University Indoctrination Centers Are
Being Abandoned
American Greatness,
by
Larry Sand
Original Article
Posted By: Mercedes44,
6/16/2026 5:31:57 AM
As I wrote last week, public schools are depopulating on a large scale for a variety of reasons, including a declining birth rate, the fact that many of them don’t offer a worthy product, the advancement of school choice, and others. Colleges are faring even worse for many of the same reasons. In January, Arthur Levine, president of Brandeis University, asserted that 20 percent to 25 percent of colleges will close in the coming years.
Similarly, the Hechinger Report projects that 442 of the nation’s 1,700 private, nonprofit four-year colleges and universities, representing 670,000 students, are at risk of closing or merging over the next 10 years.
Post Reply
Reminder: “WE ARE A SALON AND NOT A SALOON”
Your thoughts, comments, and ideas are always welcome here. But we ask you to please be mindful and respectful. Threatening or crude language doesn't persuade anybody and makes the conversation less enjoyable for fellow L.Dotters.
Reply 1 - Posted by:
Highlander 6/16/2026 7:25:47 AM (No. 2117226)
Colleges were once great centers of learning until leftism infected the faculty members. Any degree earned with the tutelage of unconventional or radical profs is worthless in the job market. Who hires anybody with a degree in Gender Studies?
35 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
MOBeef4u 6/16/2026 7:47:11 AM (No. 2117232)
I just want to commend the author for knowing the difference between percent and percentage point; a distinction lost on way too many writers and reporters.
25 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Strike3 6/16/2026 8:30:18 AM (No. 2117259)
That's the first good news concerning our "systems of higher learning" that I have heard in years. Shut down these abysmal money grubbing institutions. This is where American Leftism was born and they are attempting to spread it to as many young minds as they can. From thousands of great authors throughout history, they all seem to focus on Karl Marx, a malcontent loser.
38 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
zephyrgirl 6/16/2026 8:35:06 AM (No. 2117264)
Some of the problem is colleges are offering degrees that are essentially useless in the working world and could even be a detriment in a job hunt. For example, a degree in some form of ethnic studies could be a red flag that the person is hyper-sensitive and a potential troublemaker. I'd be willing to bet that the janitors, bartenders and taxi drivers with degrees that the author references don't have STEM or business degrees.
22 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
LadyVet 6/16/2026 8:40:10 AM (No. 2117268)
#2, that is a beef of mine as well.
There was a recent news article that Syracuse University was facing a serious decline in enrollment. There is probably a direct link between that and the crackdown on student loan repayments, limiting the amount of student loans, etc from the Trump administration.
8 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
red1066 6/16/2026 9:02:35 AM (No. 2117276)
Since colleges will be closing, perhaps the classrooms and other facilities at these closed institutions can be turned into trade schools or as they were called back in the 70's Vo techs for Vocational technical schools where anything from computer science to plumbing was taught. A degree from such a place would almost automictically guarantee a good paying job right out of school.
19 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
DVC 6/16/2026 9:57:49 AM (No. 2117292)
When the product, a university education, has less value than the price, people stop buying. Leftist propaganda sold as "education " is a fraud, and has negative job market and life enrichment value.
Good riddance.
26 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
joew9 6/16/2026 10:12:43 AM (No. 2117307)
Correcting for inflation, colleges are 5 times more expensive than in 1980. All the free money pumped into them by government has been spent on creating useless departments and job positions.
While high school diplomas have been watered down so much they barely reach the level of a 1950's 4th grade education.
Year 2000 employers needed a college degree for many positions that in the past would have barely required a high school diploma. Today it's worse. Simple English verb conjugation is totally confused even by college graduates.
My grandfather kept a diary during his 1917 WW I service that was of a writing level eloquence that exceeds today's college English graduates. He was 18 just out of high school.
23 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
stablemoney 6/16/2026 10:29:40 AM (No. 2117320)
The universities teach Keynesian Marxist economics. You have to learn real economics on your own in the real world. Tenure has immunized Marxist, incompetent, and lazy professors from dismissal, many of whom assign teaching duties to graduate students. The student loan program has inflated tuition costs to absurd levels. The left ruins everything they touch.
20 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
JHHolliday 6/16/2026 11:22:50 AM (No. 2117348)
#6 has it right about vocational schools. Before I retired from my insurance agency, I had a client who owned a small welding company. He told me he would hire any graduate from their welding program to help build his employee base. I don't know what he paid hourly, but you can be sure it was at least double what they pay at McDonald's.
Another customer built his dad's small plumbing and electric company into one of the largest in the city. High school education only and one of the smartest guys I know.
I can also see why employers don't want to hire someone with a degree in gender studies or similar. They want hardworking, smart workers who don't feel entitled and won't be trouble later.
18 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
jeffkinnh 6/16/2026 1:19:30 PM (No. 2117404)
Part of the problem is turn the crank success. If you go to a college and pay the outrageous money for it and hang in there and graduate ... you get a degree that means you survived the process, NOT that you are educated. That's true in High school as well. Almost everyone graduates, even if they are dragged kicking and screaming across the finish line.
All these "credentialed" people may or may not be useful to society.
Further, many companies are structured such that they require a college degree instead of the ability to do the work. I remember very talented people who got road blocked from internal promotion because they lacked a degree, but they were better workers than many of the degreed workers.
It's all about evaluating TRUE merit, instead of credentials.
18 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
Timber Queen 6/16/2026 5:55:13 PM (No. 2117479)
CSUN, Cal State University Northridge, is my alma mater. I never expected to see it referenced in an article. It once was a sleepy little suburb campus. I went there in the mid 70s, graduated January of '79. (My degree is signed, unfortunately, by Governor Jerry Brown.) Even at that time the yearly graduating classes numbered around 5,000. I cannot imagine what the number is today.
A few years ago while visiting, I took a "remembrance tour" around the San Fernando Valley. I was amazed at the size of the CSUN campus and the number of new buildings. The street on which stood my apartment house, one among a dozen, no longer exists. Some huge campus building in its place. Buildings were on land that were once used for sports fields, and most of them were in the "brutalist" style featuring cement facades. It was ugly and uninviting. I had no desire to step foot on campus and just drove around the perimeter. It was depressing.
15 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
bpl40 6/17/2026 7:51:32 AM (No. 2117624)
I graduated from one of the top Business Schools in the nation in the seventies. The tuition fee I paid was $3100 per year for two years. Today that same school charges $90,000 per year! Even allowing for inflation that is outrageous.
12 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
Catfur27 6/17/2026 7:52:56 AM (No. 2117626)
...note that many universities now have departments focused on recruiting foreign students ( Asians/Indians ) ...these students - who can't get into crowded schools in their own country ...will pay top dollar tuition and fill the dorms ....
BTW....this is also the reason why so many "colleges" have rebranded themselves as "university" in the past 10 years....many foreigners ( European and Asian) view "College" as equivalent to "high school" ... they want a "university" .
6 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
Dodge Boy 6/17/2026 8:31:07 AM (No. 2117650)
Mr. Sand presents a very ominous scenario regarding higher education. Aside from declining enrollments and college students graduating with useless college degrees and a $200,000 debt, are finding themselves working the takeout window at McDonald's, Sand's piece overlooked another critical aspect - AI. Graduates who do find employment are at great risk of being replaced by AI, anyway. If the colleges want to survive, they are going to have to dispense with their leftism garbage and structure their degree programs to be as AI-proof as possible. Can this even be done.
9 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
Ruhn 6/17/2026 10:15:22 AM (No. 2117717)
US 'institutions of higher learning' have been de facto gatekeepers for entry into white collar jobs and by extension, upward mobility into the middle class. That has been the understanding and the aspiration for decades: no bachelors degree, no white collar job.
The problem is that the institutions have turned into a racket; damn the discipline, damn the merit-based admissions process, damn the increasing tuition costs, and useless majors. Your brand on the sheepskin is all that counts. Now the system is a joke, a husk of it's former self. It has morphed into leftist indoctrination centers. Even STEM isn't safe. I have no problem with this dinosaur business model going extinct. Trade schools and Vo Techs offer far more bang for the buck for the student and for society writ large.
9 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
LLAMA 6/17/2026 11:16:06 AM (No. 2117738)
I certainly agree with most of the responders here that education from the bottom up is failing, and I think we know why. But the pundits and pollsters still keep track of the numbers of college graduates who, by big margins, vote for Democrats as if that was an indication of superior intelligence.
6 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
MickTurn 6/17/2026 1:36:25 PM (No. 2117777)
BullCrap on Steroids! They will just reliable their Nasty things and keep on doing it!
Indoctrination is Now Informing Students of Alternatives!
2 people like this.
Below, you will find ...
Most Recent Articles posted by "Mercedes44"
and
Most Active Articles (last 48 hours)