A Response to a Comment...

I received this comment about College Critiqued:

"'They have dumbed down academics grotesquely so as to accept the foolish.' That is simply not true. I am no fool. People come from all over the world to attend one what you call “second rate” institutions. How do you think we were able to land on the moon, shoot down enemy missiles, perform neurosurgery, and discover new sources of energy? Answer? Universities. The research and education opportunities that can be found at public AND private colleges and universities all over the U.S. have enabled us to improve and save countless lives. Your claims are unfounded."

I figured everyone could benefit from the response.

In Christ, Josh



First of all, before you state that an individual’s claims are unfounded, it’s generally a good idea to ask the person his reason for a particular claim. Please note that my video was only 7 minutes and 21 seconds; there isn’t exactly enough time to address every issue. Secondly, I just knew this line: “They have dumbed down academics grotesquely so as to accept the foolish,” would more than likely spark some debate. Let me begin by clarifying. I’m not saying that everyone who attends a university is a fool. Not in the least. I personally know brilliant young men and women who are attending both public and private universities and are studying very complex material. But let’s take a look at some history.

Since I mentioned Harvard in my video, why don’t we investigate the “Laws and Statutes for Students of Harvard College (1642).” Here’s just the first requirement for admission (if you wish to read the document in its entirety, you can find it here):

"1. When any Schollar is able to Read Tully or such like classicall Latine Author ex tempore, and make and speake true Latin in verse and prose suo (ut aiunt) Marte, and decline perfectly the paradigmes of Nounes and verbes in the Greeke tongue, then may hee bee admitted into the College, nor shall any claime admission before such qualifications."

Yes, these men were brilliant :)

Harvard’s current requirements?
-3 SAT subject tests
-Secondary School Report and Mid-Year School Report
-Two Teacher Evaluations
-SAT or ACT


I’d say that’s a significant dumbing down from reading Tully, reading classic Latin, speaking Latin in verse and prose, and declining PERFECTLY the paradigms of nouns and verbs of the Greek language. Keep in mind that this is only one university, and these are merely the entrance requirements!


Jumping back into the present; look at your average college athlete. According to the NCAA, a college athlete need only possess a GPA of 2.0 – 2.5 to retain his eligibility for collegiate sports. But this doesn’t just apply to athletes. Many degrees available at universities and colleges today are “non-degrees” (i.e. Women’s Studies. What is that?? Anyway, who majors in Women’s Studies? Women or men?). Such degrees require very little academic responsibility and are made available so that universities have an excuse for accepting athletes and other students that want to waste 4 years or more of their life on a college campus engaging in wicked acts, hanging out with foolish friends, and accumulating debt on degrees that most of them won’t even use.
Furthermore, how long has it been since you turned on the TV and listened to a reporter interview a college student only to hear the student’s most frequent words are “like” and “you know.” Do you call that academic excellence? If you still don’t believe me, read this quote from the Washington Post:

"Literacy experts and educators say they are stunned by the results of a recent adult literacy assessment, which shows that the reading proficiency of college graduates has declined in the past decade, with no obvious explanation.
'It's appalling -- it's really astounding,' said Michael Gorman, president of the American Library Association and a librarian at California State University at Fresno. 'Only 31 percent of college graduates can read a complex book and extrapolate from it. That's not saying much for the remainder.'" – Sunday, December 25, 2005


DID YOU SEE THAT?! Only a whopping 31 percent of college graduates can even read a complex text book and extrapolate from it (Contrast that with Harvard’s entrance requirements)! If 31 percent of our college students, who can barely read, can still manage to earn a degree at a university, then there is some SERIOUS dumbing down of academics going on!


Look at your average college; they lower their entrance requirements because students can’t do things they should have learned in government school:

"[O]f the 12 California state university colleges, 60% of students need remediation; a Florida study showed at least 70% of recent high school graduates need remedial courses when they enter community college - - in other words, they need to learn material they should have mastered in public high school - but did not - - costing an extra $59 million per year." - USA Today, November 24, 1997


Every year, the value of a BA drops, and many companies are realizing this. But a degree is not essential to getting a good job. For example, my aunt never earned a college degree, yet she has a very respectable job as a manager in a major communications company! Bill Gates never graduated from college, yet he created some of the world’s greatest computer software.


Despite the many achievements and advancements that are directly and indirectly the result of the work of our universities (people in every era make new discoveries; some due to universities, others due to their own research), it is clear that there indeed has been a SIGNIFICANT dumbing down of higher education in our country. This is why I called the EDUCATION, not the universities (as you said) second-rate. I’ve given only a few evidences of the dumbing down of our colleges and universities. In addition to these, and most importantly, campuses are filled with unfathomable immorality, false history, false science driven by the religion of Darwinian evolution, and political correctness that plagues and degrades campus life and replaces true education with outright lies.