Higher education is hyper competitive, with acceptance rates at top universities much lower than they were in the past, which is also an economically exploitative, debt-based, system. While historically, only elites attended college, the left’s solutions to inequality, of encouraging the masses to attend college, or the notion that everyone must attend college, has just inflated the value of degrees, and exacerbated elite overproduction. The purpose of University should be for job training, as well as a place for open intellectual discourse, and as incubators for innovation and culture. However, University has devolved into credentialism, basically purchasing a diploma as a ticket to the middle class, which is not even guaranteed.

There are interesting proposals for reforming higher education, including online lectures to cut costs and using vast university endowments to pay off student loan debt. However, anti-college conservatives often give terrible life advice, such as don’t go to college, don’t get educated, and kick your kids out of the house as soon as they turn 18. By rejecting College, conservatives have also removed themselves from the path to the elite, while also failing to build successful parallel institutions. Conservatives’ approach to education is also very utilitarian and purely economically oriented, which explains why conservatives lose the culture war.

Conservatives are heavily invested in narratives that don’t reflect the reality of power dynamics, such as go woke go broke, which is often a cope. Even if wokeness is lowering standards in academia, the reality is that workers without college degrees are at a disadvantage for high paying white collar jobs. While there is a positive trend of some corporations ending requirements for college degrees, this is likely a temporary phenomenon due to the pandemic labor shortage, and may no longer be the case, as the recession accelerates mass layoffs. Overall, College is a scam, but it is a scam that if you don’t play, you lose out on.

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