>>9998156 LB
honorary degrees, total shit since 1478
https://priceonomics.com/why-do-colleges-give-out-honorary-degrees/
In 1889, Charles Foster Smith, a disgruntled man who’d actually earned his Ph.D., from Vanderbilt University, wrote a report bemoaning the practice of giving out honorary degrees. In it, he detailed that in a ten-year period alone, some 250 American universities had given out 3,728 degrees. He elaborates on his concerns:
“The mode in which honorary degrees are conferred in this country is a sham and a shame. It is so easy to get a degree — so many men of slight acquisitions have obtained a degree – that it is now the way to apply for these honors. If the secret sessions of college corporations were made public, there would be an astonishing revelation of intimations and open requests and endorsements. Members of the faculties of colleges are constantly applied to lend their influence to secure a doctorate for this person or that.”
A little over a decade ago, Arthur E. Levine, president of Teachers College at Columbia University admitted that honorary degrees are about two things: money and publicity.
“Sometimes they are used to reward donors who have given money; sometimes they are used to draw celebrities to make the graduation special," he told The New York Times. "I've always viewed it as a last lesson a college can teach, by showing examples of people who most represent the values the institution stands for.”