Here is an excerpt from a terrific interview with Reagan advisor Angelo Codevilla by the staff at The Federalist. Enjoy…
‘We Are Graduating Semi-Literates’
TF: You know when you were studying history and international affairs, it was a very different time obviously in higher education in America. You’ve observed some of the changes that have happened over the course of a number of different social changes. What do you think about the current differences between, we’ll come back to your story in a minute, between your higher ed experience and the higher ed experience of students today?
AC: Oh, it’s huge. It’s huge. I saw higher education as a student and as a professor. Two different worlds. Back then, we worked 12 hours a day. Getting through college was extraordinarily hard work. We looked at people who worked eight hours a day as loafers. The idea, the hijinks that go on in college today go on really only because students don’t have to work. You were very lucky to get a C. A C was an average grade. A grade to be proud of.
Now grade inflation and that has taken hold, and the amount of work that I can demand as a professor of students dropped through the floor. Standards have dropped through the floor. We are graduating semi-literates. The only remaining bastions of serious education are in the technical fields. Strictly technical fields. There are all sorts of courses out there that purports to be technical and they are not.
The level of preparation of students coming into college is abysmal, literary and scientific. It’s a different world. We’re educating a generation of morons.
Read the entire interview at The Federalist.
Image credit: pamelageller.com.
