arabic isn’t the language of Afghanistan. For that matter, he apparently thought Austrians speak a language other than German.

Remember, Sarah Palin made a factually accurate statement about her home state, and was ridiculed for it.  Pres Obama made multiple abysmally ignorant statements about his country and both his home states (Hawaii and Illinois).  Clearly, the "Liberal" media mocked him mercifully for it, right?

Of course not!  Haven't you been paying attention?

The president’s geographical illiteracy is a symptom of the nation’s growing ignorance of once-essential subjects such as geography and history. The former is often not taught anymore as a required subject in our schools and colleges. The latter has often been redefined as race, class and gender oppression to score melodramatic points in the present rather than to learn from the tragedy of the past.

See?  When Sarah Palin makes a factually accurate statement, she's an idiot.  When The One makes multiple ignorant statements, it's everyone else's fault.  Gotta love how that works.

To be fair, the author I quoted above - Victor Davis Hanson - is a conservative, which is why he was willing to point out all those ignorant statements.  "Liberals" won't even admit they exist.

Why We Home School (Continued)

Michigan's teachers apparently can't be bothered to teach their students (only 7% of Detroit's 8th graders read at grade level) but they do have time to protest Michigan's recent right to work law. 

Some 26,000 Michigan students did not attend school Tuesday after hundreds of teachers called out sick in protest of a right-to-work law that many fear will deliver a crippling blow to unions.

Because what's most important is the unions' power, not the kids' education.  Got it.

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder signed the controversial bill into law Tuesday afternoon, hours after the Republican-controlled state House passed the legislation in a 58-51 vote.
........
The law makes it illegal to require nonunion employees to pay unions for negotiating contracts and other services.

And that's what makes the teachers so angry.  Naturally, people who deny parents the right to choose where their kids go to school also deny workers the right to choose whether or not to voluntarily pay union dues.

Then again, considering that these teachers can't even spell the governor's name correctly, maybe the students are better off without them.

But we're the crazy ones for home schooling.

Why We Home School (Continued)

Not content to attempt to feminize boys, female teachers (remember, the vast majority of teachers are female) also discriminate against them.

Female teachers mark male pupils more harshly than they do their female students, research has claimed.

Additionally, girls tend to believe male teachers will look upon them more favourably than female teaching staff, but men treat all students the same, regardless of gender.

The study, released on Thursday, told 1,200 students in 29 schools to place financial bets on who would give them higher grades: external examiners or their teacher.

Conducted by professors Amine Ouazad and Lionel Page, for the London School of Economic’s Centre for Economic Performance, the report said:

“Male students tend to bet less [money] when assessed by a female teacher than by an external examiner or by a male teacher. This is consistent with female teachers’ grading practices; female teachers give lower grades to male students."

Note that the researchers asked the students to place a bet - in other words, to take a risk.  By making it impossible to succeed, female teachers instill in boys - early in life - that the risk isn't worth the reward, or, as Dr. Helen Smith says:

What they leave out of the equation is that boys and men are discriminated against–giving them little incentive to try.  With little incentive to try,  college and the American Dream is often not a reality, or even desired, leaving a multitude of men without work skills, and/or achieving their full potential.

Women increasingly complain that modern men are slackers, unmotivated, unaccomplished.  Guess who's to blame.

But we're the crazy ones for home schooling.

Jurors Agree: UI Discriminated Against Conservative

Ah, the "tolerance" of the Left:

A federal jury believed the University of Iowa’s law school illegally denied a promotion to a conservative Republican because of her politics, former jurors told The Des Moines Register.

.....

This case involves a lawsuit filed by Teresa Wagner against the law school after she was turned down for a faculty position in the legal analysis, writing and research program. Wagner is a Republican who has worked for anti-abortion organizations. She alleged that she was passed over the position not because she lacked the qualifications but because she was blackballed by liberal members of the law school faculty.

Universities whine incessantly about "diversity" and "tolerance", yet they consistently ignore, or outright suppress, the only kind of diversity that matters; diversity of thought.  Everyone knows universities discriminate against non-"Liberals".  The statistics prove it.

A staggering 99 percent of political donations among faculty and staff at Princeton University went to President Obama, while Mitt Romney earned just 1 percent, according to public records.

Is it any wonder that so many college students graduate as brain-washed "Liberals" who only come to their senses when they start a small business and reality smacks them in the face?

Why We Home School (Continued)

Since when is it acceptable to allow students to scribble on a kid's face with permanent marker because he doesn't read all that well?

A formal complaint regarding a Declo teacher’s treatment of students who failed reading goals has been filed with an Idaho commission on educators’ professional standards and ethics.

Cassia County School District Superintendent Galen Smyer said Monday his district filed the complaint after fourth-grade teacher Summer Larsen allowed students to scribble with permanent marker on the faces of classmates who failed to meet reading goals.

McGrath said the commission meets five to six times a year.

“They investigate complaints and then take any necessary action if they find an individual has violated state ethics code,” she said.

McGrath said action can include suspension or revocation of a license.

“It’s a long process,” she said.

It's always a long process.  You know what would make it a short process?  School choice.  Parents whose kids were humiliated like this would simply take their kids to another school with better teachers, and the funding would go with the kids.  School administrators would fire the bad teachers and hire better ones for fear of losing even more funding.

Problem solved.

But, for the most part, we don't have school choice in the US.  So we can either send our kids to sub-standard public schools, or spend money on top of the taxes we already pay to educate them elsewhere.

But we're the crazy ones for home schooling our kids.

Why We Home School (Continued)

Educating Ourselves has some great information on the "education" bureaucracy's priorities.

Between 1950 and 2009, the number of K-12 public school students increased by 96 percent. During that same period, the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) school employees grew by 386 percent. Of those personnel, the number of teachers increased by 252 percent, while the ranks of administrators and other staff grew by 702 percent—more than 7 times the increase in students.

....

...if student growth had matched that of non-teaching personnel from 1992 to 2009 and if the teaching force had only grown 1.5 times faster than the pupil enrollment, American public schools would have an additional $37.2 billion to spend per year—the equivalent of an $11,700 a year increase in salary for every American public school teacher.

The "education" bureaucracy's priorities have nothing to do with educating children.  They have everything to do with providing high-paying, high-benefit jobs with cushy retirements to government bureaucrats.  It's a self-perpetuating waste machine.

The worst part is that the government stiff forces people like Aimee and me, who choose to opt out of it, to pay into it.

But here's the biggest question.  Teachers whine incessantly that they don't get paid enough.  Why don't they do something about this?

Why We Home School (Continued)

Aimee brought this to my attention.

The father of an autistic New Jersey boy whose alleged humiliation at the hands of school staff was caught on tape is demanding his son's teacher be fired, but the state teachers' union said her voice is not on the recording. 

Stuart Chaifetz sent his 10-year-old son Akian to the Cherry Hill school with a hidden microphone, which allegedly recorded staff in teacher Kelly Altenburg's classroom berating the boy and calling him a "bastard." A video Chaifetz made describing the abuse along with audio went viral. The district claims it took action against "the individuals involved" in the incident, but won't say whether Altenburg is one of them. Multiple adult women's voices can be heard making inappropriate and even cruel comments on the tape, which Chaifetz released as part of a viral video blasting the district. 

"It was hell ... They were destroying my son," the father said of the February incident.

 As usual in cases of teacher misconduct, the teachers' union protected the teacher.

"The teacher’s voice is not on that recording," said NJEA spokesman Steve Wollmer. "It’s not her voice. It’s a teacher aide and somebody else. 

"If she had been heard making those statements, I am sure she would have been terminated," he added.

Seriously, Mr. Wollmer?  You didn't hear Ms. Altenburg actively calling a disabled child a "bastard", so therefore she doesn't deserve to get fired?  How about the fact that all this happened in her classroom and she never did anything about it?  Who is responsible for Ms. Altenburg's classroom if not Ms. Altenburg?

This story illustrates a problem endemic with all American public schools.  Teachers' unions, in collusion with local and state governments, make it almost impossible to fire bad teachers.  John Stossel brought attention to that fact in his 20/20 special, "Stupid in America".

Here's a copy of the flow chart that demonstrates how to fire a bad teacher in New York.  Click on the image to see it in its full horror.  Not every school district is as bad as NYC, of course, but they all make firing bad teachers unnecessarily difficult.

If Ms. Altenburg didn't get fired, what did happen to her?

Like many bad teachers, she got shuffled to another school.

Chaifetz claims district officials told him a teaching assistant he identified as Jodi Sgouros was fired immediately after administrators listened to the recording in February. But he says he received no word about any punishment meted out to Altenburg. Wollmer told FoxNews.com Altenburg has been reassigned to another school in the district.

The teaching assistant, who is not protected by tenure was rightfully fired.  The teacher, who is protected by tenure, received zero discipline and went off to terrorize another group of kids.

The documentary, "Waiting for Superman", highlighted this practice.  There's even a name for it - "The Dance of the Lemons".



What happens in any organization when sub-standard personnel receive promotions and pay raises on schedule and excellent personnel receive no reward for their excellence?  Everyone involved becomes demoralized.  Those who do excellent work leave in search of employers who appreciate their excellence, and the sub-standard personnel stay because nobody else wants them.  The system breeds mediocrity at best, and usually worse.

In short, you end up with the current American public school system, which spends more per student than any other country, yet...

Out of 34 countries, the U.S. ranked 14th in reading, 17th in science and 25th in math.

Every time other parents ask me why we home school, I cite those statistics.  Without exception, and right on cue, they always reply, "Well, my kids attend a great public school".  My question is; compared to what?  Did you shop around?

Invariably, the answer is "no".  School districts assign kids to a school based on their address.  Parents rarely get a choice in the matter.

Think about that for a minute.

People who spend hours on the internet researching something as trivial as a DVD player to ensure they get the best value for their money will then allow some nameless, faceless bureaucrat to tell them where to send their kids for their education, and simply trust that the bureaucrat made the best choice for their kids, even though the bureaucrat's never met the kids and makes his/her decision based on nothing remotely related to the kids.

Why the hell do parents do that?  What is more important to you; your kids' education, or a DVD player?

Americans are taught since childhood (mostly by their teachers), that teachers are heroes and martyrs sacrificing their time and talents when they could easily find far more lucrative employment.

Bull crap.

Who do you think makes up teachers' unions that bribe politicians to deny parents school choice?  Who do you think invented the concept of tenure and devised that ridiculous flow chart to protect bad teachers from getting fired?

Teachers do/did!

Still, it's not the teachers' fault.  They're simply doing what all people normally do - protecting their own interests.

It's the parents' fault.

That's right, I said it.  It's your fault, Mom or Dad.  If you sit passively by and let public schools provide your child anything less than a world class education, it's your fault.  If you don't demand school choice for yourself and your kids, it's your fault.  If you vote for politicians who care more about the money they receive from teachers' unions than your right to choose where to send your kids based on what you believe is best for them, it's your fault.

So, what are you going to do about it, Mom or Dad?

EDIT: If you're up for a little infuriating enlightenment, I highly recommend John Stossel's entire "Stupid in America" series (Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3), "Waiting for Superman" and "The Lottery".

Do Women Earn Less Than Men?

Short answer: yes.  But not for the reasons most people assume.