Fireside Chat with Dennis Prager | PragerU
Aug 28, 2026 · 33 min · 11 segments
Dennis Prager and PragerU CEO Marissa Streit explore what happens when society lowers standards to shield young people from stress, failure, and disappointment. They discuss what college can do to a…
Dennis PragerGuest
Marissa StreitHost
Um, the only tear I have is whether to talk about some, what I call ultimate issues, happiness, religion, morality, et cetera, or about something in the news.
The University of Michigan has announced that it will not be giving grades to, uh, freshmen, to first-year students anymore.
They will only get pass or not even fail, of course not, pass or incomplete or didn't take the course.
And the reason that they gave was, and this is why I'm talking about it, the reason the University of Michigan gave is that there is so much mental illness among young people in America and so much stress that they want to minimize freshman year stress in order not to exacerbate, uh, the amount of mental issues that young Americans have.
On every level, this decision is worthy of the University of Michigan and many other universities because it is truly, truly destructive and foolish.
In no order of importance, telling young people that they have mental problems is about the worst thing you can do to anybody, especially a young person forming his or her self-image, self-perception.
Mental illness because they're stressed over grades? Oh my God, think about that.
So a lot of kids who are perfectly normal are starting to think they have mental issues.
Number two, where does this come from? This comes from a desire to have young people avoid any pain.
Um, the only tear I have is whether to talk about some, what I call ultimate issues, happiness, religion, morality, et cetera, or about something in the news.
The University of Michigan has announced that it will not be giving grades to, uh, freshmen, to first-year students anymore.
They will only get pass or not even fail, of course not, pass or incomplete or didn't take the course.
And the reason that they gave was, and this is why I'm talking about it, the reason the University of Michigan gave is that there is so much mental illness among young people in America and so much stress that they want to minimize freshman year stress in order not to exacerbate, uh, the amount of mental issues that young Americans have.
On every level, this decision is worthy of the University of Michigan and many other universities because it is truly, truly destructive and foolish.
In no order of importance, telling young people that they have mental problems is about the worst thing you can do to anybody, especially a young person forming his or her self-image, self-perception.
Mental illness because they're stressed over grades? Oh my God, think about that.
So a lot of kids who are perfectly normal are starting to think they have mental issues.
Number two, where does this come from? This comes from a desire to have young people avoid any pain.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.