Students now arrive at the university ignorant and cynical about our political heritage, lacking the wherewithal to be either inspired by it or seriously critical of it.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I felt slightly superior to student politics, for instance. I had no reason to think this, but I thought of myself as slightly more seasoned. I became quite cynical talking to my student friends.
Let's face it: every campus has its share of students who can't quite comprehend that extreme political correctness is often born of the same intolerance and anti-intellectualism as standard-issue bigotry.
American colleges are now increasingly reflexive in maintaining politically correct dialogue over controversy, and some say universities have lost sight of education's ultimate purpose.
When students leave college, they are like children who know nothing about the problems of life, and don't have a political stance.
Ignorance of what real learning is, and a consequent suspicion of it; materialism, and a consequent intellectual laxity, both of these have done destructive work in the colleges.
The most frequent complaint I hear from college students is that professors inject their leftist political comments into their courses even when they have nothing to do with the subject.
University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.
I believe that access to a university education should be based on the ability to learn, not what people can afford. I think there is no more nauseating a sight than politicians pulling up the ladder of opportunity behind them.
It's fashionable with the Sarah Palin set to attack Harvard and treat its graduates as elitists. But if you spend any time on campus, you see students drawn from all over the world - an astonishing number these days with roots in Asia - whose chief assets are brainpower and hard work.
I've taught a college journalism course at two universities where my students taught me more than I did them about how political news is consumed.
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