Just 65.9 percent of students who graduated from high school in spring 2013 had enrolled in college by last October, the government reported this week. That was the lowest proportion since 2003. But the government also reported that among those graduates who did not go to college, and among new high school dropouts, the proportion with jobs was higher in 2013 than in the previous year, a possible indication that the job market is improving.
“The thesis of the book is that the university essentially facilitates (seemingly knowingly, and in some aspects strategically) a party pathway through college, which works reasonably well for students who come from very privileged backgrounds. The facilitatory methods include: reasonably scrupulous enforcement of alcohol bans in the dorms (thus enhancing the capacity of the fraternities to monopolize control of illegal drinking and, incidentally, forcing women to drink in environments where they are more vulnerable to sexual assault); providing easy majors which affluent students can take which won’t interfere with their partying, and which will lead to jobs for them, because they have connections in the media or the leisure industries that will enable them to get jobs without good credentials; and assigning students to dorms based on choice (my students confirm that dorms have reputations as party, or nerdy, or whatever, dorms that ensure that they retain their character over time, despite 100% turnover in residents every year).”
shaun james bockert 