This thread probably needs to be locked.

Social conservatives are a minority of college students and an even smaller fraction of the faculty. Very conservative families with college-bound children tend to send them to the Liberties, Bob Joneses, and Grove Cities of the world. If they end up at a mainstream college they'll either learn to conform to the prevailing culture or else keep their heads down. I have yet to hear of a bright kid from a conservative family simply declining to pursue a degree purely over culture wars. More likely they will attend some kind of straight-laced Christian school where the last vestiges of in loco parentis can still be found.

I suspect most of the right's antipathy toward higher education stems from a class divide. People without college degrees tend to be more conservative in general, and see campus politics as the tantrums of pampered princelings. Rich kids burning flags and tearing down statues of founding fathers doesn't play all that well back home on Main Street. Colleges for their part have done nothing to dispel this image. They see themselves as gatekeepers of the leadership caste and have no problem billing themselves as "diverse" "sex positive" "equitable" "international" etc., which is marketing primarily directed at upper and upper-middle class Americans who also aspire to these values.

The critical failure of higher ed is that its fortunes rest entirely on enormous financialized endowments and federal student loans (which are offered below market rate). This has permitted administrative budgets to balloon far out of proportion and has also turned students into clients whose comfort and "retention rate" became more important than pedagogy. This lax and bloated environment probably also contributes to the culture of narcissism on display in campus politics, but you can see how the culture war angle is just one weird symptom and not really at the root of the problem here.

I think that it would pay great benefits to the College if they were to employ the model which Mitch Daniels brought to Purdue of cutting costs through elimination of fluff and un-necessary expenses, reduction of administrative staff, raising academic standing, and holding tuition firm for an extended period.

The proliferation of student loans has not given administrators an incentive to cut costs and hold down tuition and fees.
The ease of inflated passing costs along to students, imho has led to the unintended consequence of higher inflation in the cost of college than that of wages for many decades, making college more unaffordable and less appealing, as it does not offer the positive cost/benefit ratio that it did in past times for liberal arts majors, a strength of W&M.

Perhaps a shrinking applicant pool may provide incentive to reign in runaway costs and provide a better return to perspective students.

(08-18-2022 01:14 PM)82hawk Wrote:  https://www.thefire.org/in-memoriam-prof...1964-2020/

On Thursday, July 23, professor Mike Adams was found dead from a gunshot wound in his home in Wilmington, North Carolina. On Monday, his death was ruled a suicide.

Mike, a criminology professor at the University of North Carolina–Wilmington, was someone I first met early on in my time at FIRE. Formerly a liberal and atheist, he had converted to Christianity and become a conservative a few years before, and was a columnist and author with the zeal of the converted. Through his nearly two decades of on-and-off persecution by UNCW—and make no mistake, that’s what it was—he and I (along with others at FIRE) also became friends.

I don’t know if any psychological studies on this exist. (It’s hard to think of a way that conducting an experiment, for example, would be ethical.) Stories from behind the Iron Curtain certainly suggest that those in repressive societies struggled with it on a psychological level, and Orwell’s description of “doublethink” from 1984 is in many ways similar. But I don’t think a double-blind study is required for us to understand that feeling like the people around you are enjoying freedoms that you don’t get puts a lot of stress on a person. In fact, you could probably just ask your friends and neighbors how it makes them feel. A Cato/YouGov survey released less than two weeks ago revealed that “62% of Americans say they have political views they’re afraid to share,” with “strong liberals” the only ideological group in which a majority doesn’t feel that way—and even there, an alarming 42% still do. In fact, members of every group are more afraid to speak out than they were in 2017.

What a tragic, heartbreaking story. Thanks for sharing!

(08-18-2022 03:27 PM)LeadBolt Wrote:  I think that it would pay great benefits to the College if they were to employ the model which Mitch Daniels brought to Purdue of cutting costs through elimination of fluff and un-necessary expenses, reduction of administrative staff, raising academic standing, and holding tuition firm for an extended period.

The proliferation of student loans has not given administrators an incentive to cut costs and hold down tuition and fees.
The ease of inflated passing costs along to students, imho has led to the unintended consequence of higher inflation in the cost of college than that of wages for many decades, making college more unaffordable and less appealing, as it does not offer the positive cost/benefit ratio that it did in past times for liberal arts majors, a strength of W&M.

Perhaps a shrinking applicant pool may provide incentive to reign in runaway costs and provide a better return to perspective students.

Drexel just announced it will cut the tuition of incoming community college grads by half. Maybe it's desperation on their part, or maybe they're on to something.

(08-18-2022 03:43 PM)TribeFan1983 Wrote:  

(08-18-2022 03:27 PM)LeadBolt Wrote:  I think that it would pay great benefits to the College if they were to employ the model which Mitch Daniels brought to Purdue of cutting costs through elimination of fluff and un-necessary expenses, reduction of administrative staff, raising academic standing, and holding tuition firm for an extended period.

The proliferation of student loans has not given administrators an incentive to cut costs and hold down tuition and fees.
The ease of inflated passing costs along to students, imho has led to the unintended consequence of higher inflation in the cost of college than that of wages for many decades, making college more unaffordable and less appealing, as it does not offer the positive cost/benefit ratio that it did in past times for liberal arts majors, a strength of W&M.

Perhaps a shrinking applicant pool may provide incentive to reign in runaway costs and provide a better return to perspective students.

Drexel just announced it will cut the tuition of incoming community college grads by half. Maybe it's desperation on their part, or maybe they're on to something.

W&M does have a good relationship with Thomas Nelson CC where students have a path to transferring to W&M after a 2-year degree. IIRC, they're also advised as to which courses will transfer so they can focus on coming in with credit. Seems like there's other benefits as well from this site:

https://tncc.edu/wm