The only thing worse than what college students are not learning is what they are learning.

It is said that our educators are preparing the young for the future, and this may very well be true. That is, if the movie Idiocracy — which portrays a dystopian future America in which sheer stupidity is the norm — is prophetic. Case in point: the state of today's higher education.

Just consider two recent articles on the subject. One is Professor Walter Williams' piece "What Will They Learn?" about what kids aren't learning, and the other is a FoxNews.com piece "Oddball 101: The 11 Wackiest College Courses of Fall 2009," about what they are learning. Now, hold on to the edge of your seat, because this trip is through the looking glass, class.

Fox News begins telling us about "Queer Mobilities," which I suppose is sort of like queer eye for the stupid guy. Fox writes:

Want to try out this new course at Oberlin College? For a hefty $4,950 you'll get to examine why "only citizens ... 'get' to claim queerness, whereas undocumented immigrants are always presumed to be heteronormative" [pseudo-intellectual academic lunkheads love conjuring up these new terms].

In other words, you'll study why people "always" assume that illegal immigrants are straight.

Isn't stereotyping awful? I guess it's wrong to "always" assume illegal immigrants are straight but just fine to assume that people "always" assume that. I'd like to scare illegals straight — back to their own countries.

Next, if you can shell out $40,000 for annual tuition and $4,500 for a course, you can broaden your horizons with "FemSex." Fox explains:

No — it's not a pornography site, but rather an independent study course at Carleton College that stands for "Female Sexuality." The Carleton Gender and Sexuality department bills it on their Web site as "The class ... you've been waiting to take!"

Assigned homework readings range from "I'm not fat, I'm Latina" and "Myth of the black butt" to "How to have energy orgasms" and plenty of other titles that we can't print here.

If you're a braniac and get accepted by MIT and your parents can foot the $40,000 price tag, you can take "Video Game Studies." Don't think you can be a slacker, though, junior. You're actually going to have to play video games, too.

Then, if the rarified air of the Ivy League suits your palate, for the relative pittance of $700 you can take "Tree Climbing" at Cornell. Fox writes, "'Students are excited,' said Professor Mark Holton, who teaches the class. 'We have never offered a tree climbing class that has not filled to capacity. We learn how to climb into large trees — ones where you cannot reach the first branch.'"

I saw a dog teach a cat how to do that once — for free.

Students are also taking "Philosophy of Star Trek" at Georgetown for $4,827. If that's too deep for you, for a mere $814 you can take "Harry Potter Lit" at Ohio State. In this class, aspiring young scholars, writes Fox, "who are expected to 'read all seven books' [the bright side, parents, is that I don't think they make Harry Potter CliffsNotes yet], will also consider the books as 'reflections of contemporary attitudes towards religion, rule-breaking, power, race, class, gender, education, sports, celebrity, and so on.'" Well, at least they're relating Potter to what really matters.

And there's more at the college fair. At Alfred University in New York, $1,500 will get you the course "Maple Syrup." And if you've never eaten pancakes or waffles, fear not. The school specifies, "No prior experience expected." Then, the English Department at Ole Miss. misses the riverboat with "Zombies!" which for $638.25 will answer the question, "What is it about the idea of a zombie that is so deeply unsettling?" I suppose this also answers the question, "What is it about higher education that is so deeply unsettling?"

Berzerkeley in California, not to be outdone, offers the $1,080 rhetoric course "Arguing with Judge Judy." Then, Hobart and William Smith Colleges in New York give us "Radical Thought from Karl Marx to George Bush."

Meanwhile, Walter Williams tells us of research into what college students actually learn . . . . I mean, other than about climbing a tree with a queer illegal to escape a zombie who you can later sue on Judge Judy. Telling us of an American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) report, Williams writes:

What ACTA found was found was alarming, reporting that "Even as our students need broad-based skills and knowledge to succeed in the global marketplace, our colleges and universities are failing to deliver. Topics like U.S. government or history, literature, mathematics, and economics have become mere options on far too many campuses. Not surprisingly, students are graduating with great gaps in their knowledge — and employers are noticing."

Williams continues:

The National Center for Education Statistics reports that only 31 percent of college graduates can read and understand a complex book. Employers complain that graduates of colleges lack the writing and analytical skills necessary to succeed in the workplace. A 2006 survey conducted by The Conference Board, Corporate Voices for Working Families, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, and the Society for Human Resource Management found that only 24 percent of employers thought graduates of four-year colleges were "excellently prepared" for entry-level positions. College seniors perennially fail tests of their civic and historical knowledge.

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni graded the 100 surveyed colleges and universities on their general education requirements. Forty-two institutions received a "D" or an "F" for requiring two or fewer subjects [traditional ones, such as English composition, math, science, economics, etc.]. Twenty-five of them received an "F" for requiring one or no subjects. No institution required all seven.

Ah, idiocracy, here we come. Is it any wonder that China is now creating 10 times as many scientists as we are with only 4 times the population and far less wealth per capita? Unlike us, China is more interested in success than social engineering and suckling overgrown babies, and, well, liberal arts majors ain't exactly all the rage there.

Not that there would be anything wrong with liberal arts. That is, if "liberal" still referred to general knowledge and not left-wing, wacko miseducation that takes kids from Romper Room to the rubber room.

But I'll end on a positive note and mention Los Angeles' Occidental College. While this institution doesn't get an A in education, either, honesty may be a different matter. Because with one of its courses, it drops all the pretense.

The school simply calls it "Stupidity."

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Still Free said:

Awesome, as usual Mr. Duke. Unfortunately, I have had the occasion to work with many of these so called "graduates" and I can tell you it is frightening. They have no cognitive skills to speak of, can barely read and definitely cannot spell. However, they are very adept with the computer and with text messaging. But if you don't know how to write a sentence (or can't even spell), what good is that in the business world? Or what about logically deducing where to call for information so you can proceed to the next step of your project? This is quite beyond beyond being "green." Forgive me for sounding negative, but I see a bleak future ahead.

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September 04, 2009
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danwhitehead1 said:

	Excuse me - - - - - - but I think I'm going to have to go vomit now. And I thought it was bad in the late '70s/early '80s. Apparently the college grads can no longer read, write, do arithmetic or figure logically from point A to point B, but boy do they sure feel great about themselves.
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September 04, 2009
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danwhitehead1 said:

	P. S. Just a quick question: are we going to have a czar/czarina of stupidity now?
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September 04, 2009
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eyeopener said:

Great fun but short on figures Mr. Duke has a great sense of humor, but this article really needs more statistics to keep it out of the entertainment category. Picking out a few oddball courses from all of the colleges and universities in the US does not give me an accurate picture of the state of education in the nation today. Statements like "employers are noticing" is hardly the equivalent of hard information. That "...31% of college graduates can read and understand a complex book" is more in that direction, and I would like to see more of that and less sarcasm. I would not be at all surprised to find the statistics horrifying, but I have to see them to be actually horrified.

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October 05, 2009 | url
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