Gee
Don't miss Ben Stein's chin-stroking questions about the meaning of his alumni gifts to Yale. The size of Yale's endowment - and that of several other famous universities - allows it to participate in hugely profitable deals that most of Yale's wealthiest graduates can't buy into, and this occasions some interesting resentment on the part of the writer.
I love Yale, and I am deeply grateful to Yale. It is a star in my sky every day and night. But at this point, is it an investment bank or a school? I am really not sure, and this troubles me. I would love to be shown that I am wrong, but I am not certain that I am.
Well, duh. It's an investment bank with a little University of Phoenix thingy running on the side. At schools like Carleton, Grinnell, Coe and Bowdoin, in contrast, undergraduates are taught by real professors, not exploited graduate students. How much longer is this Harvard madness going to continue?
Comments
I have to say that I felt rather smug last night with M le Neveu's sister (a freshman at Columbia) complained and complained about having a TA instead of a professor for her college seminar. She was upset because other students had professors and after studying with those students, she realized the disadvantage at which she has found herself. Well, well. When you pay for the location and the prestige, you end up missing out on a crucial element: education.
Hmmm, well, I wonder if she would now be as disappointed with Wesleyan as she thought she would be had she accepted them over Columbia (another school that is not unlike an investment bank). Granted, an education is what you make of it and I have no doubt that M le neveu's sister will succeed, it is a shame that she will not enjoy the benefit of having a professor with a Ph.D for a freshman seminar. Dumping freshmen off on graduate students is a common practice at state universities... and the larger Ivy League universities (I have to note that Dartmouth does not fall into this category) - who's snooty now?
Also, my brother - a graduate student at Yale - has a lot to say about this very situation. The graduate students often do not come off much better than the undergrads.
And personally, my Bryn Mawr education looks better and better the more I talk to current undergraduates. Stick to the liberal arts, I say!
Posted by: Ms. NOLA | October 23, 2005 01:43 PM
Ben Stein has it right-Harvard and Yale don't need any more money...in fact, they should expand their scholarship programs. RJ has it right, too. There were no TA's at Smith, just lots of great professors who were wonderful teachers as well as scholars.
Posted by: Ozma | October 23, 2005 08:39 PM
Harvard and Yale should abolish loans for their students and provide them with outright financial aid grants just as Princeton offers their students.
Or these schools should pay their graduate students a living wage... or create charter public schools in the community and fund them with their money.
How I dream.
Posted by: Ms. NOLA | October 24, 2005 09:45 AM