March 30, 2023

Several years ago, I watched a documentary that forecast the disastrous decline of education due to the progressive control by censorship of academia. Indoctrinate U (2007) by Evan Coyne Maloney was an eye opener to any parent of students entering the college years.

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My daughter had already been exposed to the political correctness mandated by professors at the College of Staten Island (SUNY) when her  professor dressed in mourning the day after George Bush’s reelection in 2004. She realized quickly to stifle any conservative opinion that might impact her grading. Thanks to her experience, my other daughter chose to attend St. John’s University years later and graduated summa cum laude with a BS in Computer Science without dealing with any anti-conservative bias. Freedom to choose what institution to attend is paramount to obtaining a well-balanced education throughout all the grades.

About the only possible good benefit of the Covid pandemic was the gradual wakeup call to parents that most of the academic institutions, teachers’ unions and school boards did not have the best interests of their children at heart and were more concerned with political influence at the cost of their responsibility to provide basic educational tenets.

The most desired degrees were once sought from Ivy League universities but it’s hard to recognize them given the ridiculous courses some of them now offer. Most of them seem to be trendy rather than educational. “How to win a beauty contest; Politicizing Beyoncé; the Sociology of Miley Cyrus and others too ridiculous to mention.  “Power and Responsibility: Doing Philosophy with Superheroes,” was an online course offered by Harvard. Harvard, imagine that.

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In this 21st century  does one even need a college degree unless one is planning a career as a doctor or lawyer? Will majoring in women’s and gender studies get one a high paying job? A Fine Arts degree may help if you have a chance at becoming a curator at a top museum but won’t impress the owner of a fast food joint.

When politicians and educators decided that a lockdown of schools was necessary to contain the pandemic, our children paid the price with lowered reading and math skills that will cost them dearly in the future. Eleven of my grandchildren attended parochial schools that had teachers who were not members of the suffocating unions in public schools. Consequently, they maintained the high education levels from before the politically exploited pandemic. The other two grandchildren were students at a supposedly good public school yet I had to teach the kindergartener how to read.

There may be some good news on the horizon now that the ‘woke’ agenda of expensive universities has caused a steep decline in enrollments.  College enrolments are down significantly except at those with conservative reputations. A liberal professor, Peter Boghossian, former philosophy professor at Portland State University, actually said that he told his daughter “not to go to university – become an electrician” because colleges have become “indoctrination mills.”  He has also stated that all universities have been destroyed by ‘woke nonsense’ and should be defunded. 

I no longer have children of college age but several of my grandchildren are,` and college choices are quite interesting now. Three of my grandsons will be attending a small but fascinating college in San Diego, California in September. John Paul the Great is a Catholic university for the creative arts and business. It offers courses that are of great interest to Gen Z and millennials that will garner them lucrative careers while maintaining spiritual integrity. In other words, it is not ‘woke’ or politically correct. I looked over its website, www.jpcatholic.edu and wished there had been such fascinating  choices when I was college age.

Exactly what are youths interested in today? It’s not gender, women or minority studies. They’re into social media, gaming, films, music and unfortunately  these interests right now are dominated by the left influencers. John Paul the Great University is challenging that system by impacting the current culture with high moral standards. It offers courses in feature films, animation, gaming development, drama, screenwriting and many other creative art options. In addition, it has generous scholarship programs and financial aid for struggling families.

My daughter said she received $200 towards airline fare for each of her sons to travel to San Diego to preview the university which they will now attend this fall. She also said they were put up in a hostel and had a paid Uber to greet them at airport. What she appreciated the most is that the university offered to create a financial plan which no other school did.

I suspect that many parents today are debating whether their offspring should take gap years until academia  restores its sanity or simply join the working class and forget about furthering their education. They should realize that there are choices out there that are innovative and deserve to be explored. As far as I know, John Paul the Great University is open to all but I contacted Mr. Martin Harold , the V.P. of enrollment( MHarold@jpcatholic.edu)  to confirm. He responded:

“We are open to all faiths and have some non-Catholic Christians in our student body.  Students who come here, however, take a nine-class sequence in theology and philosophy in our Catholic liberal arts core, so most of them have an interest in Catholic theology even if they are not Catholic themselves.”