From NPR Buying College Essays Is Now Easier Than Ever. But Buyer Beware
Why are all these liberals up who are otherwise indifferent to or oppose the concept of objective morality so strongly and uniformly opposed cheating in college, such as the use of paper mills? Because it exposes the inherent inefficiency and uselessness of their institutions. The high rate of cheating in college is evidence that most students find these liberal arts courses to be worthless and or of no applicable value for their lives, which is a slap in the face against the left, who hold these courses sacrosanct. Millions of people in their prime productive years– their late teens and early 20s–are forced through this time-consuming and expensive process to obtain a parchment that grants its possessor a shot at least of entering the ‘middle class’ , as opposed to low-paying service sector work.
Given that higher education is a source of profit, employment, and a conduit of indoctrination, it’s rational and understandable why the left defends it with the ferocity and single-mindedness of an ant colony defending its territory against an intruding colony. That is not to say there isn’t value in education, and the obtainment of knowledge has value in and of itself, but from a free market perspective, there is no reason for the vast majority of these colleges to exist are the product of an artificial demand. Their functions can be replicated at a much lower cost, such as free information at a library or online, online courses, through the use of cognitive testing, or wholly eliminated altogether (it’s not like engineers need to study the humanities).
Moderates talk about the need to reform higher education, often blaming left-wing intolerance and easily offend students, but this ignores the bigger problem of artificial demand. They talk about the need to ‘save the academy,’ as if Western civilization depends on it (ignoring the fact that western civ. predates credentialism by a couple millennia), but is something that puts millions of young people into debt and takes so much time and may fundamentally have no reason to even exist, worth saving? Yeah, one can make a case that medical schools or law schools should exist because they at least serve a function that is directly applicable in the ‘real world.’ And I think there is also value in research institutions too, such as in science and math, but few people are qualified and or inclined to do research: the vast majority of students get their degree and then march off to the labor force, with the degree acting as little more than a very expensive ticket stub, but rather than admission to a movie or play, admission for employment.