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Bad Education
Twisted teachers! Suicidal students! Courses on "Silence!" and "Leisure." Come along on our exclusive tour of the worst colleges in the country
  

Happily, most of life's decisions are reversible. Shoplifting misdemeanors can be expunged, tribal tattoos erased, Joe Francis can be forced by a judge to remove your underaged breasts from public view. But your alma mater, alas, is forever. Take it from us: The decision you make as a goofy 17-year-old will haunt you for the rest of your life. Luckily, we're here to help. Every September suburban mailboxes across the nation are stuffed with earnest periodicals that rank academia's most elite institutions. But it's not much of a challenge to identify America's best colleges. For millions of students whose SAT results place them south of Stanford, identifying the worst colleges seems like a far more valuable service.

So three months ago, we embarked on Radar's first annual college survey, an exhaustive, semi-scientific guide to the most substandard schools in America. We began by gathering statistics on academic offerings, admissions, and student life from a diverse array of sources, including Princeton Review, U.S. News and World Report, and the U.S. Department of Education. (We avoided community colleges, technical schools, and the kind of places that advertise in subway cars, limiting our search to accredited four-year institutions with brick-and-mortar campuses.) Then we factored in criteria like low SAT scores, incompetent professors, rock-bottom admissions standards, unbridled alcohol and drug consumption, rampant criminal activity, and dubious alumni. To complete the picture, we added reviews from online outlets like Students Review, Campus Dirt, and College Prowler. Finally, we tallied up the numbers in a variety of categories, ranging from Ivy League schools to Christian institutions. Below are the nine colleges that made our 2006 dishonor roll.




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Worst Party School: (Tie) California State University-Chico; San Diego State University

While Chico is the most notorious party college on the planet—69 students were arrested on St. Patrick's Day last year—on average, a full 15 percent of them actually manage to graduate in four years. At San Diego State, a paltry 14 percent are able to accomplish this goal. Both schools deserve special recognition for high-level achievement in the field of depravity and general disinterest in scholastic pursuits.

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Illustrious Alumni: Chico lays claim to good-time-guy novelist Raymond Carver (who graduated elsewhere) and bare-knuckled political consultant Ed Rollins, while SDSU graduated disgraced former CIA executive director Kyle "Dusty" Foggo and oft-disrobed former C-movie actress Raquel Welch (right). Too close to call.

Notable Courses: While Chico may have SDSU licked in the category of anecdotal debauchery, the latter offers a class titled Challenges of Leisure ("The study of leisure and its impact on contemporary life ... issues affecting recreation in today's urbanized society"), formerly, Recreation 204. And we have to respect that kind of rigor.

School Pride: "I started to worry when you could smell alcohol permeating from my pores," one Chico student told Playboy.com. "You can go to Mexico and get wasted, you can go to the beach and get wasted, or just stay in the city and of course get wasted," writes an anonymous SDSU sophomore on Students Review.

Fun Facts: The Forensics team had its 2006 season canceled after members were caught doing coke on school-sponsored trips. Last year, Phi Kappa Tau was suspended for using Chico co-eds in hardcore pornographic movies that were filmed in their frat house and then sold on the Internet. The festivities included a game called "pussy ring toss," the objective of which is to hook a ring over a dildo, which is held in a woman's vagina.

Raw Data: The porn movies reportedly earned over $100,000, though the filmmakers were expelled. Chico State should consider renaming its business school after its most accomplished entrepreneurs.

Tuition: Chico, $3,402 in-state ($13,491 out-of-state); SDSU, $3,122 in-state ($13,292 out-of-state) plus room and board.

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09/20/06
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Chico State is a great college! The people are awesome! Graduates can actually communicate and be social whereas students from a top college spend all thier time burried in books and come out smart as hell but can't speak a sentence to save thier lives. COB rules!
Posted by: ChicoRules | August 24, 2007 11:32 AM



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