More cancel crowd

It seems that the cancel crowd has picked another hatchet to hone. New age abolitionists that they are, the members of this chopping bloc are after student loans and IOUs. Extremists on their team are not content with a partial or percentage payoff — they want the entire kit and caboodle to vanish and they pressure our beleaguered White House daily. Multiple reasons are given for this desired debt demise — starting with the high cost of college tuition.

You don't have to look far for pork to pare. Thanks to a spasm of P.C. initiatives, higher learning centers now boast a pantheon of pedagogues, featuring a cornucopia of extraneous educators (and their secretaries, assistants, offices, etc.). You ask, “Do we need the extra expertise of a Dean of Diversity? The magnanimity of a Dean of Inclusion? The imagination of a Dean of Student Activities? Pulling a few paychecks in the administration would help, the actual marketplace does it routinely.

Then there is the problem with students that accrue huge loans but do not finish college, as in dropouts. Roughly 40% of the “loaners” run up a two-year tab, and then they, or the college, decide that they are in the wrong situation — grades or otherwise. Now, relegated to lower-paying jobs, they are drowning in debt. After all this misspent moolah, should admissions be tougher or easier?

Lastly, there are the graduates who have a new career that is not lucrative enough to deliver them from debt. Another reason to suggest that majors, courses, and classes in ephemeral “studies” may, although an easy map to matriculation, leave their followers few niches in a modern economy's hiring arena. You can dabble in Macedonian pottery, but do not expect many job offers outside of a kiosk in Heraklion. Somehow, a degree in a whatever esoteric endeavor didn't water any eyes at the last job fair, so don't wail over a dearth of dinero. Also, an additional cost-saving in tuition could be found by downgrading some of these “majors” into “electives” or good old character rounders as this would thin out the faculty list of department heads and save an additional buck or two.

In short, this issue can easily be alleviated by cutting campus extras, enhancing entry requirements, having a leaner and meaner faculty, and only offering practical majors.

— Bill Ferguson/Vacaville