Friday, September 30, 2005

Life Among the Intellectualoids

There are plenty of other scandals in the Nation's Capitol besides the alleged Republican pecadilloes our friends in the MSM are reporting. Like the outrageous behavior of American University's current (suspended) Prez, Benjamin Ladner. In addition to a roughly $800K salary for himself, Ladner has indulged first class travel, a personal chef, an $80K job for his wife, and heavens knows what else. Hey, AU students...ever wonder why your tuition continues to skyrocket?

The AU Board of Trustees was about to roll over on this outrage and reinstate Ladner, but the Washington Post's relentless reportage seems to have tipped things the other way, as per today's update:

A majority on American University's Board of Trustees has concluded that suspended President Benjamin Ladner must be replaced, according to two sources close to the board. One trustee said some board members are negotiating to get Ladner a generous package for his departure.

If you added up the cost of room, board, and tuition these days at even an average state university, let alone a private institution like AU, the figure encompassing a single year of higher education would begin to rival a pretty good-sized mortgage, at least in the nation's hinterlands. And herein lies one of the great scandals of the still-new 21st century--the out-of-control expense of a college education in the United States. With their doctrinaire leftism, institutionalized political correctness, and an atmosphere of intellectual fear, today's American universities increasingly resemble tony concentration camps. And price for the privilege of attending these intellectual morgues continues to significantly outpace increased costs even for healthcare. And yet, save for isolated outrages such as the AU scandal, the lack of fiscal and intellectual accountability is largely unreported even though its negative effect on the earning power of the average middle class family at least rivals the cost of health insurance.

The current story was apparently too much even for the Post and AU's heretofore wimpy board, not to mention the beleaguered students who've started to demonstrate for Ladner's permanent ouster.

But don't imagine that the Ladner scandal is an isolated incident. The indespensible Victor Davis Hanson has a whole lot more on America's intellectual sinkholes. Read about it here.

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