‘Go to Berkeley’: Ron DeSantis said students seeking ‘woke’ classes should study elsewhere

[essentialsaltes]

3 years later, the 'new' New College is a total failure | Opinion​

Now that the Florida DOGE report is out, critics like me may have been too easy on New College.

[From that link] New College of Florida appears to be the most financially inefficient school in the university system, according to a study conducted by the state, with expenses per student and per degree far above average. The study was carried out by the Florida Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and state education officials are expected to review it publicly at the University of South Florida on Nov. 6.

['The study' link is also useful; just look for the stylized N for New College, like in grants per FTE researcher:]

[OK, back (briefly) to the oped.]

Its spending has gone from $53 million in 2020-21 to $93 million – yet it has been plummeting in test scores, GPA, retention, graduation rates and first-time-in-college attendance.

Not only do the folks running New College not have what it takes to run a higher education institution, they don't trust the people who do know what they're doing.

For example, the school has created a Retention Committee to try to put the brakes on a historically high outflow of students. Yet that Retention Committee has no faculty members on it.

 

[DaisyDay]

And:

The average SAT score is down 24 points since then; the average ACT score of 25 is the highest at New College since 2020. The state study also found New College has the lowest percentage of job placement among those with bachelor’s degrees and the lowest starting salary for graduates.​

​

Berkeley is looking good.....

 

[Belk]

Huh. Who could of guessed putting anti-intellectual ideologists in charge of a system of education would lead to a poor outcome?

 

[ThatRobGuy]

And:

The average SAT score is down 24 points since then; the average ACT score of 25 is the highest at New College since 2020. The state study also found New College has the lowest percentage of job placement among those with bachelor’s degrees and the lowest starting salary for graduates.​

​

Berkeley is looking good.....

Huh. Who could of guessed putting anti-intellectual ideologists in charge of a system of education would lead to a poor outcome?

Is there a control group to compare it to?

https://www.act.org/content/dam/act/unsecured/documents/R2295-Disruptions-Gains-Effects-of-Pandemic-02-2023.pdf

https://www.act.org/content/dam/act/unsecured/documents/2021/COVID-Impact-Fall-ACT-State-and-District-2021-5.pdf

ACT scores are down across the board since the HS graduates of 2020-2022 had their learning disrupted due to the pandemic.


Also, it doesn't sound like comparing this place (which has a grand total of about 700 students from what I'm reading) to Berkeley is a apples to apples comparison.


That'd be kind of like saying "See this is why the thing I said about tech degrees being worthless is accurate, look at this results comparison between this normal college and ITT Tech"

The fact that someone can find a terrible school in Florida doesn't validate or invalidate the criticisms about Berkeley.

 

[durangodawood]

.....The fact that someone can find a terrible school in Florida doesn't validate or invalidate the criticisms about Berkeley.

Not just one terrible school - but an ideological project specifically contrived to be the counterpoint to higher ed "liberal orthodoxy".

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Not just one terrible school - but an ideological project specifically contrived to be the counterpoint to higher ed "liberal orthodoxy".

Wouldn't the ideological counterpart to a Berkley be something more like a Brigham Young University?

It would be like if someone was trying to prove that "artsy degrees are worthless", and chose to compare Baylor University (which is more conservative leaning) to one of those for-profit "Art & Design" schools that pop-up every few years before losing accreditation.

 

[DaisyDay]

Wouldn't the ideological counterpart to a Berkley be something more like a Brigham Young University?

Obviously you read the OP as you wrote it, so you know that DeSantis chose Berkley as the counterpart to his vision of what a university should be. BYU seems totally irrelevant to this dilemma.

It would be like if someone was trying to prove that "artsy degrees are worthless", and chose to compare Baylor University (which is more conservative leaning) to one of those for-profit "Art & Design" schools that pop-up every few years before losing accreditation.

How would it be like that? Both Berkley UC and New College are state universities. New College had been respected until it got taken over and revamped to be what it is now. It's not just some bad private for-profit school but a creature of DeSantis' own making - or unmaking.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Obviously you read the OP as you wrote it, so you know that DeSantis chose Berkley as the counterpart to his vision of what a university should be. BYU seems totally irrelevant to this dilemma.

His original statement:
“If you want to do things like gender ideology, go to (the University of California) Berkeley,” DeSantis added. “There’s nothing wrong with that, per se, but for us with our tax dollars, we want to focus on the classical mission of what a university is supposed to be.”

“What this does is reorient our universities back to their traditional mission and part of that traditional mission is to treat people as individuals, not to try to divvy them up based on any type of superficial characteristics,” DeSantis said.

The law also demands that general education courses “may not distort significant historical events or include a curriculum that teaches identity politics”

How would it be like that? Both Berkley UC and New College are state universities. New College had been respected until it got taken over and revamped to be what it is now. It's not just some bad private for-profit school but a creature of DeSantis' own making - or unmaking.

Because it was a complete overhaul of the college

MSN referrer link to a WaPo pieces about it

MSN

There's a myriad of reasons why a top down overhaul will cost a lot of money, and lead to a lot of student attrition in ways that would be similar to a brand new school (or for-profit school) that just popped up would have challenges.


For instance, if we took BYU (traditionally conservative, which was appealing to conservative students, and had specific focuses for their expertise like Engineering)

And they decided to give it a top down overhaul to be more "liberal" and focus less on their original field specialties, and more on the arts and humanities, here are the things I would expect to see:

--High student attrition (they originally went there because they wanted a conservative school, which it no longer is)

--Falling behind in the things they were once really good at (if it originally was known for a great engineering program, and they did their revamp to focus more on the arts, that's a big deal -- the kids who wanted to go for engineering now have "lesser" engineering professors, and the new students wanting to go for their new Arts programs have Arts professors who are newbie instructors)

--High administrative costs as it takes a lot of money to get professors (even mediocre ones) to uproot and roll the dice on a university that's doing a top-down overhaul.

 

[durangodawood]

Wouldn't the ideological counterpart to a Berkley be something more like a Brigham Young University?

It would be like if someone was trying to prove that "artsy degrees are worthless", and chose to compare Baylor University (which is more conservative leaning) to one of those for-profit "Art & Design" schools that pop-up every few years before losing accreditation.

The whole comparison is just a mess. Berkeley, like most of the UC system, is mainly about high quality academics in serious subjects. If "New School" could achieve that, then hats off.

As I understand it, he contrast New School was trying to set up is to completely ignore various lines of "problematic" inquiry that might make up 5% of the typical state school experience but get all the headlines. It just not as fun to discuss math or architecture pedagogy.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

The whole comparison is just a mess. Berkeley, like most of the UC system, is mainly about high quality academics in serious subjects. If "New School" could achieve that, then hats off.

As I understand it, he contrast New School was trying to set up is to completely ignore various lines of "problematic" inquiry that might make up 5% of the typical state school experience but get all the headlines. It just not as fun to discuss math or architecture pedagogy.

But wouldn't the same negative things impact any school if the roles were somewhat reversed?

Even if it wasn't a governor handpicking replacements for certain positions, and they were getting qualified people in there to teach and administer everything, but replacing the liberal bias with a conservative one.

A) wouldn't any school have that challenge with brand new professors coming in?
B) wouldn't students who specifically went to a college for the political leaning/culture, be more inclined to bail if all of their professors got replaced by professors with the opposing ideology?

While I think one could make a case that some mismanagement was definitely occurring here (if they're spending that much more and getting much worse results), people are trying to make it seem as if the removal of some of that stuff (that you say only makes up 5% of content) is somehow responsible for the decline. (As if a school's success is contingent upon gender studies and queer poetry courses)

 

[BCP1928]

But wouldn't the same negative things impact any school if the roles were somewhat reversed?

Even if it wasn't a governor handpicking replacements for certain positions, and they were getting qualified people in there to teach and administer everything, but replacing the liberal bias with a conservative one.

A) wouldn't any school have that challenge with brand new professors coming in?
B) wouldn't students who specifically went to a college for the political leaning/culture, be more inclined to bail if all of their professors got replaced by professors with the opposing ideology?

While I think one could make a case that some mismanagement was definitely occurring here (if they're spending that much more and getting much worse results), people are trying to make it seem as if the removal of some of that stuff (that you say only makes up 5% of content) is somehow responsible for the decline. (As if a school's success is contingent upon gender studies and queer poetry courses)

No, it's not specific courses or even specific professors. just a side effect of trying to promote conservative Christian cultural purity.

 

[durangodawood]

But wouldn't the same negative things impact any school if the roles were somewhat reversed?

Even if it wasn't a governor handpicking replacements for certain positions, and they were getting qualified people in there to teach and administer everything, but replacing the liberal bias with a conservative one.

A) wouldn't any school have that challenge with brand new professors coming in?
B) wouldn't students who specifically went to a college for the political leaning/culture, be more inclined to bail if all of their professors got replaced by professors with the opposing ideology?

Well the opinion piece isnt exactly a deep dive. But it does sound like the school suffers from competence being replaced by ideology at the admin level. Exactly what I expect from contemporary so called conservatives on a mission. We see this at all levels.

While I think one could make a case that some mismanagement was definitely occurring here (if they're spending that much more and getting much worse results), people are trying to make it seem as if the removal of some of that stuff (that you say only makes up 5% of content) is somehow responsible for the decline. (As if a school's success is contingent upon gender studies and queer poetry courses)

Personally I think gender studies is a perfectly valid field, and gay poetry a valid type of course. My only problem is the number of people who elect to major in things like that which dont make great career launch pads for the most part. But this is hardly new. Kids "just picking sociology" has been going on forever.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

No, it's not specific courses or even specific professors. just a side effect of trying to promote conservative Christian cultural purity.

If that were the case, then schools like BYU would've gone bankrupt. (they have a strict cultural code that would probably put his "New School Florida" to shame)

Not sure whether or not people were familiar with Brigham Young University's "Honor Code"

BYU Rules That Are Actually Real And In Effect Today

Brigham Young University in Provo, UT, was established in 1875 by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints as a private university. It wasn't until the 1939-40 school year that BYU created a list of student and faculty prohibitions - an early version of the now infamous BYU honor code...

www.ranker.com

No Homosexuality allowed
No visitors of the opposite sex are allowed to come over
Men can't have long hair
No Piercings
Shorts have to be knee length
No Profanity
No coffee allowed

 

[BCP1928]

If that were the case, then schools like BYU would've gone bankrupt. (they have a strict cultural code that would probably put his "New School Florida" to shame)

Not sure whether or not people were familiar with Brigham Young University's "Honor Code"

BYU Rules That Are Actually Real And In Effect Today

Brigham Young University in Provo, UT, was established in 1875 by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints as a private university. It wasn't until the 1939-40 school year that BYU created a list of student and faculty prohibitions - an early version of the now infamous BYU honor code...

www.ranker.com

No Homosexuality allowed
No visitors of the opposite sex are allowed to come over
Men can't have long hair
No Piercings
Shorts have to be knee length
No Profanity
No coffee allowed

BYU is a private religious university and that is all pretty superficial and unexceptional for such a place. Where do they stand on more substantive culture war issues like gun control, global warming, universal health care, and the big one, Christian Nationalism? That would be more interesting to know.

 

[keith99]

A lot of those posting in this thread would do well to check the Wiki for New School.

It was not at all conservative until about 2 years ago when it was gutted and nearly half the faculty quit.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

A lot of those posting in this thread would do well to check the Wiki for New School.

It was not at all conservative until about 2 years ago when it was gutted and nearly half the faculty quit.

Right, but as I noted, any school changing their ideological mission would likely suffer the same fate.

If BYU decided tomorrow "we're going to stop being a strict fundamentalist Mormon school, and be a liberal school like Berkeley", they'd have the same issues.

If a bunch of students went to BYU specifically because of the strong moron influence, and a focus on engineering, and they up and replaced everyone with liberal Berkeley professors and concentrated more money on the arts and humanities, the student attrition would be high, the GPAs would drop, etc...

That wouldn't necessarily be immediately chalked up to a failure of the new liberal professors, would it?

 

[BCP1928]

Right, but as I noted, any school changing their ideological mission would likely suffer the same fate.

If BYU decided tomorrow "we're going to stop being a strict fundamentalist Mormon school, and be a liberal school like Berkeley", they'd have the same issues.

If a bunch of students went to BYU specifically because of the strong moron influence, and a focus on engineering, and they up and replaced everyone with liberal Berkeley professors and concentrated more money on the arts and humanities, the student attrition would be high, the GPAs would drop, etc...

That wouldn't necessarily be immediately chalked up to a failure of the new liberal professors, would it?

That's okay, their strategy will soon turn on them. Like many MAGA educators, they have got hold of the "Western Classical Canon" and think they can spin it as the foundation of Christian Nationalism. I went to a liberal arts college with the Western Classical Canon and it made me a liberal, They seem entirely oblivious to the fact that in reality It was the foundation of the Enlightenment.