A few week ago Sarah Vowel at the NYTimes did a column in praise of public universities, because Biden is the first non-Ivy Leaguer running for president since LBJ in 1964.

Here's the link if you still have free articles this month. The gist of her column is pretty much encapsulated in the quoted paragraph below. Sarah lives in Bozeman, MT, which is home to Montana State, and is, by intermountain west standards, just a long hop skip and jump from Rexburg, so she likely knows a few Mormons at MSU who are there for the reason she states.

As one who spent some years toiling at a public university, of moderate size and Midwestern comportment, I thought it was a very "salt of the earth" kind of place. I remember it fondly.

Anyway, a tiny slice of how the outside world sees Mormons, in this case as exotic oddities that you normally don't have to interact closely with. Made me smile to see that in an NY newspaper.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/13/opinion/public-universities-biden-2020.html



"Public universities are one of two major American institutions, the other being the U.S. military, where large quantities of random adults are thrown together and made to coexist for years on end: the budget-minded, the lightly parented, the formerly incarcerated, the downsized, the underestimated, veterans, refugees, late bloomers, single moms, divorced dads, Bible thumpers, empty nesters, your swankier hicks, Mormons who didn’t get into Brigham Young University and a hodgepodge of souls who are working toward what is incidentally at the heart of every election: a fair chance at a decent life."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/21/2020 03:02AM by Brother Of Jerry.

I got my bachelor's degree from a public university -- it is the state's flagship school. I had a wonderful experience there. One of the reasons that I chose it was the wide variety of majors and classes. The number of foreign languages that you could study and even major in was in the dozens -- every major European and Asian language, and many others as well.

One thing that I noticed is that my friends who did well at that school could get into top-flight graduate programs. Their public university bachelor's was not a hindrance to them in any way.

Not true that Biden is the first non-Ivy Leaguer running for President since LBJ in 1964. The actual last time was the 1984 election, when neither candidate had an Ivy league education.

Going back to 1968:

Richard Nixon attended Whittier College for his undergraduate degree, despite being accepted to Harvard, and attended law school at Duke University.

Hubert Humphrey, the 1968 Democratic nominee was educated at the University of Minnesota, the Capital College of Pharmacy, and Louisiana State University. So the 1968 general election had two candidates that were not Ivy League educated.

George McGovern, the 1972 Democratic nominee, was educated at Dakota Wesleyan University, Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary, and Northwestern University. So the 1972 general election was between two non-Ivy League educated candidates.

Jimmy Carter was a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and later attended a non-credit course on nuclear power plant operation at Union College in Schenectady, NY. The Naval Academy was at one point was unofficially referred to as being part of the Ivy League. However when the league was officially formed in 1954, only the eight institutions which still comprise the league were included. So the Naval Academy was never an official member of the Ivy League.

Ronald Reagan's higher education was bachelor's degree from Eureka College in Illinois.

Walter Mondale, the 1984 Democratic nominee was educated at Macalaster College and the University of Minnesota.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/21/2020 09:46AM by alsd.

Trump didn't go to an Ivy League school, either.

It looks like he did. He attended Fordham for two years, and then transferred to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated with a B.S. in Economics in 1968.

Fordham seems like an odd choice for him. I'm going to read between the lines and guess that his grades coming out of prep school were not stellar, and it took him two years to work his way up.

summer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It looks like he did. He attended Fordham for two
> years, and then transferred to the Wharton School
> of the University of Pennsylvania, where he
> graduated with a B.S. in Economics in 1968.
>
> Fordham seems like an odd choice for him. I'm
> going to read between the lines and guess that his
> grades coming out of prep school were not stellar,
> and it took him two years to work his way up.

You make it seem like Fordham is some backwater safety school. It is actually a pretty good school overall. Certainly not Ivy League, but definitely would be comparable to many state flagship universities.

A "pretty good" school -- I would agree with that. Nothing to be ashamed of. It's also a Jesuit Catholic school. What it isn't, is an obvious fit for the Protestant, prep-school and military school educated scion of a wealthy NYC real estate developer.

As for a safety school, I guess it depends on your environment. I knew a number of kids in high school for whom Fordham would have been a safety. A classmate of mine (whose name and affiliation everyone here would know,) followed a similar path to Trump. He went to a "pretty good" school for a year or two, got his grades up, and then transferred to Penn where he got his degree. All of his close friends went Ivy.

Regarding Trump, according to Wiki (with a New York Times citiation,) "In 2015, Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen threatened Fordham University and the New York Military Academy with legal action if they released Trump's academic records."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/21/2020 04:44PM by summer.

Trump just wanted to avoid discouraging normal humans with less than perfect grades and scores.

Yes, especially since he stated that he came in first in his class at Wharton -- oh wait, he didn't. I guess he forgot that people can easily look that up.

summer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> A "pretty good" school -- I would agree with that.
> Nothing to be ashamed of. It's also a Jesuit
> Catholic school. What it isn't, is an obvious fit
> for the Protestant, prep-school and military
> school educated scion of a wealthy NYC real estate
> developer.
>
> As for a safety school, I guess it depends on your
> environment. I knew a number of kids in high
> school for whom Fordham would have been a safety.
> A classmate of mine (whose name and affiliation
> everyone here would know,) followed a similar path
> to Trump. He went to a "pretty good" school for a
> year or two, got his grades up, and then
> transferred to Penn where he got his degree. All
> of his close friends went Ivy.
>
> Regarding Trump, according to Wiki (with a New
> York Times citiation,) "In 2015, Trump's lawyer
> Michael Cohen threatened Fordham University and
> the New York Military Academy with legal action if
> they released Trump's academic records."

I agree, it definitely depends on your environment. I grew up in an Ivy League town, and many of my classmates were children of professors at the college. So yes, for them, Fordham would have been a safety school.

I have a feeling that many of Trump's academic "successes" came more from his Dad's money more than from his own brain.

Ya think?

Someone should check his transcripts.

;-)

Hey, being an alum of UC Berkeley, I would say thumbs up to public universities. GO BEARS!!! (And, I was an academic scholarship kid.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/21/2020 12:27PM by Heidi GWOTR.

"If your parents or extended family can't afford to pay for your schooling here at Jake LaMotta University, we don't want your kind!"

--Dean Ding Dhong



"If you donate your child's tuition to your bishop, you'll get a nice write-off and God still gets the funding He needs! This is God working in not so mysterious ways."

--attributed to Dean Ernie "morning rain" Wilkerson, of Brigham Young Marriage and Training-Wheels University, Provo Soaking, Utah.



"Anything good, like learning, can be corrupted with enough money spent on it or by having fun doing it."

--Jordan Many Names, Canadian Indignant Indigenous Indigent

Served in the Navy before going to a public university (WSU, home of the REAL Cougars!). I never would have met the people I met if I had stayed in a BYU Bubble, taken courses that challenged me and taught me to think (cue comments of "not that well" ha, ha, ha.), and realized that I am not the center of the universe.

Of course, I majored in English with an emphasis on writing instead of "Internet Dickery," which is why I'm not a debater. And why folks who only want colleges to focus on job training disgust me.

It has to do with the general insularity of people's lives, and in particular Mormon lives. Also about how Mormons are perceived by the outside world. I think that would meet the generally recognized standards of discourse here.

BYU

I don't think I took one "useless course" in my university days. They were all interesting and fascinating. I learned a lot. There are also lots of practical majors, including non-STEM majors such as business, education, counseling, etc. if you need to come out of school with solid job prospects, as most do.

The expense is one thing that I won't argue with. Back in the 70s, when I was doing my undergraduate degree, school was relatively cheap, especially if you went to a state school, or even an out of state public school. I think that younger people now have no idea how inexpensive it was back in those days. We used to joke about some students being "on the six year plan" because school was so affordable and fun. I don't know how parents and students do it nowadays. The cost has really ballooned. I think you have to go in with a solid plan, and keep it as affordable as possible. College graduates as a whole still out-earn their non-college peers.

C'mon!! I loved it when the Y had the market cornered on teaching young women to be moms!!

CDFR* forever!! And with all the horny RMs, it was not that hard for a young woman to snag that most coveted of degrees, the sacred MRS.





*Child Development & Family Relations

Ah, back again today under a new name. This is one of those subjects where you can't resist spreading your dystopian pall.

Writing a report, and learning how to research material, think critically, and speak publicly are in fact useful skills. Meeting a broader range of people than you otherwise would has a great democratizing affect, as Sarah Vowell points out. I was on the admissions committee for some years. That list of what sorts of people go to college is spot on. I saw it first hand.

Steve Jobs credits a calligraphy class he took just for the hell of it with giving him the skills and insight to create the desktop publishing industry from whole cloth. That worked out well.

Phil Jackson got a degree in philosophy and religion. He incorporated that into a spectacularly successful NBA coaching career where he was affectionately referred to as a Zen coach.

At my school, well over half the student body was in fact in STEM departments of one form or another, or the business college, or law or medicine or other professional school. Yes, there were some fine arts and theater and history. They were not some sort of overwhelming presence. Too bad your english profs were not impressed with your analytical skills. But it is a much larger world out there than you seem to appreciate.

BTW, some of those history majors did really well. I was surprised at how many music majors were double majoring in Comp Sci or math. The skill sets have a substantial overlap. We got very few visual artists as double majors, at least in my field. Different set of skills. But music, yeah.


"Useless and expensive" is a charge not without some merit. Especially the expensive part. Usefulness is very much in the eye of the beholder.

The pandemic is likely to push more than a few smaller colleges over the edge, and there are departments that are struggling to get students to major in their offerings. Change happens, and it is often painful for those directly involved.