Why It Is So Easy For Colleges to Get Away With It

This article,

Vanderbilt Rape Convictions Stir Both Outrage and Denial – NYTimes.com.

is about a horrendous rape, but it contains excellent insights into why colleges can get away with so much; whether it be covering up campus crime, letting football players get away with crimes, or, cheating students out of an education.  I explain in my comment.

“..Though this article is about a horrendous crime on an “elite” campus, it describes why it is so hard to clean up higher education.

Many colleges have been taken over by con-men. It shows up everywhere. Rape and football are the most visible symptoms. I know. I’m a former professor. I taught at one of those “elite” schools.

Even as college kids think that violence can’t happen to them, many are being robbed daily – by their institutions and professors.

Here is the famous sociologist, David Riesman, on the topic (25 years ago!) – followed by this article’s great observations that show why what he describes is so easy to do.

“..advantage..be taken of [students] by unscrupulous instructors and institutions..the student estate often does not grasp its own interests..those who speak in its name are not always its friends..the ‘wants’ of students to which competing institutions, departments, and individual faculty…cater are quite different from the ‘needs, of students..”

(To see schools doing this, read “A Tale Out of School”, or, search for “deflation” on my blog, inside-higher-ed .)

These quotes from the article point out why it is so easy to scam students.

“..[students] find it hard to square what happened with their views of this elite university.”

“..This is not the sort of place where such things happen..”

All of us better stop seeing colleges as our neatly dressed, respectable old British Uncle. He died long ago and his wayward son inherited his wardrobe.