A COUPLE OF DOZEN WAYS IN WHICH THE EDUCATION SYSTEM IS A FRAUD
Fraud: deceit, trickery, cheating, intentional deception
*The high school graduate should be able to assume that his diploma means he is ready for college, if that is to be his path. Unfortunately, it does not; college readiness is a totally different matter.
*Tons of scholarships are predicated on GPA levels. The latter say nothing about academic rigor.
*Colleges may be accredited, but they can do anything they want to. There is no accountability.
*The cost of college is a shell game; its perpetrators want you to watch the tuition number while elsewhere they are jacking up a long list of fees having little or no basis in identifiable costs.
*Can this marketing approach possibly be credible: “get a Master’s by Tuesday (admittedly a slight exaggeration) and you will instantly have a high-paying job.”
*Sorry about that, the college has oversold its classroom seats. You will be taking this course on-line in your dormitory room.
*The professor is not keen on teaching; he or she would prefer doing their research and writing their books, which they will require in their classes, even when not used.
*The high school, because of budgetary restraints, has to cut back on gym and the creative arts. This restraint does not apply to the football program.
*Let’s keep kids in ESL, even when they could test out. It’s easier for us to not move them.
*These students are uncontrollable; let’s classify them. No need to examine the classroom management inadequacies of the teacher.
*Okay, sharp eyes; you are right. That three-hour college class is actually not three hours; it is less.
*The message that permeates 92.5% of all high schools is that every single individual must go to college: prima facie deceitful.
*Colleges are proclaiming their desire for more socioeconomic diversity; just ask them and they will tell you. However, if pushed, they will admit that they can only handle a certain number of students requiring big tuition discounts, aka institutional scholarships.
*Colleges encourage their students to be self-reflective, alas a trait lost on colleges themselves as they balloon their cost structures with ever more administrative positions.
*If you want to see a college protect that quaint concept of freedom of speech, try to book a right-of-political-center speaker and see the school’s doors shut and their ideals tabled.
*Unbiased international standards indicate the American education approach is not successful. Therefore, the standards must be rejected.
*Maybe that AP credit earned in high school transfers to the actual prospective college, but the high school cannot be sure, regardless of what it says to the student.
*Ah yes, all public two-year college credits (in New Jersey, e.g.) by law must transfer to all public four-year colleges. No, better to assume a 10% haircut.
*The area of for-profit colleges and their defects has been well plowed. Suffice it to say that some of the criticism is, uh … fraudulent!
*Colleges now provide cost-of-attendance and net price calculator data. Did these bastions of education do so voluntarily – not remotely.
*And now colleges are crying “you don’t understand” when analysts couple the cost of college, inclusive of debt, with the earning power associated with the major and the degree.
Author’s Notes:
English professors will criticize these observations because there are variations in the writer’s “voice.” Thank goodness people no longer care about writing.
Foreign language teachers may have to consult the archives; once upon a very long time ago, I took Latin and a few words actually stuck. Now if only I had taken a useful language.
Mathematicians may observe that actually there are not two dozen entries above. I can only say that I tried hard and the results felt good to me; isn’t that more important than accuracy. If readers would send me additional entries about education fraud, maybe the title could match the true count.