Once a great school, New College had fallen to 405th in the nation

Well back in the day - 1961 - we were automatically admitted if we were in state, and the cost was minimal. After college, I joined the AF and was afterwards on the GI Bill in law school. Plus, may law professor dad was so thrilled (and surprised) I went to law school he picked up the difference. I was very fortunate.

 

It worked out great from you and you have a law pedigree. But you understand that isn't a strategy for most people in 2023.

 

Liberal arts to law school seems to be a strong path. Dated 2 girls at UF that were liberal arts majors and both went on to law school and successful careers. Not for me, but I can see the value in a liberal arts education.

Of course that liberal arts undergrad seemd to have worked out just fine for desantis.

 

Stem has ALREADY been shit upon. It is a meaningless term or acronym if it is 1. There are soft, exceedingly non stem programs of study that have been given the STEM title. I mean, stupid ass shit degrees. Hey, look everybody at all our STEM grads. Sickening yet totes predictable. This is the shit game that unis play. It's reprehensible.

 

I’m not following. You feel you wasted time taking polisci classes because they didn’t prepare you for anything but you also believe you can’t be prepared for anything because you are who you are at 10?

 

Not exactly.

When I was 15-19 I was very into bodybuilding. I would read the magazines: Flex and Muscle and Fitness. They were almost all baloney. It was all work out routines, supplements, and diets, which purported to tell you how you would change your physique in ways that had no scientific grounding. But they were believed and followed by body builders all over the country, and many made a lot of progress. I was one of them. I totally transformed my physique. But it wasn't to look like Arnold's, it was to look like mine was going to look with weightlifting and a healthier diet regardless of the nuances.

And I think higher education is a lot like that. You study different types of subjects. You learn to handle pressure and deadlines. And maybe most importantly you learn to interact with people who are intended to be part of your same social class. But you're only going to be what you are going to be. And at a certain point it's a lot of diminishing returns. And yes I could have skipped my entire major and been in the same situation as I would have with only the other 90 credits of college. I don't have any greater insight into how governments or global agents work than the average person has. I would have been substantially the same person if I had studied a different subject at Liberty university or at some unknown directional school in the Midwest. I don't what the solution to that is. Are Political Science degrees really the best option for people who can't study something more marketable?

 

I do indeed. Our educational system needs fundamental reform IMHO.

 

While much of the criticism here has been focused on your first claim that New College was in bad shape, I’d like to address your second point that the actions of the state “saved it”.

What is the metric we are using here? Is it rankings? Because those haven’t been updated. Is it tenure denials? Those have gone up, but how do we determine when denying tenure is a good thing? Is it the change of president? Same problem, how do we know that’s a good thing?

Really, how can we judge the success of any changes before even bothering to see the effects of the changes? In 4-5 years we might be able to start assessing the effects of these changes. Until then, all judgments will amount to little more than the usual “our side is better” opinion.

 

I really wish law school would stop being mentioned in conjunction with with a liberal arts degree. Any major can attend law school, and from what I understand, stem
majors such as engineers do more than fine.

Law school can easily be a half million to a million dollar investment on top of undergraduate when you consider tuition, lost wages, and interest on debt. Some people will make that up easily, others will not. Many jobs in law don't pay particularly well either; not any better than what that person would have earned without a law degree.

Law school does a horrible job of vetting which applicants are suitable to be lawyers. There is no "pre-law" program. There is no organic chemistry for would be attorneys. There are plenty of law spots even for mediocre students with mediocre LSAT scores. When public loan forgiveness ends, but easy access to student loans does not, many people will be screwed big time.

If someone wants to attend law school great for them. Maybe they will find a fantastic career. But there is no natural connection between the liberal arts degree and law school period. And liberal arts should not he viewed as some kind of preparation for law school.

 

UF may disagree.
Pre-Law – Academic Advising Center

 

The idea if a pre law program exists, it is not required for law as it is for medical school. And even if it did, it wouldn't be much of a filter unless it included a bunch of courses that were difficult to pass or get decent grades in. And it still wouldn't matter because most law school have such low standards they would find a way to admit students anyway.

 

The school was absorbed by USF back in 1975 when the state bailed out what was basically at the time a broke private university. New College is now an autonomous school in the State University System but has continued to be a financial liability especially when you consider the enrollment is under 1000 students.

DeSantis took it to the next level but the fact is state lawmakers have been pushing New College to be more accountable to both students and taxpayers for many years. There have been ongoing concerns New College wasn’t adequately preparing students for the working world as evidenced by lagging well behind other state schools in beginning salaries and also in the low number of graduates staying and working in Florida.

I’ve lived in Sarasota for years and know no one who has actually attended the school and until all the recent back and forth, you would never know the place even existed. And by their very high acceptance rate (over 70% for many years) it’s not like kids have ever been begging to go to school there. Being the school has such low demand and after all the recent controversy, many locals I’ve talked to wonder why the state doesn’t just shut the place down.

 

Good read, but the school ranking stuff is irrelevant because it’s just another social construct. The College now identifies as a top 10 Ivy League school, so please don’t mis-rank it with your micro-aggressions. Thx.

 

OP with another hit and run post. He never actually engages in conversation

 

As I’ve previously mentioned on this thread my son is a New College graduate. Last year he paid more in income tax than I ever earned.

edit: he lived in Europe for a while - little income so I guess that hurt the initial salary metric of NC. Also he has not lived in FL since so I guess that hurts another metric

 

Maybe your son can go back and take that new ninth grade course that Florida will be requiring. His knowledge from that course should allow him to reduce his income taxes.

 

Not the purpose of college. There are, however, countless things one can do career-wise with a Liberal Arts degree.

 

He has people. Better if his old man had chosen another employer

 

Whatever. I write for a living. I don't know why a person past middle age would feel a need to mock another poster simply because they disagree with an opinion. Pretty childish.

And what is the "purpose" of college according to you? I must have missed it.