College choices matter

With students returning to college campuses there is still much confusion about whether they will actually be in classroom settings, take their classes online or some combination of the two. I find it interesting that during previous pandemics, such as the H1N1 virus in 2009, there were no shut-downs of schools and businesses and the widespread panic that has followed Covid. The CDC estimated that 150,000-575,000 persons died from the H1N1 virus in its first year. To date, the CDC reports 156,000 confirmed OR PROBABLE deaths due to Covid. There has been so much controversy about the actual numbers of persons infected and deaths due to Covid that any number can be disputed. This is not to say that Covid is not a serious problem. It is, but at this point it appears no more deadly than H1N1. Unfortunately, due to political reasons the media has decided to instill fear and panic about this virus in the minds of the public leading officials to take unreasonable measures to control it. However, this is a subject for another post.

As students return to campuses parents need to be asking exactly what are their young people being taught. After all, in many cases the parents are shelling out their hard earned money to provide their children with an education. In other situations the students are racking up thousands of dollars in  student loan debt that they will spend much of their working lives to repay. Is what they are being taught worth that expense? Sadly, in too many cases it is not. Rather than being given an education they are being indoctrinated into a preferred way of thinking that is often diametrically opposed to the values and beliefs of their parents.

A recent report from an economics professor at a major university is a case in point. He has proposed offering an elective class that points out the dangers of Marxism and the damage it has done to those countries that embraced it. The university approved it only for honors students but has denied his request to open it up to any interested student due to the objections of anonymous faculty. No doubt, they extol the Marxist mindset which they teach their students and do not want an opposing view to be presented to the wider student body.

This kind of censorship occurs on numerous university campuses across the country. A conservative speaker is invited to speak to a gathering and later uninvited because students and faculty members do not want to hear someone present material that is different than the liberal mantras being presented on campus. Christian organizations are banned from some campuses. On too many campuses today our young people are being indoctrinated towards a value system that rejects the values that this nation was founded upon. Why would any parent want to pay for that, and why would a young person want to go deep into debt for an education that will not prepare him or her for the real world?

A pastor friend of mine once told me he had three daughters attending a supposedly Christian college. They came home and began to tell him of some of the things one professor was teaching which were contrary to biblical teaching. He wasn't presenting another view for discussion, which would have been fine, but was presenting it as fact while ridiculing what the daughters had been taught. The pastor called the professor and told him he had a problem with what he was teaching. The professor responded that was too bad and there was nothing the pastor could do about it. Actually, there was. The next day the three daughters withdrew from the school and finished their education at another college.

Too many of our young people leave for college and return no longer believing in God or in our historic American values, and we are paying for that. It's time parents take a hard look at what is going on at the schools their young people attend. Higher education is intended to provide an education that prepares young people for the challenges and opportunities they will face, not indoctrinate them with propaganda that will lead them, and ultimately this nation, down a path of destruction.

For me, as a Christian, I believe Christian colleges and universities provide the best option to educate our young people. Even then, as the above example of the pastor's three daughters points out, we need to be careful. Some schools that were once affiliated with denominations and Christianity long ago abandoned any pretense of being a Christian school. Still, there are excellent Christian schools that can provide our young people with the education they need to be successful in life.

Your choice of a college or university does matter. Choices have consequences.