NAS Blog

The remarks below were sent in from Dr. Jeremiah Reedy, who serves on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Scholars and was the founding president of the Minnesota Association of Scholars. Dr. Reedy taught Classics at Macalester College from 1968 to 2004.

The daughter of a friend from South Africa just earned an M.D. degree from a medical school in England.  It only took her five years—that is five years after graduating from high school.  Last summer a former student who lives in Cyprus introduced me to her brother who had just finished law school in Athens.  It took him four years, and again it was four years after graduating from high school. 

I know that medical and law faculties in the U.S. want students who are broadly educated and have read widely.  Given the fact, however, that many students today are not getting what has traditionally been known as a liberal arts education but are instead being indoctrinated with radical politics, wouldn’t it be a good idea for U.S medical and law schools to accept students immediately after completion of high school?  This would be an especially good idea in medicine since, if Congress passes a bill that provides universal health care, there is going to be an acute shortage of physicians.  Not only will there be a huge increase in the number of people who want to see doctors, but many physicians have said they may retire early if we have government health care.  A possible by-product of what I am proposing could be that students and teachers would begin taking high school more seriously.

 Any reactions?