There is a solution to this madness, but it would require that we quit pretending that anyone should be devoting four years to listening to lazy left-wing professors nattering on about 20th century comic books, 19th century French poetry, the movies of Sam Fuller, the scribbling of Noam Chomsky or the sex life of Henry Miller.
What I propose is that they turn colleges and universities into libraries, zoos, hospitals or, for all I care, parking lots or low income housing. And in place of these ivory towers, I would institute an assortment of trade schools. But not just those traditional trade schools where high school graduates learn to be mechanics, plumbers and carpenters, but trade schools for lawyers, doctors, accountants and architects.
Frankly, I don’t care if my doctor has ever read Baudelaire or my accountant can tell a Manet from a Monet, not that they could even if they’d wasted four years of their lives as undergrads. Thanks to computers and the local library, anybody can bone up on just about anything he’s interested in, and it doesn’t cost upwards of $100,000 to do it.
My system is far more efficient than what we have today, plus parents wouldn’t have to mortgage their homes just so Johnny and Susie can attend a school that has ivy on its walls or a Rose Bowl-bound football team.
In time, I believe, we could learn to accept that what we now refer to as a college education is just a pastime, except, of course, when it’s really just a joke.