The Red Jackal

How the focus on higher education has fleeced the American Taxpayer

In the order of the great scams over the past forty years, number one would be Climate Change (or whatever they are calling it now) and following right behind it is the higher education scam. More and more people feel it is necessary to go to college as that is the only way to get a job. If you don’t get a degree, or worse go to a trade school, people are shamed by others as not being educated. At one time having a college degree showed a higher level of education but the college degree nowadays has been diluted with mickey mouse courses or degrees.

The biggest push for higher education has been pushed by academics and politicians, both of whom reap the benefits of having more students attend. Most of the tuition is paid by government student loans which helps pay for professor salaries who in turn donate to the Democratic party. Sure there might be some right leaning that donate to Republicans but poll after poll show around 85-90% donate to the Democrats who proclaim that everyone needs to go to college.

One could say that higher education is almost an extension of the government. Just like most government funded organizations, it is inefficiently run, loads of wasteful spending and lack of accountability. As to the last point, the classification of tenure meaning that no one can get fired exists no where else outside of academia. The idea that you do not need to perform well, keep your job and get a raise seems foreign to many in the private sector but seems like a human right to most professors.

Then you need to look at the salaries which to the private sector would seem to be obscene for private sector employees as most only work half the year at University. There are probably hundreds of deans across the country that make over a million dollars a year and then you have professors that are making a couple hundred thousand a year. The salaries may not be as absurd as the salaries that college football coaches get (even when fired for doing a bad job) but still well outside of what would be considered merit base. In the 90’s, there was a significant increase in government loans to help students afford college but this was matched or exceeded by colleges raise in tuition. In the end, this funding did not help students as it was a zero sum gain but the professors sure made out well. Remember, professors like driving Porsches too!

Not only do you have the salaries but you also have golden parachutes that would be heavily criticized in the private sector but are considered fine in Academia. When I was in Oregon, there was a professor there who was dean, did a bad job but had negotiated in his contract in case of his termination, would be guaranteed a position which paid in the top 5 of other professors at the university. This meant a professor who taught an ancient language was guaranteed a salary of over 200K (back in 2010 so it is more now) for failing as a head of college.

Universities and Colleges are always claiming about funding then you see the endowments they have accumulated from Government funding. Harvard I believe is around 60 billion, and then you have other Ivey league schools are around the same amount. Many of the professors scream about taxing capital but stay silent about their endowments essentially not being taxed at all. Moreover, to show the greed of academia, even with these huge endowments, they still look for government grants and raise tuition as they don’t want their endowments touched.

What about the students, how do they fair in this holy matrimony between academia and government? There are some that benefit and will have high paying jobs when they graduate and will have no issues paying off their loans. But many students do not understand what they are signing up for. Part of this is the student’s fault but the student loan services do everything to make sure it is not clear. Otherwise, a borrower might pursue another option to funding or may decide not to go to University.

Then you have the degrees themselves which may not be worth the paper it is printed on. Some of the degrees of course are worthwhile such as Medicine, Finance, Business, Nursing and god forgive me, Law. Higher education is needed for these disciplines and prepare people for the real world but over the years there are new degrees that provide no benefit for a career. Most of these new degrees are basically a buffet of classes put together to give a student a degree but with no value. Once the student graduates, the degrees are worthless, they get a minimum wage job and then cannot pay off their student loans or the loans severely impact their financial situation.

I have mentioned some of the worthwhile degrees above but what about some of these degrees that could be considered questionable at best, most of which are liberal arts based.

There is probably no reason to go to a university for a theater degree and let alone get post graduate degrees which many do. If someone wants to get involved in theater, this almost sounds like they should go to an acting school but to get a 4 year degree in this, the only thing this really does is to get a future job as theater professor, which is one less thing we need.

Art History is another discipline which has no real world applications or for that matter job prospects. One might get lucky and I guess become a curator of a Museum, but much like a theater degree can prepare you for a professor position at a University.

There are probably dozens of worthless other majors but the one I love the best is Gender Studies: What the hell do you do with this degree? The answer is nothing and you will see these people pouring my coffee at a Starbucks or at University as a professor being cited as an expert on an MSNBC interview. None of these degrees mentioned above provide and real life preparation after school.

Not only are there worthless majors but there are classes that have no business being taught at a major university. Below is a list of some of my favorite classes being offered by our elite overlords at University:

Sociology of Miley Cyrus – learning about the media fascination with her career.

Feminist Perspectives – Politicizing Beyonce, how her music can initialize progressive social change.

Game of Thrones – This is from the University of Virginia (one of the top universities in the US) and includes such topics as the nature of spoilers and how the tv show deviated from the books. I like the show but really, but do we need a 3-month course on this? Maybe if they threw in writers who don’t finish the story (I am looking at you H.H.R. Martin) I might rethink this class.

And my favorite class from MSU: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse. You too can learn the skills people will need to ward off brain eating zombies as well as survive in the inevitable societal collapse from the zombie apocalypse.

It is hard to believe that these are real classes and you as the taxpayer are subsidizing. If we were to subsidize anything it would be trade schools. Who contributes more to society, an electrician, plumber or someone with a gender studies major? Not that trade schools need to be subsidize as the costs are much less than tuition and in the end are not a burden on the taxpayer. Lastly, many in the trades make just as much money as many college graduates with one extra benefit: trades are pretty much immune from the incoming AI revolution which could make many university degrees obsolete.

There is a major crisis that is on the horizon and that is student loan debt. Currently is over a trillion outstanding with a good portion which would be considered bad debt and pushed to be forgiven. When these loans are forgiven, they do not disappear but are paid for by the taxpayers. There needs to be a fundamental rethinking of higher education which benefits its applicants as well as the country.

Student loans should move from the government to the private sector. With the government funding student loans, there is no incentive to screen applicants as if it doesn’t work out you just get bailed out. With private funding you have two interested parties in which a bank can determine what the value of the loan should be based on the degree being pursued and potential to repay. The applicant then can make a decision if a degree or type of degree is worth pursuing. Currently, the government does everything possible to obfuscate the terms and conditions so in the end the applicant does not realize what they need to pay back. With a bank, it is a lot clearer so if a student wishes to pursue an iffy major then they know beforehand what to expect.

This would have a domino effect: no bank would give a loan for a ridiculous major such as gender studies which in turn would force universities to not only get rid of these degrees but classes as well. If the colleges do want to continue these classes, then dig into your endowments which I am fine with, just don’t put the burden on the US taxpayers.