Diversity on Campus

As I walked on a university campus this morning, I thought: the feminists have won. The girl-boy ratio was overwhelmingly girl. Nationally, it’s approaching 60-40, something that is almost never mentioned. The feminists (except for the hard-core) did not really want to drive boys off campus with their constant teaching on the evil of the male, but that and the economy have helped do so. There is also this: in a time of depression, parents are rethinking the high cost of little learning and four or five or six years of partying. Really smart kids should go to college, especially those with a vocation for scholarship and teaching, and those who seek a professional qualification, but does spending more than $100,000 or going massively into debt otherwise make sense? Colleges, long subsidized by the central state, have responded by ripping off their customers. Most students will never make up the cost of college plus four years of lost income. So I think college enrollments will be falling, and some colleges will go bust. And here’s the way to compete: not by lowering already low standards, but by cutting prices. I have no idea how the boy-girl ratio will be affected, but I figure that even if we reach Jan and Dean’s dream of “two girls for every boy,” no one will be happy.

UPDATE from Nick Archer:

As a PhD candidate and one of those people with a vocation for teaching, I can’t tell you how many soon-to-be graduating seniors I’ve taught have come up to me wondering what the heck they just did for the last 4 years other than putting themselves in a lot of debt to be babysat. If there’s silver lining, it might be that many have talked about not living beyond their means anymore and telling their younger siblings the experience may not be worth the price-tag. They don’t call it a correction for nothing!

UPDATE from Anne Williamson:

Applications down at top-rated liberal arts colleges; next – lower prices! As you’re fond of saying, Lew, they don’t call it a correction for nothing!

The Best of Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.