Freedom Line Blog

Liberalism’s word police are at it again.

Student government representatives at UCLA and UC Berkeley voted recently to ban use of the term “illegal immigrant” in on-campus “academic writing, or in communications between faculty, students and staff,” reports the University Herald.

The reasons given for the prohibition allege that saying the word ‘illegal’ is ‘racially charged’ and ‘dehumanizing’ to the people it describes. Better, the students argue, to use labels like ‘undocumented immigrants,’ ‘immigrants without papers,’ and ‘immigrants seeking status.’

This line of argument is consistent with the old trope that “no person is illegal.” Which, of course, misses the point and confuses the issue. The term illegal immigrant does not refer to a person’s humanity, but rather to his or her legal status.

Because Congress has the power under Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution “To establish a uniform rule of naturalization,” it has the power to determine what qualifies as legal immigration. Foreign nationals who violate Congress’ uniform rules are, by definition and common sense, illegal immigrants. The reason illegal immigrants are “undocumented” and “without papers” is because they are “seeking [legal] status” without wanting to undergo the legal process.

No serious person disputes this. What the UC students really mean to convey with their vote is that the very idea of distinguishing between legal and illegal immigration is itself racially charged and dehumanizing. Having rejected the idea that American citizenship requires accepting certain fundamental beliefs, these enlightened collegians would extend the blessings of liberty without requiring a reciprocal commitment to respect the laws and mores of the community that make these blessings possible.

In other words: All of the benefits, none of the responsibilities.

Sounds like sophomoric reasoning to me…

The Maryland House followed the state Senate’s lead last night and passed a bill giving illegal immigrants in-state tuition rates for community colleges.  After graduating from a two-year school, beneficiaries would then be eligible for in-state tuition at four-year universities.

Maryland: so generous, it’s criminal.

The Wall Street Journal reports that India’s explosive growth in college graduates isn’t translating into employment for millions of newly minted degree holders.  The biggest problem: lack of critical thinking and communication skills.

To compensate, companies are spending large sums of money coaching graduates into employability.  According to one Indian business executive, the problem is the credential mentality infecting education:

“How are you able to change the mind-set that knowledge is more than a stamp?”

Sound familiar?  American higher education too is tempted to treat knowledge-building as a service rather than a task.  When students are treated like customers, the link between effort and reward is broken.  The result is a certification that doesn’t translate into employment.

With half of India’s 1.2 billion population under the age of 25, up to a million new workers a month are estimated to join the labor force over the next decade.  If India continues down the path of graduating young people without critical thinking skills, those workers – and the growing Indian economy – will be in serious trouble.

A sobering bit of news for college administrators about to go on spring break:

“The current prolonged recession means that we can no longer expect new revenue to pay for increasing attainment in higher education,” said Jane V. Wellman, Executive Director of the Delta Cost Project, which does a study every year on the cost of higher education. “In the next decade, we are going to be lucky to hold onto the resources we have. That means that all institutions – from the Ivies to the community colleges –are going to have to develop investment strategies that support goals for attainment. That will require new habits: looking at spending, and promoting the values of efficiency and cost effectiveness as co-partners to the never-ending search for new revenues.”

At first, one might be tempted to think that higher education needs to take a financial haircut just like the rest of the economy.  While that is undoubtedly true, the consequences will be enormous.

Federal higher education loans like Stafford and Grad Plus (and their state counterparts) are used like entitlements, though you’d never hear a recipient saying so.  Though only 1 in 4 Americans eventually graduate with a college degree, nearly everyone qualifies for the loans to finance one.

Because the cost of attendance continues to grow at several times the rate of inflation, grads and non-grads are piling up huge debt loads; prompting some to call the looming student loan crisis our next financial disaster.

The coming cuts in state and federal budgets for higher education financing will significantly decrease the subsidies available to students.  That means fewer students going to college, leaving enrollments peopled with those able to count on private financing.

Since passage of the 1944 GI Bill an essential part of the American dream has been having the opportunity to go to college by removing cost as a consideration.  The same bill did the same thing to spur home ownership via the VA-backed mortgage.  We all know how slippery that slope turned out to be.

Austerity is coming to America.  Hopefully, we can adjust to reduced expectations.