Ruth Institute Blog

A commentary by Margaret Brooks in today’s Chronicle of Higher Education, “Sex Week” Should Arouse Caution Most of All, points out the most powerful cultural force promulgating the permissive sexual norms that concern Rob and Bob — the sex industry. And this force isn’t contained by controlling our kids’ access to cable and MTV.   Here’s her description of what’s happening on our college campuses:

In recent years, weeklong programs dubbed Sex Week were held at institutions including Brown, Northwestern, and Yale Universities and the University of Kentucky. Student groups, not administrators, organized the programs. The events, billed as educational, used the universities’ names and facilities. They were open to everyone, including the outside community.  . . . Judging from the program descriptions, the emphasis of most Sex Week programming seems to be more on providing entertainment and promoting pleasure, rather than teaching students about sexual health and safety. While some sessions covered topics like women’s health and sex trafficking, others featured such offerings as pornographic-film screenings; a lingerie show using college students as models; and a topless porn star demonstrating bondage, discipline, dominance, and submission to a student audience.

Read more…

Previously, I posted about how college is for suckers.  You can get plenty of education on your own if you want to be educated.  A person who really wants to learn can get an education anywhere.

But what about feedback?  If a person attempts to educate himself instead of going to college, won’t he lack for feedback in his writing or his thinking?

Not necessarily.

Feedback is essential for good learning.  But you don’t need to pay the insane price of a university education to get top flight feedback.  You see, nowadays, college professors have the opportunity to outsource their grading of papers to Asia.  I’m not kidding.

The graders working for EduMetry, based in a Virginia suburb of Washington, are concentrated in India, Singapore, and Malaysia, along with some in the United States and elsewhere. They do their work online and communicate with professors via e-mail. The company advertises that its graders hold advanced degrees and can quickly turn around assignments with sophisticated commentary, because they are not juggling their own course work, too. Read more…

I posted some time ago an article about the high cost of college and the crippling burden of student loan debt.  The article made two points that ought not to be controversial.  1)  Before spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on an education, one ought to crunch the numbers to make sure that investment is worthwhile.  2)  The burdens of student loan debt can ruin one’s life, including one’s marital prospects.

Imagine my shock when these propositions turned out to be controversial.  So, in hopes of saving heartache to readers, Read more…