NCSU can teach you how to fish

I hope your advisor does not read our blog.

The purpose of my post here is to make the point that higher education, however, is not a right. Anyone who has ever taken a political theory class can explain this to you in about two minutes. My comments about minimum IQ is only to make the point that a large portion of any given population are necessarily excluded from higher education. You can’t call something a “right” under these circumstances.

As far as my IQ goes, sturner, lets just say that according to my GRE scores for the graduate school I am attending, I scored in the top 99th percentile. I’ll let you do the math since you are so much more intelligent than I am. As far as ECU’s reputation for having low standards of admission for the undergraduate programs, I agree completely. ECU is far more concerned with quanity than quality. This is one of the reasons I have such a strong opinion about this whole notion that higher education is a “right”.

Your theory of minimal IQ needed to succeed in college is self-evidently flawed…being that you are an ECU Pirate.

I understand if your ideas are based on simply looking out for what is best for you. However, if you are trying to make a point about what’s good and just, your statements seem self-contradictory.

If by we, you mean Americans citizens then that would mean illegal immigrants do not belong to this group. If you mean anyone who manages to sneak onto US soil, does that mean terrorists have a “right to education” if they make it across our borders? If you mean all human beings, then shouldn’t we just get rid of all borders and allow everyone on earth to come and go on our college campuses? Do we get rid of the system of in-state and out-of-state tuition in this case?

If by “right of education” you mean that education is something that people who have the means to access it should not be denied, then that isn’t really a right is it? That is would be describing a privilege. If on the other hand you mean that it is a right in the sense that anyone who wants to participate should be guaranteed the opportunity, that creates a whole series of problems.

For one, it is generally considered to be the case that a person needs at least a 100 IQ to be successful in an undergraduate program, at least a 110 to be successful in a graduate program, and at least 130 IQ to be successful in a doctorate program. Since 100 IQ is the median and IQ is represented by a bell curve, 1/2 of the sample of any given population are considered mentally incapable of completing an undergraduate degree

So if “We all have a right to education”, shouldn’t we lower the standards to the point that even folks with an IQ of 30 could successfully complete our undergraduate and post-graduate degree programs? But what about the poor soul with an IQ of 28? :-(

If we don’t lower the standard, then we are acknowledging the fact that about 1/2 of the population are mentally incapable of completing college. When only 1/2 of the population can participate, that is hardly a right…

Second: to justify the practical impact of this decision by saying that only a small number of undocumented immigrants will be able to access this opportunity because of the out-of-state tuition hurdle is not only a chicken way of softening the blow for those who oppose undocumented immigrants in our country but is also discriminatory–not based on immigration status but on economic class. So WEALTHY undocumented immigrants get to access higher education but poor ones don’t ? Well, that’s just a damn warm fuzzy Hallmark Moment, ain’t it?