This article is mostly a Facebook rant written by a friend of mine who works at a University.

I’ve removed his name and specific references to the school so he won’t suffer ramifications from posting this.

The “College Is Necessary To Succeed In Life” Gestapo might throw him in a trunk and toss the trunk in a river.

I would feel bad about that.

Here’s food for thought if you’re planning to plunk down a couple gazillion dollars to send your kids to college.

(Yes…Even a Christian college.)

I basically live and work on and about the campus of a [Christian University]. I have held a number of positions at the college and have a pretty good grasp of what goes on and what the state of things are. That being said:

Sadly, my beloved [university] is now at around 70% of incoming students are here for sports. Most of these colleges now have more full-time coaches than full time faculty. We now have track, cross country, baseball, softball, archery, volleyball as well as men’s and women’s soccer and basketball. Every Fall we bring in another 100 freshman football players to go along with the the 35-40 returning players. Yet, I think last year there were 4 football seniors who went through graduation (think about that for a moment). And Now…………we have a Bass Fishing Team!!! That’s right. Bass Fishing!

The idea, of course, is that if you hire a coach at $35K per year and he goes out and recruits 15 students who normally wouldn’t consider coming to your school, that is 15 students bringing about $16-18K to the table each. Sure, you float them a $7000 scholarship, have a big “signing day” at their school, the small town local newspaper prints a picture and story and announces to the community that Susie Jones is signing a letter of intent to play softball at [the school] and the parents can brag about it and say how “all of those camps and all of that travel and all of those Sunday’s on the road for tournaments were all worth it, because now she has a softball scholarship”. Of course, she is still bringing her Pell grant, state grant, state academic scholarship, and federal student loans to the table (which will have to be paid back….Unless Bernie get’s elected, but I digress…….).

You see, these colleges have their “sticker price” of $29K but NOBODY pays $29K. Everybody gets a “scholarship”! Everybody! If you have a pulse and an 18 ACT score you get an academic scholarship. The fact is that the student here on a “sports” scholarship is paying the same as the 30% who are NOT there on sports scholarship. They just get an academic scholarship or a leadership scholarship. Everybody is on scholarship.

So now we have a campus full of kids walking around in sports “travel gear” who miss class constantly because they are traveling to matches and spend LITERALLY 20 hours per week training for their individual sports, and that is during the off season. They spend a zillion hours over 4 years with these coaches and the coaches are the biggest influencers on campus now…..And they are not nearly as vetted as a Professor would be. Heck, all these coaches say the same thing in their interview; “God comes first, then school and then the sport, blah, blah” but often the reality is the opposite. [Recently], for example, the whole baseball coaching staff at [the school] had to be fired because one of the coaches got into a fist fight with one of the players in between games of a double hitter. Police came and everything! Ugh! I could tell you stories that would make your ears curl about so many of the football coaches that have had to be fired in the 12 years since we’ve started that stupid program. NOT to mention stories of things done by the students. Half of [the] basketball team got sent home in December this past year. I could go on. It’s amazing to me that coaches are hired with no regard to denomination affiliation……as long as they say they are Christian, that’s all that matters. Hired!

I read recently that the average college student across America now only spends less than 4 hours per week studying outside of class. I have done my own little non-scientific survey with a few students and found that number to actually be high. Most said they only spend a couple of hours a week on what they now call “home work”. Yet they spend 20 hrs a week training for their sport!!! (Ya’ll don’t hear me)

So what have we become? We have watered down higher education and turned college into a time of fun/partying/being crazy/young/spring break/sports/video games/ etc………..and studying is just a small small part of the whole experience. I’d say that at least 90% of the male students on campus have no business being in college. At least not now. They are way too immature at this stage of their life. They would be much better off in the military.

My youngest son, who was not a serious student and got average to below average grades in high school, graduated 3 years ago with a business degree from [the school]. He has been working with a good company in the management program. Doing ok. Well last month he quit his job and is now enrolled in Lineman school. He decided he wants to work outdoors and with his hands and make $100K per year. And I say good for him. Of course, if he had made that decision 8 years ago, he’d already have half a million in the bank. Instead of still paying on his student loans.