LISTEN: Dr. Walter Williams Says Many College Students Should Not Be In College
Many of the young Americans who pursue higher education should not be in college, Dr. Walter Williams said during an interview on The Alex Nitzberg Show. On the podcast, the George Mason University Professor of Economics said that according to some statistics “close to” half of college freshman need remedial education, which indicates that those students have not achieved a 12th grade-level education. He describes their high school diplomas as “fraudulent.” Dr. Williams also said that, according to Richard Vedder, many college graduates are working in low-skill jobs that do not require a college degree.
The admission of unprepared students is one of the issues Dr. Williams highlighted when asked about problems in modern academia and what he would change. “Well, one, I would make sure that students come to college that are prepared to do college work instead of having to dumb down courses,” he said.
Dr. Williams also said that he would want students to study liberal arts while in college. “Right now kids can go through college and not get these courses,” he said. “They just have a, a mishmash of courses that they can choose and then later on they’ll get their degree.” He noted that a lack of history education makes people susceptible to ideas like abolishing the Electoral College.
He also pointed to the problem of “leftist bias” rampant on many campuses, noting that “many professors and administrators today are really the flower children of the 60’s and 70’s and they’re using their opportunity to, to indoctrinate students.”
He highlighted multiple factors for the large cost of higher education. He pointed out that prices were previously lower when there was “less government involvement” in the form of “grants and loans, and, and various subsidies to colleges.” He noted that institutions consider grants like Pell Grants a chance to increase tuition prices. Other reasons for the high costs include decreases in the amount of courses taught by each professor, non-educational expenditures (such as the construction of a bowling alley) and large quantities of college administrators. He said that at some institutions “administrators outnumber the professors close to two-to-one” and eliminating some of those positions is one way to lower college prices.
Listen to the full interview with Dr. Williams below:
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Alex Nitzberg
Alex Nitzberg is a senior writer for Accuracy in Academia. His writing has been published at Townhall.com, NewsBusters.org and elsewhere. In 2016 he was an intern with the American Journalism Center.
