we should be rioting in the streets!

First, I'd like to begin with the exception that lies in the great program of New College, which I love very much and visibly see a difference in combating and recovering against many of the issues I am about to discuss.
Quotes are taken from the introduction and chapters 7 and 8 of Beer And Circus, found here. While inspiration has come from numerous discussions over the past two years in classes I've taken.

"This place is a four year party-- one long tailgater--with an $18,000 annual cover charge." -Junior at a large university

Reasons why my undergraduate degree is bullshit:
1. The Good Researcher = The Good Teacher Myth
Due to the notoriety, PR, and money that can be found in research for large universities, universities are seeking good researchers. Not good teachers. "Scholarly productivity and instructional effectiveness have less than 2 percent... in common." If all the professors are putting their energy and time into doing research... where do they do it? Because it sure as hell isn't in their offices.
2. The Sheer Numbers
Thanks to increasing capitalism, the growing number of students going TO college now, the gigantic class size and the diminishing teacher to student ratio the universities are attempting new methods of instruction. The lecture style of teaching is research-proven completely ineffective for the average student. Less than 25% of classes are actually taught by the tenured faculty members due to help from teachers that barely speak English, graduate assistants and "gypsies" who are nomadic professors who only hang around a particular university for a limited amount of time. This leads to essentially zero teacher-student interaction. "In a 1980 study, the Carnegie Foundation determined that at research universities, only 9 percent of the faculty spent more than eleven hours a week teaching undergraduates, whereas 65% logged less than ten hours a week in this endeavor, and 26% spent ZERO hours on undergraduate teaching (two decades later, there is even less classroom contact between faculty and undergraduates, particularly between faculty and nonhonors students)."
The college education is becoming less about the things students are learning and more about the "experience behind it all" such as the...
3. Beer And Circus: "many universities, because of their research and graduate programs, and because of their inability to provide quality undergraduate education to most of their students, spend increasing amounts of money on their athletic departments, and use big-time college sports--commercial entertainment around which many undergraduates organize their hyperactive social lives--to keep their students happy and distracted and the tuition dollars rolling in." The beer and circus is the party life associated with the sports (namely, football) that students perpetuate IS college.
4. Grade Inflation- the nonsense of a gpa, the teacher/ta discretion, and the pressure put on professors that not too many students can fail nor can a certain amount of students receive A's
5. Apathy- clearly caused by both students and faculty- the uninformed don't care, the informed either do care but feel powerless or don't care either.
6. Degree = "Hula Hoop"  jump through this one, get onto the next one. Now, a graduate degree is what the undergrad degree use to be, and a high school diploma is commonplace. Thank you two years of prerequisites for nothing. Thank you, two years of classes that have meant something to my future, maybe. ish.

So, what DOES the University value? Well, the flow. This working cycle. the influx. The students are still enrolling, the parents are pleased enough to pay the bill, the alumni are sending in checks, the locals are tailgating, and the PR is making it all look plain and dandy on the surface. the value comes in that its all working just fine.

I'd like to expand on some of the points above, and keep rambling about this new-found soapbox of mine while simultaneously advocating for small liberal arts programs such as New College, but I really need to get ready for my sorority cocktail party tonight... I have to do my hair, my makeup. But first, make a drink.
Time to switch to indie music and put on some rap to start the prega....