College for the Rich

The NY Times has a discussion today on how hard it is to get into selective colleges these days.  I realize that this newspaper caters to the affluent.  Yet the reality is that a very large percentage of U.S. college bound students don't go to the Ivy Leagues.  The story of college in this country is about the colleges that are off the list of 10 Best....

So maybe there should be talk about what kind of education students get at "regular" universities?  There are often complaints about over spending or excessive focus on sports ($), but how about some studies on what you average American college student experiences?

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The Rich-Poor Divide Widens

September 12, 2010 - New York Times

by Jane Wellman is executive director of the Delta Cost Project.

Rising college selectivity doesn’t mean that students are smarter and more serious than in the past, although a few clearly are. It’s a function of excess demand for higher education, occurring at a time of increased financial privatization of the industry.

Rising college selectivity is the result of excess demand, occurring at a time of financial privatization.

The recession has only increased demand. The vast majority of students aren’t going to college because of a thirst for knowledge, or even for the cultural and social adventure they hope to have. They’re there because they need a job, and they need to get the credentials – and, one hopes, the knowledge and skills behind the credentials – that will get them into the labor market....link

Going to College? Part I

The New York Times published a great piece on "advice for college freshman"

This post is about finding a good teacher and getting better at writing...

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Op-Ed Contributor

The Hunt for a Good Teacher

By STANLEY FISH

New York Times - Published: September 5, 2009

I would give entering freshmen two pieces of advice. First, find out who the good teachers are. Ask your adviser; poll older students; search the Internet; and consult the teacher-evaluation guides available at most colleges. (As a professor, I am against those guides; too often they are the vehicles of petty grievances put forward by people who have no long-term stake in the enterprise. But if I were a student, I would take advantage of them.)

To some extent your options will be limited by distribution requirements (in colleges that still have them) and scheduling. But within these limits you should do everything you can to get a seat in the class of a professor known for both his or her knowledge of the material and the ability to make it a window on the larger universe. Years later you may not be able to recall the details of lectures and discussions, but the benefits of being in the company of a challenging mind will be yours forever.

Second, I would advise students to take a composition course even if they have tested out of it. I have taught many students whose SAT scores exempted them from the writing requirement, but a disheartening number of them couldn’t write and an equal number had never been asked to. They managed to get through high-school without learning how to write a clean English sentence, and if you can’t do that you can’t do anything.

I give this advice with some trepidation because too many writing courses today teach everything but the craft of writing and are instead the vehicles of the instructor’s social and political obsessions. In the face of what I consider a dereliction of pedagogical duty, I can say only, “Buyer beware.” If your writing instructor isn’t teaching writing, get out of that class and find someone who is.

Stanley Fish is a professor of law at Florida International University and a contributing columnist to The Times, who has been teaching since 1962. link