38 WAYS COLLEGE STUDENTS ENJOY ‘LEFT-WING PRIVILEGE’ ON CAMPUS: In Time magazine of all places; here’s a quick sample:

1. I can, if I wish, arrange to be in the company of people of my political persuasion most of the time.

2. I can spend my entire college career taking only classes with professors who think exactly as I do.

3. I can take classes and earn degrees in departments that are designed to line up exactly with my worldview.

4. I can be sure that an overwhelming majority of the material I am assigned to read for class will confirm what I already believe.

5. My professors will assume that I already think just like them, and use examples and anecdotes that testify to our philosophical uniformity.

Read the whole thing. As David Horowitz once said, “you can’t get a good education if you’re only hearing one side of the story.”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: D.I.Y. Education Before YouTube.

For the striving youths of 19th-century America, learning was often a self-driven, year-round process. Devouring books by candlelight and debating issues by bonfire, the young men and women of the so-called “go-ahead generation” worked to educate themselves into a better life.

Is this old-fashioned culture of self-improvement making a comeback? The mainstream school system — with its barrage of tests, Common Core and “excellent sheep” — encourages learning as a passive, standardized process. But here and there, with the help of YouTube and thousands of podcasts, a growing group of students and adults are beginning to supplement their education.

School isn’t going away. But more and more people are realizing what their 19th-century predecessors knew: that the best learning is often self-taught.

Back then, it was a matter of necessity. There were plenty of schoolhouses in 19th-century America, but few young people could attend them regularly. They had to work. Most pieced together a semester of classes here, three months there.

In 1870, students averaged under 80 days in school each year. Even though America had incredibly high literacy rates, and admirable schools for those with free time, most young Americans supplemented formal schooling with their own makeshift curriculums.

“Even though?” Maybe that’s backwards.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE EDITION: 22-year-old college student blows her $90,000 college fund and blames her parents: “Maybe they should have taught me to budget or something.”