I have kids of current HS age, who will be college age sooner or later (one who took the ACT with virtually no prep scored a 31). One is going through the whole application process now, and we easily get as many as dozen flyers some weeks in the mail advertising your programs. Here are my thoughts as the father of these potential customers of yours, and someone involved in the finance for such things.
I see a lot of pics and text talking about how fun campus life is. I see almost nothing about the cost-effectiveness of your programs.
There is much constant harping about how LBGQT-etc friendly you are, so much so that it looks like you are (a) hostile to straight people and marriage, (b) pushing hook-up culture, (c) promoting rampant promiscuity to the detriment of education and mental health.
There is so much promotion of diversity, which is uniformly presented as non-white, non-straight, non-Christian, non-male, non-traditional, and it is uniformly presented as good, that you appear to be actively hostile to males, Christians, those of European ancestry, or who have conventional beliefs and family structure aspirations.
You hide your real costs in a hundred different way, but mostly through omission.
You hide your real funding sources, and with that you hide your real motivations and goals.
You often have more employees with “diversity” in their titles than “math.” That says a lot about your priorities in an increasingly tech-heavy world. It also reveals an increasingly toxic and hostile hard-left culture.
You talk a lot about how many of your graduates are employed within X amount of time after graduation. Only a small handful say anything about how many of those are employed in the field of their degree, how many are earning enough to pay off their student loans without a problem. None say what percentage successfully start a family.
Very few of your slick brochures indicate how many graduate on time. OK, a few of you do, but only a handful; why is that?
A quick search of your web-sites and political campaign donation reporting pages reveals an overwhelming hard-left political bias on behalf of your staff and faculty. It is highly unlikely that such a politically active and and almost uniformly socialist-left environment will teach in any sort of balanced, introspective, critical-thinking sort of way any topic.
Looking at some of the available pages for your staff and faculty, it appears that indoctrination is a far more important goal than factually-accurate education. Most of you have been in the news more for your socialist activism than your teaching ability, research breakthroughs, cost-effectiveness, graduate happiness, or financial success rates. Hmmmm… A pattern starts to appear on what you reveal and what you hide.
Your flyers are often very slickly produced, finely done, expensive items, containing naught but pablum and fluff. It does not speak well of your financial prudence, meaning you don’t spend the tuition money you receive wisely. Unwise in one place usually means a serious lack of wisdom elsewhere, too.
You often highlight all your programs directed at women, even though females are now nearly 60% of graduates nationwide; do you think men are so awesome they’ll succeed regardless of how heavy a thumb you put on the scale against them, do you think women are so intellectually weak they cannot succeed without help, or are you just hostile towards XY individuals generally? OTOH, I see virtually nothing specific for men. Why the misandry?
You often highlight all your programs directed at non-whites; do you think whites are so awesome they’ll succeed regardless of how heavy a thumb you put on the scale against them (thereby tacitly agreeing that whites ARE really better), do you think non-whites are so academically weak they cannot succeed without help (how condescending of you!), or are you just hostile towards people of European ancestries generally (I think that’s called… racist!)? Some of the schools that have sent us things in the mail have now has stories about how all the teachers have to publicly admit to being racist because they are white, etc. It is a public humiliation based on race nearly identical to Maoist Struggle Sessions.
I’m helping pay for my children’s education. I see very little of real value in any programs you offer, beyond STEM, but those are programs only of interest (and honestly attainable) by a small minority of each year’s HS graduates. You might talk about how you teach people to think clearly and deeply and critically, but when I see your graduates and teachers in the news they are spouting moronic hard-left talking-points, emoting fervently like cult members. They do not appear to be able to actually think clearly, let alone critically, and their level of basic factual knowledge appears to be pretty minimal. They are not happy, or even sane, people. I talk to the young men, and they wonder what made all the college grad women so insane. I see stories written by young women who are recent college grads that are vacuous, narcissistic, clueless, and ignorant, yet they proudly proclaim their credentials, even as I think I’d be sorely disappointed to have any family member married to one of those self-centered, unrealistic, man-hating harpies. Why would I want to pay good money send my children into… that?
I’ve never understood the need to throw children into college right away. In my case, I knew I wasn’t ready for college, so I enlisted in the Navy. Later on, in my 30’s, after I’d gotten some experience, I went to an adult program for an IT degree. I recently finished up a Master’s degree in my mid-40’s.
I’ve told my children that I don’t care what they do, as long as they support themselves and it’s honorable. Both are thinking about military for different reasons. One wants career, the other is thinking about a single enlistment to get some training for what he wants to do. The career minded one is hoping Space Force is taking people by the time he’s ready.
I’ve told them both if I have to pay for college, they’re going to Western Governors University, which is all online and I don’t have to worry about housing or “campus life” with all of its deviant connotations. And I will be micro-managing their coursework. But with the plethora of adult college options, I told them not to be in a rush to go to college right away. I don’t think it’s fair to ask an 18 year old to commit to hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt on a guess as to what he or she wants to do for the rest of their life.
At one point, when much less than 10% of HS grads went to school and college was actually aimed at the upper crust of intellectual ability, it made sense for the few headed that way to go more or less immediately. It no longer does. I didn’t go immediately after HS graduation, and joined the military (just the reserves) after my second year. Right now kid #1 is headed for vocational school, and the younger one is considering military for a little while as much for career training as an adventure, but has a couple of years before any sort of actual decision must be made.
Have you looked at Hillsdale College? The second oldest co-ed college in the USA, founded in 1844, in Hillsdale, MI. I’m not an alum (I went to Lawrence University, in Appleton WI which calls itself the second oldest but is actually #4 or so, from 1847 if I remember right). But I support them because of what they stand for.
Hillsdale does not accept any government regulations and to avoid them does not take any government money. That includes no government loans for the students, since the Feds interpret those as an excuse to rule over the college. Instead they do their own financial aid.
Check out hillsdale.edu. Also https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu which describes their monthly publication Imprimis (free for the asking). I think you’ll enjoy the sort of things they have to say in their articles.
Looked a bit, but they don’t offer a major kid #1 is interested in, though one is close (minor in early childhood education, likely go as English, Classics, or History as a major). Going for culinary arts at the tech school – loves to cook.