Rate of violent crimes up sharply on American college campuses

A new report from federal law enforcement officials that looked at violence on campus over the past century found that the rate of violent crimes has increased sharply over the past 20 years. In fact, half the violent crimes that occurred on campus since 1910 happened in the past twenty years.

You can read a Washington Post article on this here or read the full report "Campus Attacks" here.

There is no doubt that America has become a more violent place over the past century, but I think this report also reflects the different kind of students who we send to college these days.

In 1900 only about 5 percent of high school graduates went to college. College was exclusively an ascetic refuge where the best and the brightest went to train to be the leaders of tomorrow. Since then, as the percentage of high school graduates who go on to college increased, we also sent the average and mediocre and that was bound to change the quality of life there.

Today, we send 69 percent of high school graduates to college and many of them lack even the most rudimentary understanding of reading, writing, math, history, science and geography. In fact, at least 30 percent of them are anti-intellectual and actually opposed to learning anything at all. These are the "totally disengaged" students who show up on the annual surveys of student engagement.

When classes are dumbed down in the name of being more "student friendly" and grades are inflated to increase retention, there is a lot more time for a lot more mischief. Add to that the 44 percent who are binge drinkers and you have a perfect breeding ground for student violence.

And what are colleges doing about it? Recent evidence shows they are spending millions hiring branding experts and public relations consultants to cover up the problems and project a "hey, no problems here" campaign. They go before legislative committees and testify with a straight face that there are "no crimes at all" on college campuses and no one is calling their bluff.

Virginia Tech should have been a wake-up call on this, but colleges chose to ignore it. The new report is one more warning that colleges have become increasingly dangerous places, but admitting that seems to be poor public relations.

Comments

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HI,
This is something very disappointing, because developed countries are although working to eliminate terrorism but they don't know about their own homeland. Look at the crime rate at campuses, their imperialist approach has destroyed many states just because of their approach rather terrorism and mass destruction weapons
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