John Taylor
06-30-2010, 05:31 PM
http://www.detnews.com/article/20100624/OPINION03/6240332/Hillsdale-continues-to-just-say-no#ixzz0rnJ7PR3i
As the federal government grows so much bigger and more powerful, it also becomes harder to avoid.
Larry Arnn, president of Hillsdale College, makes separation of education and state a core mission as he guides one of the only -- perhaps the only -- colleges in the country that doesn't take a dime of taxpayer cash.
It isn't easy. The federal government is like a schoolyard pusher, constantly trying to entice new users and menacing those who refuse its goodies.
Arnn recently wrote to supporters explaining the government takeover of the student loan program, which was tacked onto the recent health care legislation. The southern Michigan college isn't directly affected because its students don't get federally subsidized loans. But as the government takes over higher education, it ups the pressure on Hillsdale, which is competing with schools that receive up to a third of their tuition revenue from federal programs.
"We are in a competitive market, and we're already at a disadvantage because we're remote, we're private, we're in a cold climate and we're difficult," Arnn says. "Add in that it's a lot cheaper to go somewhere else because of the government subsidies, and we have to do much more to make our students whole."
Hillsdale, with 1,400 students, does that with a $280 million endowment that is used almost entirely to provide scholarships. Ninety percent of its students get tuition assistance either from the college or from its legion of supporters, who rally to Hillsdale's in-your-face defiance of federal meddling.
Hillsdale doesn't take taxpayer money because it doesn't want to accept government strings. Arnn sees the entanglements growing ever tighter. For example, he cites in his letter the new data mining by the Education Department, which is asking colleges for much more detail on students' ethnic and racial backgrounds. Arnn presumes the information will help decide how to parcel out student aid.
That's not information Hillsdale could provide, even it had to. The college is one of the last true meritocracies. There's no place on its application for racial identity, and it doesn't know the racial make-up of its student body until it shows up on campus in the fall.
"The purpose of education is not diversity," Arnn says. "It's truth."
I was a Pulliam Fellow at Hillsdale a couple of years ago, and arrived on campus expecting, because of Hillsdale's ultra-conservative reputation, a classroom of rigid, ideologically programmed students.
What I found instead were some of the brightest young people I've ever met, and some of the most open-minded. They were far more willing to challenge convention than their peers at larger, state universities who are cowed by intellectual intolerance.
Hillsdale students sign a code of honor when they enter the school, but are subject to the bare minimum of rules and regulations governing their personal behavior. In fact, Arnn says, each year the college examines its rulebook with the goal of making it smaller.
It fits the school's governing principles, which Arnn describes as being drawn from the Constitution -- as written by the Founders, not as twisted by judges and politicians.
As those founding principles fall one by one to the forces of entitlement and collectivism, Hillsdale serves as a museum of America as it was intended.
Arnn's fear is that he'll "wake up someday and Hillsdale will be illegal."
If that day comes, we'll know our grand experiment truly has failed.
As the federal government grows so much bigger and more powerful, it also becomes harder to avoid.
Larry Arnn, president of Hillsdale College, makes separation of education and state a core mission as he guides one of the only -- perhaps the only -- colleges in the country that doesn't take a dime of taxpayer cash.
It isn't easy. The federal government is like a schoolyard pusher, constantly trying to entice new users and menacing those who refuse its goodies.
Arnn recently wrote to supporters explaining the government takeover of the student loan program, which was tacked onto the recent health care legislation. The southern Michigan college isn't directly affected because its students don't get federally subsidized loans. But as the government takes over higher education, it ups the pressure on Hillsdale, which is competing with schools that receive up to a third of their tuition revenue from federal programs.
"We are in a competitive market, and we're already at a disadvantage because we're remote, we're private, we're in a cold climate and we're difficult," Arnn says. "Add in that it's a lot cheaper to go somewhere else because of the government subsidies, and we have to do much more to make our students whole."
Hillsdale, with 1,400 students, does that with a $280 million endowment that is used almost entirely to provide scholarships. Ninety percent of its students get tuition assistance either from the college or from its legion of supporters, who rally to Hillsdale's in-your-face defiance of federal meddling.
Hillsdale doesn't take taxpayer money because it doesn't want to accept government strings. Arnn sees the entanglements growing ever tighter. For example, he cites in his letter the new data mining by the Education Department, which is asking colleges for much more detail on students' ethnic and racial backgrounds. Arnn presumes the information will help decide how to parcel out student aid.
That's not information Hillsdale could provide, even it had to. The college is one of the last true meritocracies. There's no place on its application for racial identity, and it doesn't know the racial make-up of its student body until it shows up on campus in the fall.
"The purpose of education is not diversity," Arnn says. "It's truth."
I was a Pulliam Fellow at Hillsdale a couple of years ago, and arrived on campus expecting, because of Hillsdale's ultra-conservative reputation, a classroom of rigid, ideologically programmed students.
What I found instead were some of the brightest young people I've ever met, and some of the most open-minded. They were far more willing to challenge convention than their peers at larger, state universities who are cowed by intellectual intolerance.
Hillsdale students sign a code of honor when they enter the school, but are subject to the bare minimum of rules and regulations governing their personal behavior. In fact, Arnn says, each year the college examines its rulebook with the goal of making it smaller.
It fits the school's governing principles, which Arnn describes as being drawn from the Constitution -- as written by the Founders, not as twisted by judges and politicians.
As those founding principles fall one by one to the forces of entitlement and collectivism, Hillsdale serves as a museum of America as it was intended.
Arnn's fear is that he'll "wake up someday and Hillsdale will be illegal."
If that day comes, we'll know our grand experiment truly has failed.