From the moment a student sets foot on a college campus, a whole apparatus of indoctrination can go into motion, in the name of "orientation," so as to mold each young mind to politically correct attitudes on everything from sex to "social justice."
Colleges used to say that their job was to teach the student how to think, not what to think. Today, most colleges are in the business of teaching the student what to think or "feel."
Many colleges -- even many of the most prestigious -- lack any real curriculum, but they seldom lack an ideological agenda. Too often they use students as guinea pigs for fashionable notions about how to live their own lives.
As for education, students can go through many colleges selecting courses cafeteria-style, and graduate in complete ignorance of history, science, economics, and many other subjects, even while clutching a costly diploma with a big name on it.
Students who make more astute choices from the cafeteria of courses can still get a good education at the same colleges where their classmates get mush. But seldom is there any curriculum that ensures a good education, even at prestigious colleges.
Parents need to stay involved in the process of choosing a college. They need to visit college campuses before making application decisions -- and remember to take their skepticism with them. They also need to ask blunt questions and not take smooth generalities for an answer.
An indispensable guide to the atmosphere on various college campuses, and the presence or absence of a real curriculum, is a 971-page book titled "Choosing the Right College." It is head-and-shoulders above all the other college guides.
Among other things, it tells you which colleges have a real curriculum, rather than a cafeteria of courses, as well as the kind of atmosphere each campus has. The latter is always important and sometimes can even be a matter of life and death.