The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Oh, So, Like A Service Academy, Then?

Posted on | August 12, 2011 | 12 Comments

by Smitty

Via Insty:

“Whether your own college experience was more like The Paper Chase or Animal House, you can be sure that today’s campuses are neither. Instead, your tuition and tax dollars are funding an ever-growing army of bureaucrats that police everything from free speech to dating. Administrators now outnumber faculty on our nation’s campuses, and even students’ innermost thoughts are subject to their oversight. Each year, the college experience gets closer to that of a TSA line at the airport — but one that you have to live in for four years.”

Of course, the big difference was that USNA wansn’t four years of indoctrination to godless Communism, either.

Category: Uncategorized

Comments

12 Responses to “Oh, So, Like A Service Academy, Then?”

  1. DaveO
    August 12th, 2011 @ 9:03 pm

    I wouldn’t call my alma mater either Paper Chase or Animal House, but I will confess to earning my designation as a Century Man.

  2. Anonymous
    August 12th, 2011 @ 9:08 pm

    Actually, I have a member of our church who graduated Annapolis and is actively trying to funnel kids into the Merchant Marine Academy because (in his words) the service acadameies have gone so far downhill”. 
    If you do have a kid looking at college, that can do the rigors of a service(ish) academy, all four years cost less than I spent on my last used Jeep.

  3. Julie
    August 12th, 2011 @ 10:02 pm

    LOL.   Brilliant.  🙂

  4. Deuce Geary
    August 12th, 2011 @ 10:53 pm

    One of the funniest and most accurate descriptions I ever read of an USNA education: “This place [the Naval Academy] is a $100,000 education . . . shoved down your throat a nickel at a time.”

    I’m USNA ’82, and I read this in an USNA catalog in the 70s some time . . . back when $100k was a lot of money for an education.

  5. Rampage93
    August 12th, 2011 @ 11:24 pm

    It’s a quarter million dollar education shoved up your @ss one nickel at a time.
    USAFA ’93

  6. Drkill
    August 12th, 2011 @ 11:49 pm

    Put me down for Animal House. I highly (heh) recommend the experience.

  7. McGehee
    August 13th, 2011 @ 12:09 am

    In my case, the papers didn’t put up much of a chase, and the animals were all domesticated.

  8. Adjoran
    August 13th, 2011 @ 3:19 am

    The message to students and parents from tenured faculty around the country:  “You f-ed up.  You trusted us.”

  9. politicaljunkieMom
    August 13th, 2011 @ 4:09 am

    But it’s FREE. Vast difference between graduating a 100k in the hole, with no job prospects vice emerging debt-free with a good-paying job. Just sayin’.

  10. Paul Joslin
    August 13th, 2011 @ 4:34 am

    Well, cost YOU “less than I spent on my last used Jeep”.  There’s the graduate’s six year commitment to factor in 🙂

  11. Anonymous
    August 13th, 2011 @ 5:38 pm

    Paul, graduates of the Merchant Marine academy MAY opt to go the military route, but are not obliged to.  They do have a full term at sea and during that term may actually be in a combat zone if there is a… well, whatever Barack is calling it this week going on.
    Most of the graduates go on to well paid jobs in the private sector.  Some take a path that could end up as captain of freighters or cruise ships.  Some stay on land and specialize in the logistics of running ports or other large, multi carrier transhipment points.  My personal favorite starting job was the young lady who took a 100K job fresh out of school as a “Dynamic Positioning Officer” on an offshore oil rig.  Thats 100K for 30days on, 30days off.

  12. Anonymous
    August 13th, 2011 @ 9:20 pm

    Keep in mind Dennis Kucinich can only have 5 appointees at each service academy at one time, but he has hundreds of thousands at universities across the country.