"He worries about those who arrive on campus without any direction. “I think some students are naïve,” he says. “It’s half their fault and half because they just don’t know what college is meant for. People are going to school because they think they should, when you should go to school for an investment."
"Dear Evan: It may not occur to you that there might be more than one theme to any story, and that, more often than not, there are no wrong answers in literature, only well-argued propositions. May I suggest that, as I suggested to others who came before you asking for ‘main’ or ‘real’ themes, you go sit under a tree and read ‘The Palmist’ aloud to a few friends who can listen well? They’ll probably have a better answer than I do. And once you figured out what that theme is, do put it up in paperdue.com or some such websites. And when I can afford membership, I’ll be sure to log in and read it."
— Stranger Than Nonfiction: Well-Known Author Busts the Online Homework Racket | Alternet
How to Save College | The Awl
If you want to know what college is actually like in this country, forget Swarthmore, with 1500 students. Think Houston Community College, with 63,000. Think rolling admissions. Think commuter school. Think older. Think poorer. Think child-rearing, part-time, night class. Think 50% dropout rates. Think two-year degree. (Except don’t call it that, because most graduates take longer than two years to complete it. If they complete it.)
Yep
My fake college syllabus - Salon.com
My grading policy is to remain above the fray. Your assignments will be read by Scott, the Teaching Assistant. If you question me about your marks, I will plead ignorance. If pressed, I will strongly imply that Scott holds some kind of mystical or legal sway over me and that I am powerless to alter his decisions. Scott and I have worked all this out ahead of time; he is the Bad Cop and I am the Kindly Aloof Genius. Let me be clear: It would take a major act of God – not the kind of thing they consecrate saints for these days, but a plague of cigar-chomping Labradoodles plummeting from the heavens – for me to read a single word you have written.
The Sunday Rumpus Interview: Junot Díaz - The Rumpus.net
(via Instapaper)
If you stay at home, don’t talk too much about books, don’t try to get motherfuckers to engage in “intellectual’ discussions,” don’t talk about an ethnic studies course you took or the study abroad you did in Japan. Same thing: if you go away to say college, don’t dwell too much on race and certainly not on how racialized poverty and class are in this country. Don’t mention white supremacy. Keep your ghetto shit to yourself. Of course I’m being a little stark to make a point, but it sure as hell felt stark growing up in it. Over time I became very aware that people had a lot invested in you choosing sides. You had to choose one or the other but not both, not neither. Complexity was out of the question. Multiple loyalties were another way of saying betrayal. I eventually realized that these bipolar choices were not only ridiculous, they would also require me to jettison the essence of who I am. My multiplicity, my complexity, my simultaneity
A Buyer’s Guide to American Colleges - The Morning News
(via Instapaper)
The Ivy League college might be better if it did not have any students or faculty. For many Ivy-Leaguers, going to an Ivy League school may be the best thing they will ever do, thus, they won’t ever stop talking about it, even while they’re there. One must be prepared.
College Is No Place for Remedial Education - Bloomberg
Yeah, they are paying a lot of money to be taught stuff that was free in high school.
"the main problem with our education system today is not what is taught, where it is taught, by whom it is taught or how it is taught.” Instead, says Talbot, the issue is students who refuse to put in the work required to earn a good grade."
—
Are Lazy Students the Real Problem in Public Education? - Education - GOOD
COUGH COUGH
Prepping Students for Sorority Rush - NYTimes.com
So Mrs. King, who graduated from Yale in 1984, before it had any sororities, enlisted the aid of Marlea Foster and Pat Grant, local consultants who had coached their own daughters through rush at Furman, the University of Georgia and Auburn University. Naming themselves the Rushbiddies, they opened shop in 2009 after hearing about the rush misfortunes of their daughters’ friends. About 50 mothers and their “chicks,” as the Biddies affectionately call them, attended one of their two-day workshops in April ($100 a couple), complete with mock rush party, wardrobe hints and paperwork prep.
This entire article makes me want to puke.
Kevin Carey: The Higher Education Monopoly Is Crumbling As We Speak | The New Republic
(via Instapaper)
But just as people are ultimately interested in buying holes, not drills, higher education consumers aren’t buying courses or degree programs. They’re buying credentials. And until now, nobody has developed an innovative low-cost alternative to traditional higher education credentials. We’re still stuck with the handful of crude, time-based degrees that have been in use for decades or more. The vast majority of college students acquire an associate’s, bachelor’s, or master’s degree, corresponding to two, four, or six years attending school.
