Intellectual Diversity on the College Campus (Part 2)

The Washington Post has an interesting article about the concerns parents have about college admissions and the drastically liberal atmosphere.

Colleges have long been hotbeds of political agitation, of course. But where it was once students who did the acting out, as they spread their intellectual and philosophical wings, now the professors and administrators are more likely to be playing politics — and more and more Americans with college-age kids are getting fed up with it. In 18 years of in-the-trenches experience counseling kids on their college choices, I’ve never seen the unhappiness as widespread as it is today. If colleges don’t tone down the politics, and figure out how to control ballooning costs, they run the risk of turning off enough American consumers that many campuses could marginalize themselves right out of existence.

Colleges are having an ever-harder time making what they do comprehensible to the families footing the bills. I counsel families of all political stripes — liberal, conservative and in-between — and varied income levels, but they all agree on one thing: the overly politicized atmosphere on campuses is distracting colleges from providing a solid education to our young people.

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As a consultant, I feel the need to advise my clients to cover all their political bases. Recently, I was advising an Eagle Scout who was justifiably proud of his accomplishment and wanted to highlight it on his college applications. But I worried that the national Boy Scouts’ stand against homosexuals as scout leaders might somehow count against him in the admissions process at some schools. So I suggested that he get involved in an AIDS hotline to show his sensitivity to an issue often linked to the gay community.

The need for this kind of double-thinking is good for my consulting practice, but I find it troubling. Yet trying to anticipate potential concerns about my students’ backgrounds or qualifications is something I increasingly feel I have to do.

Think about it. An EAGLE SCOUT has to work an AIDS hotline to help with his college admission. Tell me this is not absurd!

Hat Tip Instapundit