James Cote and anton Allahar turn their back on political correctness to question higher education practices in Canada today. They take issue with the belief in the need for mass university higher education. A few points to tickle your noodle:

#1 Only 16% of jobs in 2000 required a university degree, up only 3% since 1990.
#2 30% of jobs required community college or apprenticeship.
#3 Students expect higher grades than in the past and put in less and less effort each decade.
#4 Retention goals create grade inflation because you cannot fail so many ill-prepared and ill performing students. Less students = less funding = less faculty? So you have to grade lighter.
#5 Many employers ask for degrees only to help them sort through job applications and cut their numbers down.
#6 Grade inflation at high school results in producing graduates with inadequate learning skills who do not feel the need to improve, because they got by, or were classed as excellent students.
#7 Students are agressive towards faculty when given low grades in university, if they got high marks in high school.
#8 It is clear that universities in the United States and Canada ask less of students than they did several decades ago (pg. 33).
#9 The roots of students disengagement have nothing to do with funding of higher eduction. Funding just exacerbates it.
#10 In the "feel good" culture today, nothing that causes discomfort, like new ideas?, is tollerable. With little experience of failure, they are unable to cope with negative feedback.
#11 A generation ago, disengaged students would simply have quit, been failed or been expelled.
#12 Grades are inflated to increase "customer satisfaction".
#13 Given the resukts-oriented image engrained in pop culture, think the Donald, learning is not valued as much as passing.
#14 The spoon feeding mentality of high school means students think the professor has failed if everything they need to learn is not presented in class.
#15 Consumer mentality trumps norms like respect for authority.
#16 Path of least effort governs more and more lives.
#17 Grade just for completing the task or grade on the quality of the task?
#18 Graduates of university have an aversion for the routine and drudgery that accompnay most jobs and an unwillingness to recognize that they are the new ones in the workplace and they have to pay their dues.
#19 Professors have grown increasingly insecure and disempowered while students have become increasingly bold and manipulative.
#20 Credentialism Paradox: credentialed skills often have little to do with the work that is eventually performed but without the credentials, one's employability and earning power are seriously jeopardized. (pg 173).

How do you like 'dem apples?