As many college graduates continue to struggle with their student loan debt, a new report reveals that mandatory social justice curriculum classes share some responsibility for rising college costs.
According to a report released by the National Association of Scholars, a conservative-leaning academic think tank, the growth of social justice on campus is adding serious costs. It has reached the point where it now costs students more than $10 billion dollars a year in tuition costs and university fees to finance social-justice-oriented educational programs and expenditures.
In their findings, the authors of the report detail how many university professors and administrators have infused social justice theory and ideals into their educational curriculum, which has led to the transformation of universities into training camps for progressive activism.
In conducting the analysis, lead study author David Randall noted that he identified the cost of two social justice courses at a public university in Arizona to be roughly $4,000, a conservative estimate, and applied it to the 2.2 million students nationwide who immediately enroll in college following high school graduation. These calculations produce an estimated cost of roughly $10 billion dollars just for social justice courses, a figure that is likely an underestimate, as private universities tend to charge much higher tuition prices than public universities.
Additionally, Randall noted that his report was merely an estimation of the costs related to implementation of social justice classes in academia and did not factor in the cost of universities employing social-justice administrators such as deans of diversity. The costs of these positions, when identified, will only increase the $10 billion figure.
In summarizing his report, Randall pushes back against these disturbing developments by suggesting that we all insist against footing the bill for these social justice endeavors. For example, federal and state legislators could introduce bills that would make courses with a social justice theme ineligible for being covered by federal student loans, which would effectively cripple efforts to include them.
“Some reforms can come at the federal level — from the Department of Education, from the Department of Justice, and, with more permanent effect, from Congress,” writes Randall. “Declaring [social justice] experiential courses ineligible for federal student aid, for example, would do more to reduce social justice education than any other single act.”
This report should serve as a wake-up call for anyone concerned about rising college costs and mounting student debt. Randall is right that the time for action is now.
John Patrick is a graduate of Canisius College and Georgia Southern University. He interned for Red Alert Politics during the summer of 2012 and has continued to contribute to the Washington Examiner regularly.
