Is College a Hindrance to Intelligence?

It’s amazing how, in our age of the great unraveling, we see the value of a college education imploding before our eyes.

The evil Hamas did in Israel on October 7th, 2023 — leaving 1,400 Israelis dead in brutal attacks on men, women, children, and even babies — revealed their true goals. But many college students are defending them.

Many Jews on campuses of some of our leading universities feel at risk. For example, the New York Post reports that on October 11, “a 24-year old Israeli student was beaten with a stick” on the Columbia University campus, right outside the main library.

Foxnews.com reports, “Columbia is one of many elite institutions across America that is being rocked by accusations of excusing antisemitism as the debate over the Israel-Hamas war continues.” They cite an example of a professor who “wrote an article highlighting the efforts of Hamas fighters invading Israel.” He favored them.

Such actions prompted an assistant professor at Columbia Business School, who is an Israeli-American, to call out the president of Columbia University as a “coward” for his silence in the wake of such anti-Semitism.

The founders of Columbia would be rolling in their graves if they knew what was happening there today. Columbia University began as King’s College in 1754. An early advertisement for the school declared, “The chief thing that is aimed at in this college is to teach and engage children to know God in Jesus Christ.” Somehow, Jesus Christ doesn’t seem so welcome at Columbia these days.

But, alas, Columbia is not unique in terms of pro-Hamas protests. Consider the anti-Israel protests at a number of our most prestigious schools:

After the Hamas attack of October 7, about 30 Harvard student groups famously sent out a pro-Palestinian statement: “We hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.”
At Cornell University a professor expressed his enthusiasm for what Hamas did on October 7th. He gushed, “It was exhilarating. It was energizing.”
A University of Pennsylvania librarian reportedly tore down posters of Israelis held hostage by Hamas.

And on it goes. What a contrast to the founding of most of these schools.

The Christian foundation of the majority of the great universities in America is well-documented.

For instance, one school stated, “Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well the main end of his life and studies is to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life, John 17:3, and therefore to lay Christ … as the only sound foundation of all knowledge and learning.” That school was Harvard. Goals that are still high, lofty, and worthy.

But we fast forward to today, and we see the influence of Marxism at war with the Judeo-Christian tradition, and even Jews and Christians themselves.

Last week, Gary Bauer, founder of American Values, wrote: “Jewish students on American university campuses are fearful and hiding in their dorm rooms. The hatred for them is so pronounced that they are hiding on the campuses where their parents are paying $40,000 a year or more for their children to be educated.”

The situation on campus has gotten so bad that Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) proposed a resolution that “unequivocally condemns Hamas and the hateful, antisemitic rhetoric that the recent terrorist attack has inspired on our college campuses.” Democrats blocked his proposal.

The Marxists have taken over some of our most prestigious schools. Marxists believe that there are the oppressors and the oppressed. In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Jews are allegedly the oppressors, and Hamas, the oppressed.

Greg Gutfield, the late-night Fox News commentator, pulled no punches on these college professors standing with Hamas: “Isn’t it time to focus on the indoctrinators, not just the indoctrinated? Because it’s the ones doing the brainwashing that matter most. Every day there’s another story about an Ivy League professor praising the murder of Jews. They live in such a bubble that they think those [Israeli] babies deserve to die because they’re oppressors.”

In effect, the Hamas-Israeli crisis has pulled down the veil on what’s been happening in some of our most elite schools of higher learning in the nation. But it’s also true even in a lot of state universities.

So many of them have become hotbeds of Marxism. They have become centers of indoctrination, not education.

Even Bill Maher, the late-night libertarian commentator, stated the other day: “As an Ivy League graduate who knows the value of a liberal education, I have one piece of advice for the youth of America: Don’t go to college.” He even said that college “makes you stupid.”

Today a college education is not what it was worth a few decades ago. Some employers are questioning whether a college education is even necessary for candidates they are considering hiring. With trends like the pro-Hamas push on too many campuses, who can blame them?

Jerry Newcombe, D.Min., is the executive director of the Providence Forum, an outreach of D. James Kennedy Ministries, where Jerry also serves as senior producer and an on-air host. He has written/co-written 33 books, including George Washington’s Sacred Fire (with Providence Forum founder Peter Lillback, Ph.D.) and What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? (with D. James Kennedy, Ph.D.). www.djkm.org? @newcombejerry www.jerrynewcombe.com