Schoolin' You on Schoolin'

All right, this one is an old gripe of mine that I haven't really thought about in a while. College. I have a problem with college. And not just one little part of the experience, like binge drinking, supercilious professors, or rampant STDs. Those are the kinds of bitches other people would have, socially responsible, forward-thinking commentators who are concerned about the state of higher education.

I am not one of those people.

I know what's best for you, because I'm wearing glasses. Glasses, bitch.

No, I'm just a university alumnus (that's the singular of 'alumni,' which is strictly a plural form, by the way) who noticed a few things while he was attending the requisite four, er, five years of schooling necessary to attain a Bachelor's of Science. Between late-night cram sessions and blackouts, I started to note a pattern which disturbed me. What is my problem with the system? Well, it's the system. The institution itself. Here in the United States, and probably other countries as well, more and more people are attending college, to the point it is rapidly becoming the norm where it was once, only a few decades back, the exception. Good, right?

Wrong.

This reflects what I like to (pretentiously) call the democratization of education. Or bastardization, if you want to get down to brass tacks. You ever notice how well democracy works out for countries that are used to authoritarian regimes where the price of voting is usually an appendage and it's considered a good day if you aren't forcibly evicted from your home to make way for a glorious hydroelectric dam? Democracy doesn't often take right away, does it? Sure, people may flock to the polls, but it's not typically the sunshine-and-lollipops, they-lived-liberatedly-ever-after story the American media likes to portray. There's a period of adjustment, sometimes lasting generations, during which the nation in question is just as likely to spiral into a hellish civil war, get its ass invaded by opportunistic neighbors, or elect some unqualified, ludicrous celebrity to lead them.

Ok, so that happened once here, too.

Fine, we have a thing for electing the cast of Predator.  Better than Predator 2.

My point is, when you make something available to everyone, when you decide to unilaterally involve everybody in something important, things are bound to get fucked up.  You are pandering to the masses, which means aiming for the lowest common denominator.  And, let's face it, the masses are pretty damn clueless.  Recent surveys I stumbled on say over 20% of Americans still don't believe Barack Obama is a citizen of the US, while 10% believe they have actually witnessed a real exorcism.  These are the people who are going to college.  Do you see any problem with this?  Statistically speaking, you probably don't, because you stand a fairly good chance of being a moron, whereas I am smart.  It comes down to a basic fact our society knew years ago, but has "forgotten" in the politically-correct, follow-your-dreams zeitgeist of the modern age: not every human being is college material.  Even excluding the medically-diagnosed dipshits and most of Alabama's population (cheap shot, yes, but who cares?), the majority of Americans do not belong at universities.  Period.

Witness the two airheaded bitches who sat behind me in one of my basic history classes.  Without fail, they would prattle and giggle their way through each and every class, admit to doing none of the reading or homework, and then proceed to whine about how hard the course was.  Let me stress, this was one of the easiest classes I ever took in college.  Our professor, who was a solid teacher, literally wrote out the notes for us in the form of bulleted outlines that he posted online.  All of our exams were take-home.  We had to write precisely two papers all semester.  And these dumb cunts had the audacity to (1) not take advantage of how ridiculously easy the professor made it, and (2) complain about not getting an A.  Seriously?  As if simply by virtue of having miraculously gotten into college, they were now entitled to perfect grades without putting forth the slightest effort.  What the fuck?

These people did not belong in the post-secondary academic world, yet there they were.  And do you know why that class was such a goddamned cakewalk?  Because of people like them.  Because the societal expectation is now that most people will pursue higher education, the institutions have been steadily diluting, simplifying, and generally retard-proofing their curricula to make sure everyone stands a chance of getting their coveted degree.  A high school diploma or GED is practically meaningless these days; an Associate's Degree has become the new equivalent, and even that is quickly being displaced as the "standard" by a four-year Bachelor's Degree.  The trouble with this seemingly-laudable phenomenon is that the average person is not necessarily smarter than they were twenty years ago.  Survivor is in its 12th season, for Christ's sake.  College degrees are like currency: the more of them you print, the less they are worth.  And academic inflation is out of control in this country.  The University of Baltimore recently added Zombie Apocalypse Survival 101 to their catalog (misleadingly under the heading "English 333").  My cousin attended a respectable college that offered courses in, I shit you not, the works of Michael Crichton and Batman studies.  Yes, Batman.  As cool as these subjects may be, I think they should be reserved for late-night Wikipedia perusals.  While stoned.  You shouldn't be paying several hundred dollars per credit hour for a nerdgasm.  I can't believe I actually have to point this out.  But that is the despicable state of our education system.

"Hi, I'm Aristotle, founder of the Lyceum, the first formal institution of higher learning in the Western world.  And this shit is not what I had in mind.  Fuck you."

So what's the solution?  I don't know, nobody is paying me to figure it out.  This is what happens when your ginormous country becomes so advanced that its economy relies largely on the service- and information-industry.  As I understand it, some other First World nations have worked out systems that start to direct students toward their careers earlier, offering them specific training well before they start getting delusions of grandeur, thus preemptively avoiding the admittance of well-waxed chimpanzees to Oxford and the Academy.  Crazy, huh?  Am I being an egotistical, condescending, patronizing asshole?  Absolutely.  But only because I know I'm right.