“What has made the University of California exceptional is its commitment to increase access without sacrificing excellence. In recent years, California has proudly defied a national trend: On average, about 40 percent of its students are the first in their families to attend a four-year college. More than half qualify for free tuition. The percentages of underrepresented students have crept up, through a variety of initiatives. The California Dream Act gave undocumented students access to financial aid, as well as in-state tuition. Students on University of California campuses may struggle with basic math, but they are graduating at record rates.”
—-Woke book author and writer Miriam Pawel, in a gobsmacking op-ed (gift link) in the New York Times.
You might think that I am being unfair, that the quote above is obviously taken out of context. Surely, surely, such a paragraph must be preceded by a convincing set of statistics proving that indeed the University of California system has not sacrificed excellence in its quest for “access” [Translation: “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion”].
Nope. There is nothing. This woman, marinated in progressive cant her whole adult life, truly believes that DEI is excellence. Not knowing how to read, add, reason or write. The diploma is the sole benefit and the sole objective. That the diploma falsely conveys the belief that its holder actually is competent, responsible, knowledgeable, skilled and accomplished doesn’t matter to Pawel. “Students on University of California campuses may struggle with basic math, but they are graduating at record rates,” she writes. “The percentages of underrepresented students have crept up, through a variety of initiatives. The California Dream Act gave undocumented students access to financial aid, as well as in-state tuition.”
Yay.
Hence the trend in employers to insist on performance certifications for jobs that matter, not just college degrees.
I wonder how productive undergraduates from California campus’ can be if they struggle with basic math but are still “graduate”. What the hell are their graduation standards? I wonder if these so called graduates could hold a decent job in the mid America where employers still expect people to do the job they were hired to do.
Just about a month ago there was a scathing article quoting a UC Berkeley professor who lamented that the system’s test blind policies have resulted in admission of students who are years behind in math. In 2023 only 44% of students were prepared, and that number has been declining since 2020. The policy started in 2021 and it has taken a mere two years for the dire consequences to reveal themselves.
The Chancellors are going to re-evaluate the test blind policy, while Columbia University and seven other elite schools are reinstating SAT and ACT requirements. Frankly, I would not wager on the test reinstatement. California is so far gone that they truly believe DEI access is a superior metric than test results.
The UC-Davis study found that the limitation of the number of students taking remedial math is the number of faculty they have to teach remedial math. The remedial math now stretches down to elementary school subjects.
https://senate.ucsd.edu/media/740347/sawg-report-on-admissions-review-docs.pdf
And DOJ is suing states that offer in-state tuition to illegal immigrants. The argument is this benefit attracts illegal immigration and discriminates against American citizens from other states.
The reason Californians don’t realize how moronic their progressive policies are is that they see this as compassionate. After all, at least some of these illegals have been in the country for decades, have graduated from public schools – why shouldn’t they be considered California residents for purpose of tuition?
That isn’t the only argument. Why do people in the country illegally get in-state tuition, but people from other states don’t? Why do legal immigrants have to pay out-of-state tuition?
“More than half qualify for free tuition” (bolds/italics mine)
Free (frē) adverb/adjective/noun: At _The_Expense_Of_Others
“Students on University of California campuses may struggle with basic math, but they are graduating at record rates.”
WTflippin’F???
PWS
Students on University of California campuses may struggle with basic math, but they are graduating at record rates.
And this is one of the reasons why many who graduate from college have a hard time finding a job. In the past a college degree gave a valuable signal to future employers about capabilities and aptitude, today is doesn’t.
Reminds me of this bit from Boy Meets World:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UVnN6tue9c
Of course, the teacher should’ve realized that Shawn wasn’t actually enrolled in his class, but he still gave him an honest grade instead of humoring him.
My dad told me a story about the freshman speech at CU, Boulder. (Not as fancy as Yale or Harvard but still a respectable university, right?…) It went something like this… “We have twice as many freshman enrolled as we have room for, by the end of the year, half of you will be gone.” It’s a startling reminder of what society standards are now accepted for profits instead of excellence. This was sometime in the late 1950’s. My girls can turn in late homework in college and it’s accepted. I couldn’t do that, not even in middle school. It’s a little thing that’s been normalized.
There is a real dichotomy in the vision of ‘excellence’ these days. For the education establishment, numbers of graduates and grades constitute ‘excellence’. I see it in journal articles that claim that ‘better educational outcomes’ are associated with fewer exams, so exams need to be eliminated from college courses. In other words, eliminate the few assignments the students can’t cheat on and the grades go up. ‘Grades’ are now the ‘educational outcomes’, not learning or skills or ability. This also seems to be the definitions the administrators are using.
Now, anyone using the old definitions is under fire. The ‘educational establishment’ feels that if a student fails a class, it was because the professor didn’t try hard enough. I know that not all students are capable of passing all classes. I know that not everyone is ready to move on to the next class. I understand the consequences of allowing unqualified people to perform vital jobs. I am one of the few left who do, and I will be gone soon.
This mentality of ‘just try harder’ leads to the Amazon Prime plane crash in 2019 and likely the one that just happened in Florida. An experienced airline pilot who went over the cockpit data said that the flight crew ignored 11+ automatic go around incidents in the latest crash. These are things that pilots are trained to indicate that they have to retry the landing automatically, without question. For the last 10 minutes, the plane was screaming at them ‘terrain! low altitude!” which indicated that the plane could not be landed safely in its current configuration. Neither pilot tried to go around until they landed. The only conclusion is that neither pilot actually knew how to fly the plane. In the 2019 crash, the first officer had needed remediation after failing every single step of the way to become an airline pilot. His hand was held each step and he was allowed to go on to be a pilot who had little awareness of his surroundings and who was prone to ‘push random buttons when flustered’. This likely contributed/caused the crash.
“The only conclusion is that neither pilot actually knew how to fly the plane.”
Did any box-checking/DEI predicate satisfying move these pilots along?
PWS
On the flip side of this, my kid has refused to fly the student plane because it’s unsafe and fails the pre flight checklist, no one else seems to mind. Little things like not worrying about late homework has made society habitually sloppy in all things. There is value in a job well done regardless of how insignificant it is, although no one seems to want students to experience it.
What I might write as satire or as a parody, others state proudly to loud applause.