Choosing The Right College
By: Thomas Sowell
There is so much for high school seniors and their parents to know about colleges that they not only need to get a lot of information but also need to make sure it is the right kind of information.
A number of college guides have useful information but, unfortunately, the best-known and most pretentious of these guides — "America's Best Colleges"— is grossly misleading.
There is no such thing as a "best" college, any more than there is any such thing as a "best" wife or a "best" husband. Who would be best for a particular person depends on that person.
Would we not consider it absurd if someone collected statistics on people and then used those statistics to rank individuals according to who would make the "best" wife or husband? Yet that is the approach "America's Best Colleges" is based on.
A college that would be best for a particular student could be a terrible place for that student's brother or sister. One of them might find West Point a great experience, while the other would fit in perfectly at Reed College— and each might be miserable at the other institution.
Choosing the college that is right for a particular person is not about the rankings of institutions. It is about matching a student with an institution that can enable that person to flourish while there, and to graduate with an education that is a foundation for a fulfilling life in the years ahead.
Among the things you need to know about a particular college is whether it has a real curriculum or just a smorgasbord of courses, so that it is possible to graduate knowing nothing about history, economics or science, for example. Some of the most prestigious colleges in the country are places where you can graduate completely ignorant of such fundamental subjects.
What also matters is whether the intellectual atmosphere is one in which competing ideas are explored and debated, or one in which there is a prevailing orthodoxy of political correctness that a student can challenge only at the risk of being ridiculed by the professor, given a low grade or— in some places— suspended or expelled for violating a campus speech code by giving an honest opinion about things where an orthodoxy is imposed, such as issues involving "race, class and gender."
In short, what is important is not choosing the "best" college, according to some statistics that conceal the arbitrary choices behind the objective-looking numbers.
Read the whole column.
Carl Trueman strikes a chord with me in his recent article, "The Day They Tried to Recruit Me." He addresses what he calls "the cult of professor worship."
As a professor of New Testament Studies & Biblical Theology I often face the same kind of temptation of which Carl writes. Long has been my motto: "Criticism, no matter how bitter, must never wither me; accolades, no matter how lofty, must never flatter me." I derive my motto from 1 Corinthians 1:1-4.
So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God. Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me (NIV).
Here is a teaser from Carl Trueman's piece.
The cult of professor worship is perhaps the most dangerous and reprehensible cult in the theological world. It is no respecter of theological position, afflicting the left just as much as the right. It is no respecter of intellectual ability, as the psychology of leader-follower is predicated more on personality and relational qualities than brainpower. And it is no respecter of souls: nothing so destroys a Christian leader, or his followers, than the mutual flattery involved in the uncritical adulation of a fan-base for a professorial rock star (and I use that term advisedly). Hence, while every instinct in me told me that the offer was a great opportunity to start up Team Trueman on campus, I chose to go against my fallen desires and immediately declined the offer.
Are you heading to seminary? Are you a student in seminary? Here are a couple of thoughtful and wise pieces that you may want to read. Sean Lucas, of Covenant Theological Seminary, offers advice in Ministerial Students, Calling, and PhD Studies. He reflects upon why many students who enter seminary with the initial intention to serve as pastors change their plans during seminary so that they want to become seminary professors.
Nijay K. Gupta, a PhD student at Durham University, offers advice in Not a Path for the Faith of Heart for students who are considering PhD studies.
