College just isn't what it used to be

WASHINGTON -- Nearing the end of a decade paying enough college tuition to own one, my interest in the doings of higher education had started to wane, but several recent developments have piqued my interest once again.
Surely you've read that the University of Iowa is offering a class on pornography. My how the Corn Belt has changed. I bet it's the influence of all those politicians who show up for the Iowa presidential caucuses. But we wander.
The instructor tells the Associated Press the course "will examine the impact of porn on mainstream culture." If asked nicely, the FCC might be willing to offer its files on Janet Jackson and Howard Stern as CliffsNotes.
The class has been filled and, no surprise, there's a waiting list. That kind of demand suggests a possible major -- Pornography 101: Elementary Sleaze a prerequisite -- and maybe even a Career Day.
Down at the University of Texas at Austin, they're pioneering another novel concept -- the book-free library. When the freshmen arrive in the fall, the undergraduate library will have been emptied of all 90,000 books and, in their place, according to the New York Times, will be "'software suites' -- modules where students can work collaboratively at all hours -- an expanded center for writing instruction, and a center for computer training, technical assistance and repair."
Repair is important because with a trashed hard drive, an entire four years' education could go down the drain since the laptop is the one that has been getting it. The modern liberal-arts major's credo: "I may not know the answer but I know how to Google the question."
The books will go elsewhere on campus. Texas is not the first university to empty a library of books, and what's stunning about other schools that have done it is that the incoming students are not only not surprised to find no books in the library, they don't expect to find any. Print is, like, so 20th century. The library will retain one traditional campus function: It's still a good place to nap.
Having to read books cuts into your free time at college, and the students need free time because the schools are coming up with ever more entertaining ways of filling it. The sniper-eyed trend watchers in the Wall Street Journal's Marketplace section report that colleges are vying with each other to build lavish student unions.
Luxurious living
Ohio University, they say, is building a $60 million student center with a theater, food court, ballroom, grand staircase and five-story atrium. That's what you want when you're choosing a college: a really good atrium.
The University of Cincinnati has a 90-foot-tall atrium in its $50.8 million student union. The $72 million student union at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has, according to the Journal, "a sports bar with 40 video games, including a helicopter simulator."
A sports bar? No wonder kids are taking five and six years to get through college. No sooner do they master the helicopter simulator than it's time to graduate. Oh, the harsh reality of it all.
All of this luxury costs real money. The Journal says colleges will complete $14 billion in construction this year and start construction on $14.5 billion more. And this is largely financed by increased student fees and higher tuition, and we all know who pays for that in the end.
No wonder so many retirees are settling in college towns. They want to see what happened to their money.
Scripps Howard News Service