Balderdash!
“More Americans are educated now than at any time in history.”
—Tom Nichols, Professor, Naval War College
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, “for the first time in history, 90 percent of Americans over 25 years of age have finished high school. In addition, more than one-third of Americans over the age of 25 have a college degree or higher.”
Backlash!
In truth, more Americans are credentialed than at any time in history. But don’t equate credentials with education and wisdom. Being credentialed is not the same thing as being educated and wise.
In fact, many people with impressive academic credentials are poorly educated, remarkably ignorant, and unwise.
“The American higher education system has fostered civic and historical illiteracy,” reports the Washington Times.
The American Council of Trustees and Alumni, the Times notes “has issued survey after survey, all of which confirm that we have an epidemic of civic and historical illiteracy.
In 2000, ACTA released the results of a survey of the historical knowledge of college seniors at the 55 top-ranked colleges and universities in the country.
More than 80 percent of those surveyed would have received a “D” or “F” if it had been an exam.
A 2012 survey found that less than 20 percent of American college graduates knew the effect of the Emancipation Proclamation, and only 42 percent knew that the Battle of the Bulge occurred during World War II.
And in 2014, a survey found that more than a quarter of college graduates didn’t know Franklin D. Roosevelt was president during World War II, and one-third didn’t know he was the president who spearheaded the New Deal.
And all of these questions were multiple choice.
It is not without reason that William F. Buckley, Jr. famously said:
I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the Boston telephone directory than by the 2,000 people on the faculty of Harvard University.
The average non-credentialed American, Buckley observed, shows more wisdom than our credentialed political leaders and so-called intellectuals.
Next!
Feature photo credit: Two wise men: William F. Buckley, Jr. and Ronald Reagan (National Review).
