David Brooks Says that the Universities are the Crown Jewels of American Life. That’s Baloney

In a recent op-ed essay in the New York Times, David Brooks called for a “civic uprising” against the Trump administration. Brook envisions a revolt of the intellectual elites, including those who hang out in the universities, which he described as “the crown jewels of American life.”

The universities, Brooks extols, “are hubs of scientific and entrepreneurial innovation,” and “[i]n a million ways, the scholars at universities help us understand ourselves and our world.”

Brooks goes so far as to attest that the universities mold young students to become cultured, critical thinkers:

I have seen it over and over. A kid comes on campus as a freshman, inquisitive but unformed. By senior year, there is something impressive about her. She is awakened, cultured, [and] a critical thinker. The universities have performed their magic once again.

I’m sorry, David, but that’s pure, unadulterated bullshit. As the media shows us daily, the universities are not nurturing students to be cultured, critical thinkers. They’re producing anti-Semitic racists who rampage through college campuses spewing venomous hatred toward Jews.

If the universities were doing their jobs, they would be educating young people to think rationally and to have some understanding of Israel’s heroic struggle to maintain the only democratic society in the Middle East. Instead, anti-Israel student protesters voice their support for Hamas--a gang of rapists, torturers, kidnappers, body snatchers, arsonists, and-child killers.

Moreover, if the nation’s university leaders were compassionate champions of social justice, which they claim to be, they would not be hiking tuition year after year, forcing their students to take on ruinous levels of debt to obtain liberal arts and humanities degrees that are worthless.

To be fair, Brooks admits that American universities have flaws. “Many have allowed themselves to become shrouded in a stifling progressivism that tells half the country: ‘Your voices don’t matter.’”

Brooks fails to acknowledge that the “flaw” he describes as “stifling progressivism” is not a quaint and harmless eccentricity. It is an expression of the universities’ bigotry, provincialism, and base contempt for traditional American values.

In short, Brooks is wrong to say that American universities are advancing “the glories of our way of life.” On the contrary, the gasbags who run the colleges and teach in them are programming their students to be intolerant, racist, simplistic, and self-absorbed. And they’re charging a boatload of money for the privilege of destroying American culture. 

An anti-Israel encampment at Columbia: "the glories of our way of life"

A quarter trillion dollars in student aid last year: And what do we have to show for it?

The Chronicle of Higher Education released its annual Almanac edition this month, stuffed full of information that professors care most about: how much money people are making in the higher-education racket.

College presidents are making out like bandits. In 2015, Fifty presidents of private colleges received at least a million dollars in total compensation. Nathan Hatch at Wake Forest was the highest paid university CEO. He made $4 million in 2015--more than twice as much as the president of Yale.

The Chronicle also documented what we already knew--the cost of going to college is in the stratosphere.  At 100 private universities, it costs a quarter of a million dollars to get an undergraduate degree (tuition, room and board). And those costs are probably underestimated. According to the Chronicle, room and board at Yale costs $15,500. But does anyone believe a person can live in New Haven, Connecticut on $15,500 a year?

On the other hand, the posted sticker price for college tuition is inflated. As the Chronicle reported, colleges are discounting freshman tuition by 50 percent. Thus, a private college that charges $36,000 a year for tuition is actually collecting only about $18,000 due to grants, scholarships and various discounts.

Who gets those tuition discounts and who pays the sticker price? Colleges give grants and aid to athletes, minority students, and applicants with good academic credentials. Only the least attractive applicants pay full price.

The Chronicle's Almanac also contains some useful information about colleges that are in financial trouble.  The U.S. Department of Education gives financial responsibility ratings to American colleges. Institutions that rate 1.0 and above are considered financially responsible; college ranking below that are considered not financially responsible.

Not surprisingly, a lot of the schools with low ratings are private colleges with religious affiliations.  Northeast Catholic College, for example, received a negative 0.4 rating, and Boston Baptist College drew a 0.8.

These scores are just another sign that the small, non-prestigious, private colleges are in big trouble, particularly schools tied to religious denominations. I wish all these little schools well, but parents are crazy if they allow their children to take out student loans to attend a small private college no one has heard of.  There is a good chance these schools will have shut down before their graduates pay off their loans.

Finally, the Chronicle reported almost a quarter of a trillion dollars  was distributed in governmental and institutional student aid during 2016-2017, including $153 billion in federal aid (loans, grants and Work-Study). That's a lot of money invested in American higher education in just one year. Does anyone think we're getting our money's worth?

Nathan Hatch, president of Wake Forest University, made $4 million in 2015