I’m putting the college industry on trial.
For decades, American parents and students have made the idea of going to college an idol, an indispensable part of growing up, and a rite-of-passage to adulthood.
In my new book, "The College Scam," I go through a point-by-point indictment on exactly why the college industry has become a waste of money, time, and intellect. In fact, college is a scam.
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Am I really telling kids not to go to college? Absolutely—at least for most students.
My experience founding and growing Turning Point USA into the largest conservative campus organization in the country has given me a unique vantage point into this corrupt world and hardened my conviction that the root of the college tree is rotten to the core. I am very pro-education, but I am most definitely anti-college.
Allow me to submit the evidence.
First, colleges are running a federally sponsored scam, in the most literal sense of the word.
The college industry is heavily subsidized by the federal government, making it a scam not only perpetrated against students, but taxpayers as well.
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Government’s blank check for higher education in the form of federally backed student loans has reduced accountability, dramatically increased tuition, and ballooned the academic administration regime. With all that money, is the college product improving or deteriorating?
Look no further than a nearly 40 percent dropout rate as proof that the college system is failing to deliver on its promises. Now consider that of those who do graduate, only 41 percent end up in a career that requires a college degree. Extrapolate that out and nearly seven out of every 10 college students who matriculate, probably had no business doing so in the first place.
College is also absurdly overpriced.
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College is supposed to provide a pathway to financial security and career success. That promise is true for fewer and fewer graduates.
Student loan debt is crushing students and their parents, robbing young people of the dream of homeownership, family formation, and financial security. And yet, colleges have profited handsomely off this relationship. These institutions have become "hedge funds with universities attached," and they now exist primarily to amass obscenely rich endowments.
Who gets the bill for the universities’ runaway revenues? Students, parents, and taxpayers.
Additionally, colleges no longer provide students with the skills they need to succeed in the marketplace.
Testing shows conclusively that many colleges do not improve students’ critical thinking skills. Many employers say, "We can’t hire college grads. They’re not equipped to hold down a job."
I constantly hear from hiring managers at TPUSA that the hardest skills to hire for are critical writing and problem-solving. If colleges aren’t teaching these skills sets, ask yourself, "What are they teaching, exactly?"
More than not educating, colleges seem to degrade students’ ability to think pragmatically.
The ideology of postmodernism, taught at most universities, teaches them that facts and reality are up for debate. In "The College Scam," I provide a list of some of the most ridiculous courses offered at universities—courses that promote lunacy on campus and corrode common sense and traditional values in American society once they leave.
Further, universities are indoctrination zones where free speech is crushed.
Universities used to open students’ minds and widen their horizons. Today, universities weld minds shut. Radical students and faculty coerce and persecute their nonconforming peers through "cancel culture" and threats. Students quickly learn to conform, or else.
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The largest export of our universities is not just leftism–it is infantile tantrums that too often metastasize into outright hate.
Violence against conservative students is commonplace on campus. After acts of violence are committed, many administrators side with the perpetrator of the crime instead of protecting the victim, who is often a member of the peaceful minority.
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I have documented story after story of our Turning Point USA chapter members who have been physically assaulted and threatened with death for peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights on campus.
I firmly believe that most—if not all—the destructive ideas that are now eating away at the foundation of American society originated on college campuses. Critical race theory, radical gender theory, intersectionality, wokeism, Antifa, Defund the Police, white fragility, speech codes, cancel culture, "anti-racism, "The Green New Deal," and on and on.
Despite the exorbitant costs and obvious pitfalls, too many parents are still willing to play Russian roulette with their children’s values, saddling their kids with mountains of student loan debt all to obtain a piece of paper that costs a quarter of a million dollars or more.
It’s time we "repay" the college cabal for the scam they’ve perpetrated against the American people. It’s time we stop sending our most precious resource, our young people, to be injured inside the walls of these corrupt institutions.
I challenge all students, parents, and grandparents to reconsider their assumptions. Dive deeper into the statistics, the stories, and the damage these institutions are doing to our nation. Weigh the terrifying consequences of the college scam and find out why we desperately need a renaissance in higher education.
You, the American people, are the jury. You will examine the evidence. You will reach a verdict. And I have full confidence in your verdict.
