What’s Wrong with the World

I think there may be another factor at play as well: disbelief. Parents know that children have always gone away to college, traveled through Europe, and generally grown up when we expect them to. What they seem to forget is that people of their generation adamantly refused to grow up, and instead shot the culture all to hell. So they think either a) that the situation on campuses isn't as bad as it is, b) that their kids have been raised right and will be able to deal with it, or c) that being horrifyingly immature and breaking the Controlled Substances Act is just part of growing up.

Another reason parents show little concern about the risks of college life: mutual naivete.

I recall once explaining the concept of "sexile" to my father. (For those not in the know, that is when a student is exiled from his or her dorm room so that his or her roommate may have intimate time with their lover.)

Perplexed, he asked what the Resident Advisers did about such situations.

I was dumbfounded, because it didn't occur to me that RAs ever would have done anything about such situations.

Some parents think the standards in force when or where they went to college are still relevant. Students, meanwhile, think the status quo is the way it has ever been.

As the latter group become parents of collegians, the extremities of college life will appear even less remarkable.

There really aren't more than a handful of truly Christian colleges in the U.S. and all of them are on the high end of private schools which may be out of reach of the middle-class or working-class family. I think the best option is the community college / local commuter college option.

One of the reasons I have been so active with Summit Ministries over the years is precisely its effort to help prevent Christian students from becoming casualties once they get to college. Summit emphasizes worldview studies. It instructs students in 10 academic disciplines (such as philosophy, history, biology, politics, literature etc.) and does so from the perspective of multiple worldviews (such as Marxist, humanist, new age, Christian, etc.) so that students can see what difference their professor's worldview makes to the subjects they teach, and so that the students can resist more wisely and effectively the ideological pressures exerted upon them.

The Summit program is highly effective, and has lasted more than 45 years. It's a graduated program that includes a two-week long introductory summer session, a three-month long semester session, and two programs in Oxford -- a three week summer term on CS Lewis and the Inklings, and a full semester term under the guidance of Oxford tutors on nearly any subject imaginable.

I second Kevin V.'s observation about Christian colleges, and about community colleges as an alternative. Community colleges are cheaper, and they tend to be less ideologically driven than many private colleges. Naturally, there are some quite notable exceptions to that rule of thumb. But community colleges can be a viable option.

For the record, I teach theology and culture at one of the colleges that Kevin rightly thinks might be overpriced, while my wife teaches English at a community college that he thinks might be a suitable choice.

I'm surprised at the naivete allusion Kevin makes. Neither of my parents ever went to college, but my mother told me about that sort of exile more than twenty-five years ago. Not only was it going on then, but news of it had filtered out to the non-college-educated people.

The assumption that, despite post-modernism and the death of the academy, there is enough objective difference in quality across disciplines between a more "elite" secular school and a secular school that no one has ever heard of that your child really will get a good education at the former and not at the latter and that you therefore have a duty to send your child away from home to go to the former.

I don't know that many people have such an assumption. In fact, it may be quite the opposite - the more elite an institution, the less it is concerned with actually providing an education, and the more it (and its professors) focus on getting published. Students are more or less a nuisance until post grad, at which point they become slave labor. There is no false assumption about difference in quality of education - there is a CORRECT assumption about difference in reptutation, and what that means to your career. Justly or unjustly, an Ivy League or comparable degree gets you places others simply don't. It has little to do with the quality of the education.

Perhaps not going to college isn't exactly a cure for losing the faith in college.

Why do Christian, conservative parents decide to send their children away from home (perhaps far away from home) to be totally immersed in a moral and intellectual atmosphere hostile to everything they have been taught and to everything for which, presumably, both parents and children stand?
Because keeping the children that are now adults home isn't a good alternative.
Various alternatives would include at least some distance learning,
Distance learning is one of the worst ways to get educated.
sending one's child to a Christian college,
There are two types of Christian colleges today: (1) anti-intellectual, glorified vocational schools and (2) schools almost indistinguishable from their secular peers with varying degrees of devotional life. #1 eliminates the point of an education and #2 doesn't help a whole lot. Particularly when speaking of campuses with over 10,000 students, you can find a supportive network if you want one. What many parents don't get is that a lot of times their children aren't nearly as religious as the parents think they are.
sending one's child to a secular school within driving distance and having him live at home, some combination of these,
If that is what your child wants, that is fine. At some point, Lord willing, your child will leave the house and make their own choices. Almost all of them will even make foolish choices.
or even looking at alternatives to college altogether.
Hopefully those alternatives involve the goal as making your child an independent adult.

I think what you say about the schools is true, C Matt, but I'm not sure parents generally realize this. One certainly does hear concern about "sending one's child to a good school," and I usually take that to mean that they actually think the education is objectively better across the board at Famous Ivy-League University than at Local State University.

One thing I try to explain is the vast difference there can be from department to department. A school may, for example, have a wretched history department, riddled with post-modernism, but a really good philosophy department. Or a pattern one might (I think) see at some Christian schools would be a decent literature department but a poor philosophy department. The maths and sciences at a big secular university may still be objectively good or at least worth taking, while the humanities are junk. Or there may be a single professor in the history department who is a gem and well worth taking classes with. Without knowing the nitty-gritty it really isn't possible to say, and comparisons between or among schools taken as whole institutions are rarely useful. At least, that's how it appears to me.

MZ, I already addressed the "this is just about their growing up and learning real life" shallow response in the main post, so I needn't go over it again here. That isn't what this is about. And I may add that plenty of kids who haven't gone to college have become _more_ mature and independent of their parents _sooner_ than kids who have a never-ending parent-dependent adolescence where Mom and Dad pay the bills while Junior ruins his body and mind and learns Irresponsibility and Debauchery 101 on their dime at college. So please, let's not be sidetracked with standard liberal responses here, overt or disguised. ("You conservatives just want to keep your kids tied to your apron strings.")

Shallow? You want to keep 20-year-olds under you roof.

Your blog.

MZ, you talk like a fool sometimes. That sounds harsh, but you do. You have no idea what you are talking about. Paying for somebody to live in an atmosphere where normal Christian young people *wouldn't even want to live* is hardly a form of encouraging maturity. It's a cultural myth that the current situation at secular universities, where young people are under tremendous pressure 24/7 from their peers to sleep around and from their RA's and other Thought Police to conform to PC norms is "real life" and "learning to be mature." You buy into that myth. Goody for you. But don't try to tell people who know better that this is a matter of moving people towards healthy maturity and that refusing to pay hard-earned cash (or even take out debts) for Total Immersion Therapy in Sodom and Gomorrah is incumbent upon parents and young people as part of growing up!

I'm getting lectures on the real world from a stay-at-home homeschooling mother cacooned in the suburbs.

And what is MZ's evidence or reason for thinking that we, in 21st-century America, have discovered the best way to turn human children into adults? We let large numbers of them go off to live together in a location with few real adults around, where they drink themselves into oblivion and sleep together with abandon, all in the nominal pursuit of a credential that will, in all likelihood, provides very little actual preparation for anything they will do in the rest of their lives. That's the best we can do? And the alternative is shallow cocooning (spell it right, MZ)? All I'm seeing from MZ is just the usual dimwitted scorn.

You want evidence JD? Look at boarding schools. Look at the college experience prior to 1900.

all in the nominal pursuit of a credential that will, in all likelihood, provides very little actual preparation for anything they will do in the rest of their lives.
Remove the crack pipe from your mouth son. Every study says among other things that college educated students make far more money than their non-college educated peers.

The STD and knockup rate ain't too great for HS edumaction onlyies.

Golly, what a gentleman you are, MZ.

Oh, and for the record, this isn't actually about whether young people live under their parents' roof. My own ideal would be for young people to be able to become real, full-fledged adults a good deal sooner than they presently are able to do--move out, make a home for themselves, support themselves, get married, and begin contributing their own bit to the development of a conservative counter-culture. Dorm life at Desperate State University on Mom and Dad's ticket is a poor ersatz for adult responsibility and freedom.

The trouble is a combination of credential and education. Depending on the person's aptitudes and on how far his high school education has already gone, there may (I say "may" quite deliberately) be valuable additional knowledge that he _could_ gain at the higher education level and could profit from, _if_ that education were there to be had. Moreover, even young people who in the past would not have thought of themselves as academic types or as college material now are under tremendous pressure to go to college because of the issue of credentials for getting work. It's tremendously difficult for a 20-year-old to support himself, much less a wife, much less children. But this is to some extent an artificial situation, and it is culturally toxic to treat the artificiality of this situation as normal and then to combine that, in turn, with a childish, PC, and hedonistic on-campus atmosphere, to insist that parents pay for their children to live up to their eyeballs in that atmosphere, and to dub this nonsense "growing up" and tell teenagers it's their birthright.

Wow, MZ, your latest ad hominem against Lydia scraped out a new low for you. Something about this discussion must really chap your a**.

One of the Catholic groups working on this problem is FOCUS. I don't know how effective it is, but this is certainly a fulcrum point in the culture war as well as a critical time for young adults.

Ad hominem for noting her biography?

Goodness. And to think that I have been asked to defend free love and kids loafing off their parents.

How interesting, MZ. You have actual _data_ on the rate of STD's and out-of-wedlock pregnancy among students who have been homeschooled all their lives and through high school? This is comparative data with the rate for public school and (perhaps) Christian school young people as well? Do provide a link to the study. The use of control groups will be especially interesting.

And in any event, one might also ask how this relates to the question of immersion in a secular college environment. I note here the doctor (who went under a pseudonym for a while but then came out under her own name) who wrote quite eloquently about the hook-up culture in the dorms and about the way that young women were pressured to participate. While preparation is certainly important, and while I would expect home-schooled girls to be more resistant to this round-the-clock pressure, I do not see any necessity to expose anyone to it. There is no reason to expect that home schooled girls would be absolutely, as it were, immune to the environment, which only supports my point in the main post.

I asked for evidence and reason that the American college is the best way to turn human children into adults. That's your response? How stupid. "Look at boarding schools"? What's that supposed to demonstrate?

. Every study says among other things that college educated students make far more money than their non-college educated peers.

Yes, but this is NOT because college imparts some magical body of knowledge that can't be gained anywhere else, but because employers think that having a college degree is some sort of proof that you're going to be minimally intelligent. Ask anyone who actually went to college: How much of what you do in your career draws on skills or knowledge that you specifically learned in college? If you get any answers that are higher than 5%, I'd be surprised.

So, if you're not too dense to grasp this point, some people (i.e., here) think that the whole system is bonkers . . . that employers ought to loosen up on requiring a meaningless college degree and instead accept more apprenticeships, more intelligence tests (if that's what they're worried about), anything that would allow people to get into the adult world without having to waste $100,000 and 4 years in a moral cesspool.

I see that M.Z. is his usual classy self today. He had a post at Vox Nova, linking here (its how I found it) but, alas, that post is gone now. The more important issue is why would anyone consider making money a more important goal of "education" than developing a mature and theologically sound grounding in our faith? Isn't it more important to grow in holiness than worldly riches? I seem to recall something about gaining the whole world and losing your soul. But hey, I'm sure M.Z.'s university experience was more fun, if less illuminating.

MZ: apparently your university experience did not teach you the meaning of ad hominem.

Jessie,

Try walking and chewing gum. The post wasn't intended for VN and that is why it was deleted. If you click my name, you will see it on my personal blog.

JD,

Given your admitted inability to understand my original points, you should at least be hestitant to proclaim on my own density. The point is that the norm has been for learning to happen away from home and that debauchery hasn't been a result in every other age. From this we can learn that the desire for education may not be the issue.

Ad hominem for noting her biography?

Zippy,

Liddy made an argument from authority, "MZ, you talk like a fool sometimes. That sounds harsh, but you do. You have no idea what you are talking about."

Obviously I was pointing out a non-sequiter.

JD, Given your admitted inability to understand my original points, you should at least be hestitant to proclaim on my own density. The point is that the norm has been for learning to happen away from home and that debauchery hasn't been a result in every other age.

When you don't take the time to spell out a supposed argument, don't be surprised if people find your cryptic and misspelled words to be a bit mysterious.

In any event, debauchery wasn't the result in every other age . . . and this proves what, exactly? If anything, it proves that it is all the more urgent now -- when debauchery DOES exist -- for Christian parents to think about alternative ways of forming their children.

MZ fumes:

I'm getting lectures on the real world from a stay-at-home homeschooling mother cacooned in the suburbs.

I was not aware that Lydia is entraped in one of the seeds or beans of the tropical vine Entada scandens. Must be I don't get out in the real world enough. Either that, or MZ needs to put down the crack pipe.

These threads Lydia has put up recently are interesting when people who have something worth saying participate; when MZ writes a quarter of the posts, not so much.

Having come from neither a conservative Christian home nor a totally secular home (my mother is religious, but doctrinally confused, Catholic), I'm not sure my comments will add much, but I did want to note the following:

1) M.Z. is a strange character -- I'm not sure what his comments are supposed to mean. It is a basic tenant of Christianity that the world is full of sin, will always be so, and we all have to do the best we can given this reality. I was just reading about "bundling" in Puritan America, so I can appreciate the fact that mankind has always fallen short of perfect Christian ideals. But that doesn't mean there are no meaningful differences between the overall moral character of Puritan America and modern-day secular America. Despite everything, knowing what I know now, I'd take Puritan America (and all its flaws) over the modern version any day and I think we should be thinking about how to reclaim at least some of that old-fashioned Puritan morality.

2) Everyone here already probably knows this, but the rot starts much earlier than college in America. Secular elementary and high-schools* are the first place conservative, Christian parents should avoid. Since I'm becoming such a parent and my two daughters are currently enrolled in public elementary schools, I'm already researching Catholic high-schools for their transition. Again, I'm sure there are problems with Cathloic high-schools, but the question is one of choosing the least bad option. Just as M.Z. is right that not every conservative Christian college kid will be corrupted by a secular institution, surely Lydia and her sympathetic commenters are right that immersion at a sinful institution might not be the best choice for those conservative Christians who want the best for their kids.

*The high-schools are out of control -- I just found out that many suburban Chicago high-schools have a "SAGA" student organization. SAGA stands for Straight and Gay Alliance.

I think Jeff Singer is quite right to highlight the idea of finding the best option of the options available. Thomas Sowell's motto comes to mind: "There are no solutions. There are only tradeoffs and compromises." Sometimes I wonder if there is _any_ earthly endeavour to which this does not apply.

Succinct version:
1) A culture that celebrates meaningless sex and drug use doesn't go away because a child spends two or four more years at home. This culture is not confined to campuses, a premise of Lydia's post.
2) The purpose of schooling is education. That should be primarily how it is evaluated. Or to quote Lydia quoting Sowell, we should plainly recognize the tradeoffs.
3) There is an asserted homogeniety to college life that simply isn't there. Very few students leave college grotesquely different than how they entered it. Drop outs are another issue. Disillusionment and failure do often change people.
4) This dichotomy between "good Christian kids" and the rest is an artificial construction. There is much fluidity between the two groups. In Evangelical circles this is expressed as "I hope my child isn't saved too soon."
5) Many secular schools have excellent campus ministry programs. Like most things in life you have to use them in order for them to a benefit to you. Claiming problems are due to schools admitting heathens is excuse making. It is something very common to adult converts.

A comment from the Christian college side of things . . . It's true that many "Christian" colleges are so in name only, but there are a few that do still try to do it well -- not being Bible schools or Sunday schools or mere vo-tech schools, but really trying to do a decent college education. All have their problems, but do the research, and you'll find some that might well be worth the outlay for students who ought to be in college for various reasons.

We insisted that our son do at least his first two years here to get further grounding in his faith by looking at the various disciplines through a Christian lens more deeply than we could do with him at home -- and we have a good number of profs who do this well. When he was thinking about a major we don't have, I think I would have felt okay about his going elsewhere after those first two years, but not before. Now that he's chosen (and fallen in love with) a field that's going to be really, really hard for a Christian to keep his bearings in, I'm that much more grateful that we've got the both the GE courses he needs *and* the major, with truly godly people teaching in it and bringing in godly people for the students to connect with for possible internships and post-grad networking.

I know things go on here (on and off campus) that are not so good, and we aren't perfect in addressing all student needs. I also know that the general peer pressure is *towards* obedience to the rules and to following the Lord. An faculty really do care about the students as young people made in God's image, and so really try to see and help those who seem to be struggling.

ISI has a good resources on good colleges to attend (my college is not in it, for whatever reasons; probably nobody knows we exist :) ).

"2) The purpose of schooling is education"

What is the purpose of education?

This culture is not confined to campuses, a premise of Lydia's post.

Nope. It isn't. I'm talking about immersion. You should have (for example) a home to go to, not a room without privacy where you're going to get kicked out if your roommate decides to have someone in for sex. In the long run, that home will be your own place--an apartment or a house. The person himself in Western cultures can normally control the environment of his own immediate living space far more than can be done in the communal life of a college dorm. And there is certainly no reason why anyone should be subjected to the leftist re-education sessions sometimes imposed upon residential students as a condition of living in the dorms. When a young person is learning a skill and gaining the ability to support himself, it will often be best for that living space to be his parents' home. He may, indeed, be a good deal _more_ free in senses that matter, and should matter, to decent young people, while living at home than while living on campus.

MZ, you talk like a fool sometimes. That sounds harsh...

No it doesn't. It's a perfect fit. He also suffers from poor spelling, pronoun agreement errors and mangled syntax. The benefits of a college education, no doubt.

MZ, your remark to Lydia was brutish, and you ought to be embarrassed by it. Of course, you aren't.

Enjoy your [obscene reference removed]. Peace.

Honestly, guys, I don't have any idea why you continue to allow somebody to post such vulgar and abusive stuff here.

My deepest thanks to whoever it was amongst my blog colleagues who removed the obscene ref. from MZ's post. Now I don't even have to know what it was. The guys I work with here are classy.

Someone suggested to me today, apropos of this thread, that MZ is a troll. I demurred, thinking things about wanting to allow disagreement and the like. I'm reconsidering that demurral.

We return to our regular programing of high-quality discussion...

Every study says among other things that college educated students make far more money than their non-college educated peers.

JD makes a great point - for most, college is nothing more than a glorified trade school, where the employer can shift the cost of apprenticeship the the sucker employee. Accounting, law, medicine, engineering - these could be much better taught through apprenticeship (medicine does have it in the form of internship, residency, and fellowship requirements). Even accounting and engingeering require experience before getting licensed (law doesn't before unleashing a newly minted lawyer on the public - go figure).

Thanks Lydia for bringing up this topic. Having one in college, and one her way, this is more than a mere academic exercise for me.

Everyone here already probably knows this, but the rot starts much earlier than college in America.

Sure does, and its starts within the family when parents make it clear, it is financial success that is paramount in one's life. If we invested half as much energy in spiritual development as we do sports ("Johnny's gonna get a scholarship in soccer")and academic achievement ("Jane is taking a pre-PSAT preparation class for 5th Grade"), sending our kids off to school wouldn't be a source of angst. College has become a Jobs Certification program and frankly any 18 year old who has been subjected to a Potemkin Village of smarmy, half-hearted piety, coupled with the more energetic exhortation of; "yes, you can have it all", is naturally going to fill the emptiness up with carnal pleasures and the shallow platitudes of the dominant ideology. On the other hand, make an imperfect, but sincere introduction to Christ and they will always have Someone to turn to in their lonely and challenging moments. At the very worse, any abandonment of the faith will be temporary. As Jeff said, the whole battle is won, or lost before college.

1) A culture that celebrates meaningless sex and drug use doesn't go away because a child spends two or four more years at home. This culture is not confined to campuses, a premise of Lydia's post.

2) The purpose of schooling is education. That should be primarily how it is evaluated. Or to quote Lydia quoting Sowell, we should plainly recognize the tradeoffs.