"Higher" Education

College the Easy Way
By BOB HERBERT

Intellectual effort and academic rigor, in the minds of many of the nation’s college students, is becoming increasingly less important. According to the authors, Professors Richard Arum of New York University and Josipa Roksa of the University of Virginia: “Many students come to college not only poorly prepared by prior schooling for highly demanding academic tasks that ideally lie in front of them, but — more troubling still — they enter college with attitudes, norms, values, and behaviors that are often at odds with academic commitment.”

Students are hitting the books less and partying more. Easier courses and easier majors have become more and more popular. Perhaps more now than ever, the point of the college experience is to have a good time and walk away with a valuable credential after putting in the least effort possible.

The authors cite empirical work showing that the average amount of time spent studying by college students has dropped by more than 50 percent since the early 1960s. But a lack of academic focus has not had much of an effect on grade point averages or the ability of the undergraduates to obtain their degrees.

Thirty-six percent of the students said they studied alone less than five hours a week. Nevertheless, their transcripts showed a collective grade point average of 3.16. “Their G.P.A.’s are between a B and a B-plus,” said Professor Arum, “which says to me that it’s not the students, really — they share some of the blame — but the colleges and universities have set up a system so that there are ways to navigate through it without taking difficult courses and still get the credential.”

My experience would tend to support the last observation above.

Creative destruction

Boyes posting on the reaction to fracking is an excellent illustration of the impact and reaction to creative destruction. As the process of innovation and creativity is actualized the prospect of change is unsettling. This sense of discomfort is amplified by the threat that change poses to those who are successful under the existing regime.

That said, the role played by education at any level in confronting creative destruction is significant. One perspective of the role of education is to create independent thinking and provide a framework for examining alternative points of view. In fact, this ideal lies at the heart of the economic way of thinking - trying to understand costs and benefits, the incentive and institutional framework that shapes incentives and costs and an analysis of the consequences of choice.

Another view of education, explicated by Sowell, Hayek and others, is indoctrination. That is, as in the case that Boyes reports, schools can present and advocate for an ideology. The point of view presented by the elementary school teacher is one based on fear of change, distrust of emergent processes and hostility to change.

Boyes and I have explored the moral content of economics and this case is an excellent opportunity to consider the moral framework offered by the economic way of thinking and to juxtapose the economic way of thinking with an ideological view that mobilizes to oppose creative destruction in favor of a static view. Further, the static view favored by those who control or seek to control is a narrow one premised on the false premise of egalitarianism.

I am anxious to explore this juxtaposition in an effort to better understand those who would deny progress or change.

Fracking Oil

Fracking is the process of drilling 10,000 feet into the earth and then drilling sidewise to reach a gas/oil pocket. To release the gas and oil, wate and chemicals are forced into the well. The water/chemical combination is about 95 to 99% water and the rest chemicals. The process could save the United States from $5 or $10 gasoline at the pump. However, the environmentalist/leftist groups are attacking fracking. First they argue that the chenmicals leach into the water aquifer poisening the water. The problem with this argument is that the water aquifer is 500 feet below the surface. It would be impossible for those chemicals to leach upward through 9500 feet of solid rock to reach the water.

In one of my recent executive MBA classes, a student mentioned that his child watched a video in school showing how bad fracking was; water from taps could be ilt on fire. Now get this. The teacher was showing this scary video to her class of young kids. They can't help but grow up thinking that fracking is something that should be banned. But, there are water tables around the country that can be lit on fire due to methane gas, something occurring naturally. It is due to chemicals used in the fracking process.

Surely the producers of this DVD knew the facts and not only refused to report them but chose to lie about them. Why? I believe it is part of the agenda of government growth. What is the easiest way to enlarge government? To create a crisis. As Rom Emanuel said "You don't want to waste a crisis."

Hilarious - another great Merle Hazard

Merle Hazard - inflation

The Moral Case for the Free Market

Nuanced view of spending cuts - Elmo as an independent and responsible image

Steven Chapman illustrates the challenges of reducing government - the clash of beliefs can impact even straightforward decisions.