The site, which is called FreeThinkU, not only offers free lessons on American topics but also awards scholarship money for lessons which are completed successfully.

Steve Kolowich of the Chronicle of Higher Education reports.

Group Aims to Help Conservative Parents Counter ‘PC Indoctrination’ at Colleges

National Harbor, Md. — Conservatives have long complained about a perceived liberal bias in higher education, and conservative parents might be especially irked to think that they are paying thousands of dollars in tuition only to have their children turned against them by a bunch of radical professors.

Jim Van Eerden has come up with a resource that he says will give conservative parents a chance to counteract any liberal indoctrination of their children before it happens. His plan would let parents deposit tuition money into a “scholarship” that would go to a child’s college only after the student had passed one or more short online courses offering a “more balanced” take on various issues.

Mr. Van Eerden, who serves as an “entrepreneur in residence” at Grove City College, a Christian college in Pennsylvania, has opened a nonprofit Web site, FreeThinkU, that offers almost 30 free “courses”—each designed to last only a few hours, culminating in a multiple-choice quiz—on topics such as global warming, the Second Amendment, and American exceptionalism.

The courses draw their content from a number of sources, including conservative think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation, the Leadership Institute, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

The idea, said Mr. Van Eerden, is that rather than paying their children’s tuition outright, parents and grandparents will sponsor scholarships through FreeThinkU. In order to unlock the scholarship funds, their college-going progeny will have to take a series of FreeThinkU courses—perhaps “Hedonism: Eat, Drink, and Be Merry?” or “Are You Grateful?”—then pass comprehension quizzes.

That type of arrangement, called an “UP! Scholarship,” will become available to concerned parents and grandparents this spring for a $76 membership fee.


 
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