College is a time for challenges

A new book titled Higher Education?: How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money And Failing Our Kids — And What We Can Do About It has been generating a lot of attention in the past month.

Attacking an established — and extremely profitable — institution leads to many interview requests. The news service Reuters interviewed one of the authors, Andrew Hacker, about his opinions regarding higher education.

"Undergraduates are being neglected," Hacker said in the Reuters interview. "Higher education has become the preserve of professors … (who) really have lost contact with the main purpose of higher education, which is the education of students."

The book attempts to persuade students and parents into ignoring the popular schools. The colleges, Hacker claims, that often spend too much money and time on sports and research programs. It encourages future attendees to choose a school that focuses more on teaching.  

We agree with the book that the first goal of every college professor should be providing a good education for students. But we also understand it isn't just up to them. The students have a say in what type of education they receive on various levels.

The popular website RateMyProfessor.com, which boasts reviews of 6,000 schools, 1 million professors and 10 million opinions, proves that what students want plays a very important role in what type of education they receive.

Simply put, some students like having classes taught by teachers who are too busy to know their names let alone if they turned in their assignments on time.  

On more occasions than we would like to admit, we have heard students talking about "how easy this semester will be" because all of the teachers they chose had awesome reviews on RateMyProfessor.com. College is not supposed to be easy. If it is — whether you or your teacher make it that way — it is not achieving its one goal, which is to stimulate and challenge your mind.

Then there are the students who take all of the classes with the easiest professors whose profiles on RateMyProfessor.com promise little to no work and still manage to barely pass the class. If you got into college, then you are clearly smart enough to do well in college.

The problem that many students face is that they are finally given a choice about their education. Performing well in high school isn't really an option in most American homes. If you want to have a life outside of school, you usually have to do fairly well in school first.

There is no reason you should stop performing well, though. Who wants to brag about that in 10 years? "Oh yeah, well I took the easiest classes in college and got all C's," isn't the type of phrase you hear thrown around at class reunions. Do yourself a favor and pick the classes taught by professors that will push you to achieve more than you ever thought possible. Then push yourself to get good grades.