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The decline of of the education system is oft commented and debated...

But its rare one finds such a dramatic demonstration of the decline

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The implications are clear.

School has measurably gotten remarkably dumber over the past 80 years such that the intelligence require to complete an undergraduate degree today is LESS than the intelligence required to graduate Highschool in the 1940s.

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You might be taken aback by this, I was.

but a few anecdotes from the 40s quickly disabuse you of any doubt.

In the 40s you could leave high-school and go directly into management track at a bank... at the Time when "branch manager" was a profession on par with town doctor

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In the 40s and well into the 70s 2 year teachers college, even in regions where teachers are paid remarkably well, began immediately after Highschool and getting a bachelors degree would qualify one to become a principal at a large school.

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When you see the standards however you can understand why such intelligence would be needed

in the 20s Harvard freshmen were required to know the sources of the Danube, Volga, Ganges, and Amazon rivers from memory

And fluency in Latin and Greek were required for admittance

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Education up until the 40s were an artifact of European civilization dating back to the very early modern era. In continuity with what some like Arthur Wellesley (Victor at Waterloo) might have studied at Eton, or Shakespeare at King's New School

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the expectation of these schools was to produce exquisite specimens in both mind, body, and a perfection of education.

Many of These schools were equally unrelenting in physical education, and there is still something of an upper-class British body type some still produce

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So what the hell happened!?

Forget universities, why aren't High-schools, still producing students fluent in Latin?

Why are universities accepting students who don't know the Ganges originates in the Himalayas?

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The G.I. Bill and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

After WW2 millions of moderately capable and poorly or incompletely educated veterans were foisted on the university system with no hopes that standards would be maintained.

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Where before students were expect to arrive already fluent in Greek, Latin, & Proofs and Logic

Now Professors were happy if they could just get their students to read an English translation of the Odyssey

Your modern classical education:

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What's worse is due to the massive amounts of subsidies on offer, the G.I. bill centralized the university system under more or less direct government control.

There are no "private" universities when billions in tax dollars are poured annually on these institutions.

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This has been a vehicle both for incredible social and ideological control.

Even religious seminaries traditionally attached to private schools have been forced to change policies due to accreditor pressure

The department of Ed might determine your church's theology

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And of course the decline of these once excellent institutions has only continued in the social justice era..

But the collapse of traditional standards of Excellence didn't begin with AA or any of that... it began with some of the most popular social programs in US history

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realistically the bottom 30-40% of students cannot achieve what would have once been considered a 6th or 8th grade education, and another 20-30% shouldn't graduate highschool.

They should be tested, failed, and encouraged to dropout.

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Then instead of wasting 12 years to read at a 6th grade reading level, they could have 6 years of work after hitting the 6th grade, and maybe be established after completing an apprenticeship.

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But the real victims are those who could be learning... but aren't.

Modern Schooling is a hellish prison... both because you're trapped there, but also because its doing what prisons are designed to do: Destroy your time and Youth.

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We know what the top 30% of students could be doing. We saw it in the 40s. We know what the top 10% of students could be doing. We saw the excellence that Universities produced before the 40s

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Instead they're wasting a decade+ of their lives watching other kids fail to learn

And that's when they're not being brutalized by them.

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And before any of you try to bring it up, THE FLYNN EFFECT has reversed for well over 30 years.

Increased graduation rates are entirely the result of collapsing standards. As anyone with eyes can tell

PS.

I also write long form content.

Check out my piece on the horrific state of legacy media... and how it basically sustains itself through blackmail and influence peddling

https://anarchonomicon.substack.com/p/why-is-legacy-media-like-this