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Every few years, the continuing internecine squabbles on the Auraria campus attract outside attention. Most attention goes to the two main contenders at that three-college campus -- the erstwhile UCLA (University of Colorado between Lawrence and Arapaho) and MIT (Metro in Town).
That's just the start, though; anywhere you look in Colorado, higher education is a mess.
Is there any institution in Colorado that can grant you a degree that is worth having? That is, a diploma that is prima facie evidence that you know what you're doing in that field, the way that a degree from Cal Tech or the real MIT means something?
Colorado School of Mines is the only one. Other schools may offer outstanding departments or programs, and all schools can point to a few noteworthy graduates. But we all know of English majors who can't parse a sentence, of journalism majors who couldn't write a telegram home for money, of business majors who can't read an income statement -- and they all hold degrees from accredited Colorado institutions.
Our colleges and universities fail in that essential mission. Any employer will tell you that most Colorado degrees are no more than tuition receipts. History might explain some of that.
Adams State College exists because Billy Adams was from Alamosa. He once ran the state legislature and naturally looked out for his home town; he managed to get Alamosa its own county in 1913 and then its very own college, named after him of course, in 1921.
One might also ponder the legislative career of Vincent Massari and the evolution of Pueblo Junior College into the University of Southern Colorado.
Over in Gunnison, Western State College began in 1911 as a two-year adjunct to the four-year Colorado State Teachers College in distant Greeley. The Greeley officials could choose the location for this two-year school; they picked Gunnison because it was so cold and isolated that a school there would never grow to a size to compete with the main school in Greeley for students or funding.
While attending that college in Greeley when it became a
university,
I saw the maneuvering to get UNC out
from under the Trustees of the State Colleges in Colorado,
and instead put under its very own governing board. Not
that UNC needed one, but the theory was that universities
with their own boards fared better at the state funding
trough than those which shared boards.
The decisions about higher education in Colorado have always been based on politics and patronage. So we have one excellent and expensive school, Mines; two huge universities where, by the law of averages anyway, there may be a few superb departments, CU and CSU; two decent colleges that became mediocre universities, UNC and USC; and a scattering of little schools.
The little schools provide one function, beyond bringing a welcome state payroll into remote towns. They produce teachers for rural Colorado. If Salida is typical, a half-bright kid graduates from high school here, then goes to Gunnison or Alamosa for four years. His horizons thus broadened, he returns to Salida to teach and to sell real estate on the side.
Adams State, Western State, Mesa, Fort Lewis, etc., are uneconomical. Their degrees don't mean a whole lot, either. But nobody in the statehouse has the courage to close them. These colleges will stay in business until doomsday.
But must they stay in business as third-rate liberal-arts schools which offer smatterings of learning to people who can't afford to go anywhere else? Why couldn't they emulate Mines and specialize in doing one thing exceedingly well?
Closer to Taos and Santa Fe than to Denver, with abundant scenery and that supernal New Mexico light, Adams State could be a great art school. With its winters and its historical collections, Western State is a natural for a superb writing program.
Perhaps those schools and their relatives are better suited for other purposes. But in the process of deciding who runs what at Auraria, the state could also find worthwhile purposes for its scattered little colleges. As it is, those schools are not doing much for anybody, especially their naive students who believe they're getting something valuable in exchange for four years of their lives.
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