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Monday, May 04, 2009
Ashley Herzog :: Townhall.com Columnist
Socialism, College Style
by Ashley Herzog
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If you’re baffled by college students’ enthusiastic support for Soviet-lite economic policies, you need to watch several short videos created by members of Young America’s Foundation (YAF).

In the videos, YAF members approach their classmates with a petition calling for the redistribution of student GPAs. “It would make it so that all students have an equal opportunity to go to grad school,” University of Oregon YAFer Kenny Crabtree explains. Students with bad grades would therefore be entitled to points earned by straight-A students.

Their classmates are flabbergasted.

“Is that, like, a joke or something?” one guy responds.

“Why would you take points from people who are higher up and give them to people who didn’t meet the requirements?” another asks George Mason University YAFers. But when asked if he supports Obama’s wealth redistribution schemes, he says “yes.”

Shocking? Not really. As I pointed out in my March 30 column, most college students are economically illiterate. When quizzed by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute about basic concepts, such as supply and demand, the average student’s score was 53 percent. And since most don’t work or pay taxes (only 46 percent of full-time students have jobs), they simply have no idea how capitalism works.

But they do understand grades. Students who study hard get good grades; students who skip class and binge drink every night get bad grades. Some struggle with difficult material, but with enough effort (attending office hours, seeing a tutor) most can maintain a decent GPA. Every sane college student realizes the immorality of “spreading the grades around”—regardless of who benefits. Continued...

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About The Author
Ashley Herzog is a Townhall columnist and the author of Feminism vs. Women.

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"Republic" and grades
Rich D.,
The whole "republic vs. democracy" thing is a distinction without a difference. Call it what you want: the point is, a system not controlled by elites, where ordinary people have a say. I mentioned Aristotle, but he didn't like democracy. He thought we should be ruled by the "better" people, people like himself. But he does point out, I think, that a democracy requires that the middle class be very strong. If people are desperately poor, as in Haiti, they're beholden to others with more money and cannot vote in a fully independent manner. If elections are held, they're probably paid or intimidated into voting as they do.

uber, remember that the original point was about redistribution, not grades. But as to grades, I don't know if the pass/fail proposal would really work. I've seen it work in very small colleges where the faculty-to-student ratio was low and every student was expected to get a lot of personal attention. But in larger schools, with a higher faculty-to-student ratio, it would be hard for that to work. Keep in mind that grades give you information not just on students' knowledge, but about teachers as well. If a teacher gives nothing but F's or A's, that raises questions about him as a teacher.

Uber and Unter
uber: Grades are arbitrary...

Sure. Arbitrary. Your command of English is astonishing.

"...and you demonstrating [sic] knowledge to an impartial panel."

As I said!

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