{"id":266720,"date":"2018-03-06T14:30:00","date_gmt":"2018-03-06T19:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/?p=266720"},"modified":"2018-03-07T15:52:42","modified_gmt":"2018-03-07T20:52:42","slug":"college-isnt-for-everyone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2018\/03\/06\/college-isnt-for-everyone\/","title":{"rendered":"College Doesn\u2019t Make Sense for Everyone"},"content":{"rendered":"

RUSH: And here we are back at it, Rush Limbaugh, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have because I\u2019m doing what I was born to do. And you do not know what a fortunate break that is. I have wanted to do this, I\u2019ve wanted to be in radio since I was 8 years old. And I didn\u2019t ever want to do anything else. That is irreplaceable. You know, that reminds me. Let me find something here in The Stack<\/a>. Greetings, and welcome back. It\u2019s 800-282-2882 if you want to be on the program. And we\u2019re gonna be getting to phone calls very quickly here in this hour. There\u2019s one.<\/p>\n

\"\"Something related to the point I just made. It\u2019s a story about a stellar high school student who doesn\u2019t want to go to college. Instead, wants to go to a vo-tech school because she doesn\u2019t want to be saddled with student debt. I didn\u2019t want to go college either. I only did because it was expected of me and it was sort of, you know, it was a cultural requirement. And, you know, my parents came out of the Great Depression, and that was a formative thing in their lives, and if you didn\u2019t have an education, you didn\u2019t have a chance to get a job. And so it was very important to them.<\/p>\n

My dad thought he was a failure for most of his adult life because I just refused. I went to one semester and quit for a host of reasons, which I\u2019ve explained. But the two stories here are fascinating on this. We\u2019ll get back to this Trump-Russia stuff here in just a second.<\/p>\n

This story is from the Wall Street Journal: “Why an Honors Student Wants to Skip College and Go to Trade School <\/a>— As worries about student debt rise, states and businesses increasingly push faster, cheaper paths to the workplace; parents are stumped.<\/p>\n

“Raelee Nicholson earns A\u2019s in her honors classes at a public high school south of Pittsburgh and scored in the 88th percentile on her college boards. But instead of going to college, Ms. Nicholson hopes to attend a two-year technical program that will qualify her to work as a diesel mechanic. Her guidance counselor, two teachers and several other adults tell her she\u2019s making a mistake. ‘My dentist told me to (work on cars) as a hobby, but she kept telling me with my potential I should really go to college.\u2019<\/p>\n

“The friction around the best path forward after high school is popping up around the country as anxious students and families try to figure out how to pay for four years of college. At the same time, business groups and state governments make the case for a free or much cheaper vocational education. The conversation is being fueled by questions about the declining value of a college degree as well as the rising cost of tuition and student debt.<\/p>\n

Low unemployment and a strong job market are exacerbating an already growing skills gap, raising prospects for tradespeople like welders who are in high demand. Still, the decision to forgo a four-year degree runs counter to 30 years of conventional wisdom.”<\/p>\n

Well, in my case, it\u2019s longer than that. But, you know, it\u2019s an interesting thing here. One of my big bugaboos, I mean, one of my chief gripes with the, quote, unquote, establishment — now, define it this way. The establishment, in their minds, are our betters, and some of them have good intentions. Others are just plain out of touch and wrong, and they\u2019re arrogant and condescending. But some of them do have good intentions.<\/p>\n

\"\"But the people of this country have for generations largely entrusted this group of betters to run institutions like education, to come up with the curricula, to run the public school system and certain community colleges and so forth and the premises associated with all this, the reasons for doing it. And they have crept into our culture and they have become rock solid in the culture. And this story illustrates it.<\/p>\n

“You gotta go to college. It\u2019s just what you do. There\u2019s no other consideration. You don\u2019t want to go to college? Look at your grades, you\u2019re 88, your college boards are through the roof, you don\u2019t want to go?” You\u2019re ostracized and you\u2019re made to look odd and weird and so forth. But look at what our betters have actually done to this.<\/p>\n

And this high school student, Raelee Nicholson, whether she knows it directly or instinctively, understands that it has become an albatross. Look at what our betters have done to the whole idea of a college education. They\u2019ve made it unaffordable. What is the value in graduating from four years with debt that could run anywhere from $20,000 to 150,000, and the more you\u2019re in school, the higher the debt? And the more debt that a graduate has, the less the value of the degree, the number of years it\u2019s gonna take to repay the loans.<\/p>\n

And in this way, a college education has been warped. And they\u2019re in charge of all of it. They\u2019re in charge of the tuition. They\u2019re in charge of the loan programs. They\u2019ve taken it over. The government runs all of this. And with grant money involved the government has a say-so in curricula. Look at all of the worthless degrees now that graduates have because they thought it was what they were interested in or meaningful, but it\u2019s not. And so they\u2019re unemployable, and they have all of this debt.<\/p>\n

\"\"It used to not be this way. But when everybody starts talking about the things in life that are too expensive and that we\u2019ve gotta bring the costs down, nobody seriously ever talks about lowering tuition. The student loan program is there to prop up highly paid faculty and student assistants, teachers assistants and so forth because the faculty is the training ground and the proving ground for bending and shaping and molding these young skulls full of mush into good little cookie cutter liberals.<\/p>\n

And so the professors, the faculty and so forth that do this can\u2019t cut their salaries, we can\u2019t grade them on performance, we give them tenure and so forth, can\u2019t judge their capability, can\u2019t judge their worth, can\u2019t treat them according to their talents and abilities. We\u2019re saddled with them. The education system is propped up, and whether you\u2019re any good at it or not, your job is safe. And it has become basically series of indoctrination centers.<\/p>\n

And yet parents still believe in it, it still remains the number one objective of every parent for their child to go to college, to get a degree. And don\u2019t misunderstand. I\u2019m not universally opposed to this. Do not misunderstand me. I think it\u2019s something that\u2019s universally applied everybody when it doesn\u2019t necessarily make sense for everybody. And yet people are pushed towards it, there\u2019s peer pressure, there\u2019s family pressure, there\u2019s all kinds of pressure applied, and plus the “you\u2019re not gonna ever amount to anything if you don\u2019t” pressure.<\/p>\n

Now, as I say, do not misunderstand. I am not here criticizing the concept of education. I\u2019m all for it, folks. I\u2019m the biggest believer of education you\u2019ll ever run into. It is invaluable. It\u2019s irreplaceable. You cannot fake knowledge. You cannot fake the experience that life teaches you. You cannot go through life without a foundation of knowledge and an ability to think and add to it. So don\u2019t anybody confuse what I\u2019m saying here. But I think that\u2019s not happening much anymore. The ability to think is being suppressed. Conformity is being pushed on everybody.<\/p>\n

Christina Hoff Sommers. Does that name ring a bell for you, Mr. Snerdley?\u00a0 She\u2019s a well-known conservative… (interruption) Well, I wouldn\u2019t call her “anti-feminist.”\u00a0 She would think she\u2019s a feminist, but she\u2019s anti-left-wing feminism.\u00a0 Well, she was invited to speak at some college in Portland, and the students panicked and they considered what she was going to say to be the equivalent of a weapon threatening their safety.\u00a0 They tried to get her appearance canceled.<\/p>\n