Elite colleges slowly commit suicide

The latest Rasmussen Reports national survey finds that, generally speaking, just 10% of American adults believe that people who go to Ivy League schools like Harvard and Yale are better workers than people who went to other colleges. 

And with antisemitism on the rise on Ivy League campuses, that 2024 poll would probably be worse now. Passover was celebrated recently by Jews worldwide. In the United States, Jewish parents observed Passover by saying that, starting next year, they will now pass over the Ivy League for their children’s college education.

The (almost Ivy) University of Chicago actually offered a class titled “The Problem with White People.” For the obedient and guilt-ridden students looking to please their professors, that class filled up quicker than the drive-thru at a Chick-fil-A.

In the last 25 years, colleges and universities have darted even further left, both in what they teach and in cultural practices antithetical to traditional American values. Their tax-free status, with billions of dollars being handed to them with no accountability by the federal government, made elite universities tone deaf.

The Ivies presumed, correctly, that their degrees were so valuable, the elites would let them get away with anything. They traded admission to kids of the Democrat Clintons, Obamas, Schumers, Pelosis, Cuomos, Bidens and the like for cover. Hunter Biden got into Yale based on his application essay. I wonder if John Smith from Tennessee had his name on that essay and not Hunter Biden, would he have gotten in? All of this was, of course, well before we knew of Hunter’s groundbreaking work as an artist. 

It is not like we get anything for the trillions we have given to Ivy League schools. There was actually a study by an Ivy League school, funded by our tax dollars, that said a chemical element had been discovered that made females talk twice as much as males. I could have told them that element is Pinot Grigio.

By the 2000s, universities (now non-profits), dropped any pretense that they were apolitical. In return, Biden/Harris tried their best to make taxpayers eat all the student loan debt. This would have had an economic ripple effect. It might lead to a shortage of strippers if they did not have to “pay their way through college.”

Fortunately, I had no student loans at my very public undergraduate school to pay off. But 40 years later, I still have a few bar tabs around Memphis. I wished Biden would act like he was going to pay them off. 

Dems pander to gullible young college kids who just overpaid for a bad education. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez campaigns on free college tuition. And AOC, my friends, is why we have the Electoral College. 

I did go to public schools, but I am old enough to remember when we sent the mentally ill to psych-hospitals, not Congress. 

Instead, they customarily violated all sorts of iconic civil rights legislation by weighing race, gender, and sexual orientation in biased admissions, hiring, and promotions. Standardized tests like ACTs and SATs were dropped for a while, along with evaluating applicants’ high school difficulty adjusted for GPA ranking. 

This resulted in graduates with diminished critical thinking, math, and writing skills. They were of less value to employers. Adding to that, colleges now produce entitled and angry graduates. 

In high school, I personally majored in underage drinking, with a minor in loose women. But I was able to post some good grades, went to a big state school, and then a mini-Ivy. And I can tell you, the money difference was not worth it. It was easy back then; I was a genders studies major back when there were only two.

Aside from administrative bloat, the way they have fumbled college sports with the NCAA and NIL is a mess. There’s not a college president in the Big Ten who could withstand a racketeering investigation.

Colleges can return to their mandate of meritocratic admissions and rigorous core studies that will help their students in their careers and temper the leftist indoctrination factories they have become. Or they can further diminish their brand.

With their hubris, universities have set themselves on a path that might end them as we once knew them. They grew their administrations, lowered their standards and raised the cost of college at twice the rate of inflation — with impunity. The public reckoning has now arrived. 

Colleges can do so many things better. One thing I would change about college is to not just let the valedictorian speak but let the guy who had the worst grades talk, too. I like to hear both sides. If I was asked to give the latter speech, I would inspire the graduating seniors by saying that anyone who thinks one person can’t make a difference in this world has never raised tariffs.

Ron Hart is a libertarian op-ed humorist, award-winning author, and a frequent guest on TV. He can be contacted at Ron@RonaldHart.com or @RonaldHart on X.