Elitist Professors Make Poor Judges of Character (A Response to Professor Thomas Morse)

Well, rather than tackle some large publication, I decided to tackle the stupidity in an Op-Ed article of my college newspaper, written by a foul, elitist snob who knows so little about the real world that it is more than a little insulting.  But we’re going to keep this professional (since this guy sounds like the sue-when-butthurt type), so we will attack his points in the aforementioned article.

The article is in my college newspaper, The Northern Light.  We are going to be using the article in the physical paper itself, since the online article could be changed.  The premise of this article is that financial aid should not be given to first-year student.  The professor also makes an argument that athletic scholarships should be gotten rid of entirely, because the people who earn them aren’t worthy.  Their one scrap of evidence is pathetic.

A disclosure before we get too far into this – I do NOT like athletics at my college.  We are building a new sports center, for the express purpose of making money, and I think that it is an eye-sore that is wasting this college’s academic potential.  With that said, I will get to why this man’s argument that athletic scholarships are a waste of time is BS in a second.

The man’s argument for why first-year student shouldn’t get financial aid is such hyperbole that it is almost amazing.  The argument is that since they are given “free money,” they will waste their time and not try.  Uh, what universe did this professor come from?  He makes a point later that the kids who are given financial aid think that college is high school and treat it as such.  What’s more, he makes the argument that so many kids don’t try because there are so many banks who give loans with “loan forgiveness” as a regular thing.

Here’s an article, Professor Morse, from a person 1001X smarter than you, who did that much more research than you.  His name is Matt Taibbi.  This article (linked here) appears in Rolling Stone magazine, talking about how the Obama administration nationalized student loans.  Now, it is easier than ever to get a loan to go to college.  The stated reason for this was so that more students could get to college.  However, for the poor kid who takes out one of these loans, what they don’t realize is that they are entering into financial slavery, for probably the rest of their lives.  What’s that, they should have known better?  Gee, who is telling them the truth?  You?  Are you telling students about how ugly this government’s efforts to get their money back is?  Financial Aid people sure as hell aren’t.  No, they are very happy with not telling them about the dilemma they are entering into.  Know why?  Because if students knew the truth, they wouldn’t go to college!

See, this is the problem – this elitist professor, who is so proud of his own narrow intellect sees everything through his arrogant filter, excluding the truth.  He, quite literally, doesn’t know better.

But to your second point – all athletic scholarships should be gotten rid of.  The argument the professor makes is that the students who get these haven’t earned it.  I guess, in his mind, if a student is good at sports, they are obviously stupid.  Is that really what you think?  He also arrogantly says that scholarships for the arts should be gotten rid of too.  I guess poets and writers are just beneath him.  Arrogant bastard.  His defense of his position was the snafu at Oklahoma State.  Does this man honestly think that other academic departments aren’t rampant with corruption?  In my own degree program, there is a professor who bribes his students with good grades while not doing his job.  Corruption exists within every institution.  It’s called human nature.  I was unaware that you were above it.

For those who think that I am going after this man a little hard, you’re right.  No mercy here.  This kind of elitist arrogance annoys me, because it displays a blatant misunderstanding of the students that this professor claims to be in support of.  Do you know who the real people who don’t care are?  The people who treat this like high school?  They are the students who are having their education paid for by mommy and daddy.  I had an old roommate here at the dorms like that.  He came to this college for the express purposes of sex and booze.  He got it in spades, then dropped out.

Elitists like Professor Morse make incredibly poor judges of character.  Just like the arrogant professors who don’t give a crap what their students think about stuff because they assume that they are already smarter and so the student isn’t worth listening to, you aren’t in touch with the real world.  It is ironic that you say that students will one day learn what it is actually like.  While I doubt that this will ever reach your eyes, I can hope that some part of this response will let you know how little you know about the “real world.”

Until next time, a quote,

“The more you learn, the less you know.”  -Omar Little, The Wire

Peace out,

Maverick