DivestU

Year after year, Americans pour billions of dollars into colleges and universities.

I'm not talking about the outrageous tuition costs, living expenses, and fees – the debt pit students fall into. And I'm not talking about the tax money – our money – colleges and universities get from federal and state governments. I'm talking about the money Americans are handing over to these institutions of their own free will.

In 2017, that number was $44 billion. $44 billion in donations in one year from alumni and other donors. And for what? To enhance the education of America's youth?

Do you really think our college graduates are better educated, more literate, more versed in classical philosophy and American history than they were ten, twenty, or fifty years ago?

If your child goes to college and spends four years partying, skipping class, and playing video games, consider yourself lucky. It's when they actually listen to their radical professors that you're in trouble.

So what have our institutions been doing with all this money?

Well, the University of Michigan's Vice Provost of Equity and Inclusion makes $400,000 a year. The university spends close to eleven million dollars annually on diversity and inclusion staff and programs, according to a recent report.

What do you think Vice Provosts of Equity and Inclusion (and almost all schools have one now) do all day? They, and the small armies they supervise, spend all day, every day, looking for racism, sexism, classism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia and any other phobias they can dream up. If they don't find some bias somewhere, they're out of a job. So, guess what? They find it – even where it doesn't exist.

The University of California at Santa Cruz now has an "activist-in-residence." His job is to mint new leftist activists – as if we have a shortage.

Why are we voluntarily giving billions and billions of dollars to hopelessly corrupt institutions that overcharge, underdeliver and undermine the most basic values of Western Civilization? We should be starving this beast. Instead, we're feeding it.

Are there exceptions to this rule? Colleges that are actually dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom? Of course, there are – and they are worthy of your financial support. But you can count them on two hands. The rest have a different mission. And they have more than enough coin to carry it out.

The aforementioned University of Michigan has an endowment of 12 billion dollars. But that's small potatoes compared to Yale's $30 billion or Harvard's $40 billion. And donors keep giving them more.

It's time to stop.

You'd be better throwing your money into a bonfire. That's just a waste. But when you donate to your average university, you're actually hurting your society.

You're the reason kids – maybe your kids – are coming home:

• Loving socialism and hating free market capitalism; • Believing male and female don't objectively exist; • Excusing rockets being shot into Israel, then blaming Israel for defending itself; • Romanticizing Che Guevara and reviling George Washington; • And dismissing America, arguably the most decent country ever created, as racist, genocidal, imperialist, white-supremacist, hate-filled, and misogynistic.

Your children are being fed a steady diet of this nihilism in grade school, middle school, and high school. But they have to come home for dinner every night.

College is where the leftist deal is sealed. They're free of your influence and under the sway of their leftist professors and leftist peers.

Stop supporting institutions that don't support your values; that, in fact, despise your values. And, believe me, they despise you when you're back is turned. The only thing they love about you is your money.

Oh, you might say, I would never give money for all that diversity, equity, and inclusion nonsense! I designate my donations to the business school or the medical center. If you think that, you're fooling yourself. Money is fungible. You can designate it for anything you want, but you can't control what the university does with it.

I travel around the country every week trying to rescue kids from the leftist cult that is college. It's bad enough that I have to battle administrators, professors, and leftist student bodies. I shouldn't have to fight you, too.

College has become a big business. Most indoctrinate rather than educate. The best way to force them to change is to take away their cash. Your cash. Start today.

I'm Charlie Kirk, founder and president of Turning Point USA, for Prager University.