academe is trash at this point... I'm glad I missed this train

Seen at Instapundit:

Is Harvard Turning Into A Huge Joke?

When people think of elite higher education, we think of Harvard University. But, if one academic trend is anything to go by, Harvard is turning into a joke.

A recent column in the Harvard Crimson makes it clear that the university is becoming a glorified academic daycare where every student gets a trophy or, in this case, an A. The average GPA at Harvard is now 3.8 … out of 4.0, according to Crimson data analyst Aden Barton.

That’s up from 3.3 in 1991. Are we supposed to believe that college students are just that much smarter now than decades ago?

Nope. College, even at the most elite universities, is just getting a whole lot easier. Harvard actually had to abolish the “Dean’s List” because it became such a joke that by its final year, 92% of students were receiving the “award.” The same fate may await GPAs at Harvard, seeing as, according to Barton, “if grade inflation continues at its 2021-2022 pace, for example, the average GPA of the Class of 2028 would be over 4.0.”

This phenomenon is called grade inflation, and it’s not just happening at Harvard. Research by Stuart Rojstaczer has found that grades at almost all colleges have significantly inflated in recent decades, with A’s now becoming the most common grade given out. . . .

Universities are so desperate to keep the money flowing in that they’ll do whatever students want, including giving out A’s like candy on Halloween.

To think I used to want to get a Ph.D. Degrees don't mean anything anymore because the left turns everything it touches into shit, especially when it comes to academe. It's such a shame, too. Looking back at my Master's program in religious studies, I see definite signs of wokeness even back in the early 2000s. Grad school is where I swallowed the seawater of postmodernism and initially loved it because I thought I saw how it dovetailed with Buddhism. Took years to deprogram myself from that. A class I took in feminist christology was a joke, as I recall. Many in my department were devotees of a Canadian Catholic priest named Bernard Lonergan. Lonergan wrote dense philosophical works; I found his style annoying, although I think he may have been onto something deep. Still, most of my department was of the opinion that Lonergan's work was not to be questioned, and if you were less than impressed with Lonergan, your grade could suffer (as mine did in one class where the prof was a die-hard Lonerganian). I don't think Lonergan qualifies as woke, per se, but my larger point is that academe was, on the whole, in the grip of a malaise.

I hesitated for years about getting a doctorate; my old Korean prof thought that stopping at a Master's was just a waste of time. But teaching classes in today's hypersensitive, don't-offend-anyone-or-else environment just strikes me as crazy. While I could arguably be following a more productive and fulfilling path, I'm glad I missed this particular train. It would have led to my quitting the campus forever. So why not cut out the middleman and just quit the campus before all the suffering starts?