How Crass Can A College Get?

A lot of press is being given to a college in South Carolina for the way they treat their students.

For approximately $36,000 a year, here's what you get for your money from High Point University if your student is looking to be treated like a rock star:

1. an ice cream truck roams the campus giving away free ice cream all day;

2. music is piped into the walkways between buildings;

3. snack kiosks are situated with an endless supply of free bananas, pretzels and drinks;

4. each student receives a birthday card signed by the president, with balloons and a Starbucks gift card inside;

5. gift baskets of snacks and drinks are dropped off at student rooms when they return from breaks;

6. to get exactly what students want, the university maintains a database of each student's preferences in movies, candy bars, and sodas; and my favorite...

7. upon request, wake-up calls in the morning and afternoon.

This is the Club Med of academia. Did I mention that there are people there who actually teach courses if your student wants to take some?

The press reports indicate that the university's passion for "customer service" is paying off. Enrollment has never been higher. Should the term "customer service" apply to an academic environment? If you don't think so, you and I are both clueless.

In May of 2006 Brown University's president told an incoming freshman class: "You are the smartest, the cutest, the savviest, most dynamic, extraordinary - I could go on and on."

As long as colleges continue to baby our kids, the less prepared they will be for the daily demands and tough expectations of real living.

This story is not an aberration. It highlights the college trend in pampering the next generation. The injustice such schools are doing to these students is incalculable.

The focus is not so much on academics, but on what can we do to make your student more self-absorbed and narcissistic. "It's all about me" in a lah-lah world that has no shame with indulging in crass commercialism while making you pay through the nose. Okay...so I'm totally clueless.

Once our students discover how the world works after graduation, they'll complain that it was a wake-up call they never requested.