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As it is, everybody and their mom can go to college, as a result, student debt is insane and lots of people are just dumb and shouldn't be in college at all. What if there were far stricter requirements, say only the smartest most intelligent people were allowed to go to college? Kind of like how it was back in the day?
Real universities and colleges are hard to get into and turn away many more applicants than they accept. I believe the fraction of American students attending real universities and colleges is about what it always was - what, maybe 10%?
There are also a lot of entities that call themselves "college" or "university" but lack academic rigor or standards.
Most educated people are able to recognize the difference.
To assert that only the smartest ,and most intelligent should attend as they did 'back in the day' is an unfounded claim, and in fact quite wrong.'
'Back in the day',let's say 100 years ago, only the children of the wealthy attended university. Many of them were (and still are) ineffably stupid.
This may come as a shock, but you don't need to be very bright to obtain most undergraduate degrees. What you do need is persistence, focus and motivation.
Excluding the professions, most undergraduate degrees (Eg Liberal arts) were never intended to provide a qualification for anything. The idea was to round off one's education. With luck, one might have learned some critical thinking skills and perhaps a slightly broader world view..
I'll share my educational journey as an example:
Left school at 17, not having finished high school. Started working full time.Finished high school at night.
Conscripted for 2 years in the army (thankfully, no war service).
On return, back to full time work. Did a 3 year part time diploma course in Human Resource Management .
Had a year off.
The discovered our top state university was offering places to mature age, non matriculants ( I had finished high school, but not qualified for University) . I applied.
First, had to write a letter, setting out why I had not been able to go to university.
They liked that, so I was asked to attend a university hall, where I would need to write an essay. That was to demonstrate a good literacy level, and some ability in critical thinking.
They liked my essay. I was then invited to an interview with three faculty heads. They liked me, so I was accepted.
---there were 150 places, and 1500 applicants.
I elected to do a BA, part time ,spread over 9 years.,as I was working full time.During that time, I maintained straight A's, achieving a BA with a double major in Social Anthropology. This degree actually helped me in my work. I worked for Social Security, and was dealing a lot with refugees. By the time I had finished my degree, I had spent a total of 14 years in formal part time study. My informal studies have never stopped, although they have slowed down a bit in the last few years..
The kind of tests you recommend are only really useful with vast numbers of people. They were developed for use by the US army, to test recruits for WW2. It was a broad brush, meant to weed out mental defectives and psychotics.
As far as I'm aware, no test has yet been developed which can measure potential.
As it is, everybody and their mom can go to college, as a result, student debt is insane and lots of people are just dumb and shouldn't be in college at all. What if there were far stricter requirements, say only the smartest most intelligent people were allowed to go to college? Kind of like how it was back in the day?
That wasn't how it was back in the day. It was people from the wealthiest families who attended college. They weren't necessarily smarter than everyone else. They had more educational advantages, though and money to get them to college.
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Originally Posted by Tarkinson
As it is, everybody and their mom can go to college, as a result, student debt is insane and lots of people are just dumb and shouldn't be in college at all. What if there were far stricter requirements, say only the smartest most intelligent people were allowed to go to college? Kind of like how it was back in the day?
Define "back in the day". I checked your profile, and it appears you're in your 40's.
I'm in my 50's. I was a shoe-in for University of Texas, and Texas A&M, Texas' two flag-ship universities, and I had a B average in school and fairly respectable SAT and ACT scores.
There is not the first chance I would be accepted to either university now with those credentials.
As it is, everybody and their mom can go to college, as a result, student debt is insane and lots of people are just dumb and shouldn't be in college at all. What if there were far stricter requirements, say only the smartest most intelligent people were allowed to go to college? Kind of like how it was back in the day?
Then colleges wouldn’t be making massive amounts of money.
As it is, everybody and their mom can go to college, as a result, student debt is insane and lots of people are just dumb and shouldn't be in college at all. What if there were far stricter requirements, say only the smartest most intelligent people were allowed to go to college? Kind of like how it was back in the day?
There are extremely strict standards today. Only they're based on race and ethnicity, not academics. Caucasians and Asians are actually underrepresented at many universities.
There are extremely strict standards today. Only they're based on race and ethnicity, not academics. Caucasians and Asians are actually underrepresented at many universities.
Which universities would those be?
Please do not go around believing that white and Asian people are the great oppressed at America's colleges and universities. The numbers just don't play out. They are still the majority groups at most colleges and universities.
Go ahead and list the statistics of student populations at the top schools.
Before you go around pushing your false racist agenda, please at least have the facts to back up what you're saying.
I've been to many different colleges and universities and the majority of the students I've encountered have been white. Colleges in the midwest and in the northeast.
So, unless there is some true geographical population imbalance, most colleges and universities are not leaving out white and Asian people.
By the way, I'm not ignoring the undercurrent of your comments that imply that white and Asian people are the "better" people and they're being held back in promotion of the inferior Black and Latino people.
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