Why has Jeb Bush's college graduation year been omitted by the media for at least 30 years now?

[anobserver2]

112. IMO: There is no way Jeb Bush ever graduated from UT

Last edited Sat Jan 30, 2016, 08:41 PM - Edit history (8)

I have thought a lot about this thread since posting it. (Today I added more to the list I originally posted, showing more media omitting any month/year of an alleged college graduation date for Jeb Bush.)

I appreciate the responses to this thread, including those who played Devil's Advocate -- but I'm convinced Jeb Bush never graduated at all from UT.

My reasoning goes like this:

1) Ever since the Feb 2015 Boston Globe article disclosing Jeb Bush's failing high school career at a private high school, and repeating the 9th grade, it was clear to me: Jeb Bush was not a scholar taking Advanced Placement courses in high school.

Had his father not been on the Board of Trustees at that school, and had Jeb's last name not been Bush. I am sure that school would have expelled Jeb Bush for low grades, just as the article claims almost happened. (By the way, I saw an article claiming Jeb Bush started kindergarten a year early, so when he repeated 9th grade at his private school, he was now with his peer group - not ahead of others.)

I give credit to the Boston Globe reporter for at least noticing that an alleged "2-1/2" years at UT is "unusually speedy" for a bachelor's degree. I wish the reporter would have then asked Jeb Bush: "Gee, how did you accomplish that, since your high school grades were so dreadful?" The Boston Globe article, published in Feb 2015, was the first time I realized: Jeb Bush did not graduate early from UT if he was such a failure in high school -- and had no AP credits; Jeb Bush probably dropped out of UT after "2-1/2" years.


2) A 4-year Bachelors Degree in the 1970's does not include online options. You have to recognize the type of system the university is on, which at UT, even now, is the Carnegie unit of measurement -- a time-based system, as I tried to explain on this thread.

You can't "squeeze" or "breeze" or "race" or "blaze" through a time-based system; the system requires a certain amount of time in class for each credit hour. None of the journalists whose articles I linked to in my original post seemed to have any understanding or knowledge of the existence of what it means when a university is on a time-based system; nor did they ask or investigate or try to discover how earning credit hours in such a system actually works. It is not at all the same as a "competency" based-system where you can indeed test out of courses, and skip the class time, and literally, squeeze/breeze/blaze/or race through.

Jeb Bush's days at UT were on a time-based system -- and the fact is, he did not attend UT a long enough time to earn a 4-year degree.

3) Some people on this thread seemed to blindly and erroneously assume that obtaining a 4-yr bachelor's degree is just like getting a doctorate (it's not), or that "intelligence" or "motivation" will somehow speed up a time-based system. It doesn't and it won't. As I tried to explain, in this type of system you and Bill Gates will both take a minimum of 4 years to earn a 4-year degree (if neither of you has AP class credits or college transfer credits). And if Bill Gates decides he has better things to do with his time, then, Gates drops out of college. That is what I believe Jeb Bush did - dropped out. Bush wanted to get married in Feb 1974. And, he did. Bush married before he was at UT long enough to get a 4-year degree -- because to get a 4-year degree, he would have had to be there until June 1975, but, he wasn't.

4) Quibbling over a "1973" or "1974" alleged graduation date or course completion or degree ceremony date is irrelevant; Bush was not at UT until the end of what would have been his 4-year program: June 1975 -- again, that's the earliest date he could have gotten a bachelor's in this program. (Why? Because: Bush had no AP credits. Bush had no other college credits from another college.)

In addition, he was such a poor student at his private high school it seems extremely unlikely he would escape remedial courses at UT if offered by UT in the 1970's. So, while June 1975 was the very earliest graduation date, someone with Jeb Bush's terrible high school record might well have needed more than 4 years for a bachelor's degree.

5) You have to understand how a curriculum is set up in a department of a university to realize why it may be impossible to obtain a 4-year bachelor's degree in less time than 4 years (again, assuming you have no AP courses and no transfer credits when you begin).

Some departments offer no summer classes whatsoever. Other departments may only offer 1 intro class, and that 1 intro class is all that is offered each summer. In addition, not all courses are available every fall and spring semester. Finally, some departments may require prerequisites to certain courses, which means students are on a required sequence of coursework, and again, not all courses may be offered every semester. You have to know how the department is operating.

I did contact UT's Dept of Latin American Studies prior to posting this thread. What I learned made me conclude that it is impossible for Jeb Bush to have graduated from that department earlier than June 1975. Since he has never claimed to graduate in June 1975, it seems clear to me: he never graduated from UT at all.

Finally, as an example of what some university departments have to do to enable a 3-year graduation, consider this: they would have to overhaul their entire curriculum, as this professor from New Hampshire explains he did:

"Some skeptics worry about quality. 'It's as if they put students on a conveyer belt and just speed them up and spray them with a fire hose and the students catch what they can,' Southern New Hampshire University professor Marty Bradley says of models that compress four years into three. He pioneered a three-year degree on his campus in 1997 that required an overhaul of the curriculum."


And as for students who are able to obtain a 3-year degree, and who are in fact highly motivated, you would have to be like this student:

"The initiatives are aimed mostly at highly motivated students, such as 2012 Hartwick grad Samantha Hart, who earned 23 college credits while in high school and took heavier course loads while in college."

It seems to me, after reading the Feb 2015 Boston Globe article, Jeb Bush was in no way such a student.

Both excerpts above are from this 2012 USA Today article:
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/perfi/college/story/2012-06-18/three-year-college-degrees/55746696/1

In my opinion, Jeb Bush was an academic failure in high school who should have been expelled and never received a high school diploma. He was not Yale material, nor was he really prepared for higher ed.

I believe: He dropped out of UT after 2 or 2-1/2 years. But it seems to me there has been a propaganda campaign to make Jeb Bush appear -- in the media -- to be the "brainiest" of his siblings, the "smart one", etc etc. This all conceals the actual reason he separated EARLY from UT. And --

-- it is all a crock of you-know-what is my firm belief. (Also, it would not surprise me if his parents employ a group of lawyers to research and write Jeb Bush's "position" papers so that Jeb Bush can also appear to be a "policy wonk.&quot

I appreciate that DU exists and allows individuals to express their opinions. That is my opinion: Jeb Bush is a fraud. I think if the truth ever came out, my opinion would be proven as fact. But it can be pretty tough to get through decades of media published propaganda. Some intelligent discussion of the issues I raised would do a lot to clear the air: the Carnegie unit of measurement, how the Latin American Studies Dept actually operates, etc.

I do still appreciate greatly the Boston Globe's Feb 2015 article revealing what an academic failure Jeb Bush was in his private high school; that was really ground-breaking, especially in light of all the propping-up of Jeb Bush that has come before and since that article.