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In America, Most Republicans Think Colleges Are Bad for the Country (chronicle.com)
An anonymous reader quotes the Chronicle of Higher Education:
A majority of Republicans and right-leaning independents think higher education has a negative effect on the country, according to a new study released by the Pew Research Center on Monday. The same study has found a consistent increase in distrust of colleges and universities since 2010, when negative perceptions among Republicans was measured at 32 percent. That number now stands at 58 percent. By comparison, 72 percent of Democrats or left-leaning Independents in the study said colleges and universities have a positive impact on the United States... In the Pew Research Center's study, distrust of colleges was strongest in the highest income bracket and the oldest age group, with approval levels of just 31 percent among respondents whose family income exceeds $75,000 a year and 27 percent among those older than 65.
Proof by example.
"His name was James Damore."
It's because colleges are the most left leaning places in America. I'd bet more American flags are burned at American colleges than in Russia and all middle eastern countries combined. It's not that republicans hate education.
wtf wtf wtf
This sudden decline in opinion isn't the result of some new strain of anti-intellectualism, as some Democrats will no doubt suggest, but rather the perception that modern universities have become hotbeds of SJW, "Antifa," and anti-capitalist ideology. That's why the disapproval numbers are particularly high among those with higher incomes (who HATE anti-capitalists).
Even I'm more distrustful of modern universities than I used to be just a few years ago. And I used to be a professor.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The left has infected every aspect of the education system and has caused serious harm. They have indoctrinated several generations of our youth to the detriment of our country. They should all be ashamed of themselves.
Keep em dumb, and they won't question what you're doing
Because the last thing american leaders want is an educated electorate.
When did slashdot die? If you must post baloney, bring back Jon Katz. At least he was the king of this kind of tripe. There are actually real tech storeis out there beyond your usual lazy "rivers on mars", "amazing batteries", and "tesla cars".
Theocracies dont like education to break their control of society
If they stopped cranking out majors in liberal arts, gender studies, and political correctness... That might change. LoL
They have become nothing less than indoctrination centers for children who cannot stand an opposing view and must as with any radical use whateven means to silence the opposing view.
Can you blame them?
In the same speech where he warned about the Military-Industrial complex, Eisenhower warned about the Scientific-Technological elite.
Indeed. Maybe those with this opinion have seen the leftist nutjob ideologues taking over campuses and demanding administrative control, assaulting journalists ("I need some muscle over here"), setting fires and beating people for the crime of trying to attend a speaking event, and even trying to implement segregration, often while the faculty and administration either approve or cheer them on.
And with the internet, the leftist media can't cover it up anymore.
they don't have much use for college if they haven't managed to get their GED yet.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Republicans vote against their own best interest. So, no surprise here.
From my own experience in getting a practical STEM degree. 40% of the 4+ years you spend on a basic degree actually teach you something that is useful and pertinent to your field. Of that, 90% you can look up and learn for free online for no cost. Its good for the country as a whole because it shapes society in the direction that is wanted by the elites, it helps spread state sanctioned propaganda, and it helps the masses feel educated when they really know nothing about how the world operates.
Let's see: transectional gender studies, lesbian gay queer theory, negrology,, etc: all worthless degrees and a scam to extract money from the gullible.
Joe Blow #1: "I have a degree in Chemical Engineering!"
Joe Blow #2 "I have a degree in lesbian gay queer theory!"
Do you see why a college degree is meaningless? Without context the mere fact that someone has a degree is meaningless. In the above example, Joe Blow #1 clearly has the advantage and a useful marketable skill. Joe Blow #2 wasted someone's money for a worthless piece of paper.
In fact if Joe Blow #2 and used his four years of college money for at the Las Vegas gaming tables and randomly played without any skill whatsoever, reinvesting his winnings, he would have only lost maybe 10% of his money. He's still have 90% left over. Which is the better investment?
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
— Isaac Asimov, 1980
Despite this shift in opinion, employers are still going to require a four-year college degree in order to get a job as an entry-level file clerk...
I think this points to a number of core myths in the American psyche. One myth is that the "American Dream" is available to anyone who works. Another is that class is wrong and that all people should be equal. In actuality we live in a plutocracy with very real class delineations and very real differences in opportunity. We just don't admit it.
Part of the idea that everyone *must* be equal is the idea that to excel academically is suspect. We don't want to acknowledge either differences in opportunity or differences in aptitude. It's the only culture I know where people -- even the President -- are proud to be ignorant.
With so many people having no realistic access to college, higher education represents a threat to the myth of equality. Also, the primary function of college is arguably to create connections to higher social classes, which then provide access to those classes. People don't go to Harvard because it's a good school. They go because it transports them into the ruling class, or keeps them there.
Where "the country" is a handful of lying jackasses who want all the money, and a public too uneducated to discern when they are being lied to.
Naturally Republicans hate colleges. After all, an ignorant voter is easier to mislead and more compliant. Heaven forbid the population should study and learn!
To quote Henry Jones Senior:
"It tells me that goose stepping morons like yourself should try reading books instead of burning them!"
Wow, what a biased way to spin things and distort facts.
A majority of Republicans and right-leaning independents think higher education has a negative effect on the country
That is not the question the Pew Research survey asked, nor how they reported the results. The question was whether or not colleges and universities are having a positive or negative affect on the way things are going in the country. "Higher education" is far more general terminology than "colleges and universities", and by underhandedly substituting that term they make it sound like Republicans think that being educated or obtaining a higher education is bad for the country.
But then, what else should we expect from The Chronicle of Higher Education but that kind of bias?
Better known as 318230.
This is about real science that is based on facts and evidence being drowned out by fake psudo science that insist everything is some sort of tyrannical hyerarchy run by white guys to oppress everyone else.
Kick out the bullshit social sciences and most of this would go away.
On one side of the isle, you have a group of representatives who appear hell-bent on maintaining an uneducated society in order to maximize the manipulative capability of a government to control the stupid and ignorant masses.
On the other side of the isle, you have a group of representatives who appear hell-bent on feeding the Educational Industrial Complex with the goal of funding capitalism, regardless of the growing lack of return on that investment, or the personal impact of massive debt.
As usual, one has to choose the lesser of two evils.
Of how many college students are unable to pay off their student loans, and how many of them think they shouldn't be forced to. That might explain things.
Sad!
...omphaloskepsis often...
Not college as a concept, just colleges as they are. We need to defund them to end this nonsense. College used to be about education, open-mindedness, and the cultivation of maturity, self-hood, and compassion for other-hood. In other words, a broader view and more actualized person. It is a straight up propaganda machine for extreme left-wing hyperbole at this point, and the saddest thing is these kids are being MANIPULATED. None of these older folks have their interests in mind, they are just pushing their agenda and view the naivite of youth as easy prey. I'd be pissed to high heaven if I were a college kid, being reduced to nothing more than programming, statistics, and a left hand on election day. College kids: you are being used, and you are handing yourself (and potentially your life) up on silver platter. I thought the tide was turning with Bernie Sanders, but nope, it's worse than ever. :/ You play right into their hands, and you don't have to.
I mean, look at the kind of people that win elections. What are these damn schools teaching? And besides, that underwater basket weaving degree won't get you a cashier job at Walmart.
They don't believe that higher education in general has a bad effect on the country, they believe that the higher education we currently have has a bad effect on the country. The people who say that higher education has a bad effect on the US would likely be much happer with European-style higher education.
The whole educational system, from elementary school all the way through College really should be considered very untrustworthy: For making education a chore and an source of personal shaming (mandatory attendance with penalties, assigning letter grades to children, age-separated classes, and a major lack of discipline within many schools), for attempting to make itself mandatory for access to all fields and displacing trade school (demanding students learn things they have no intention or desire to make use of), for pushing partisan politics (especially for pushing it on students who are only interested qualifying for a work in a preferred field), and for wasteing many years of children's time in the process (should be going out into the world gaining experience, interacting with mature adults [if there are any left], and taking responsibility for their own needs and actions, rather than idling dependants until well into adulthood).
Universities are one of the few ways to make money that is 100% home-grown in the West.
There's been a non stop media campaign against the 'liberal elite'. It doesn't help that there's a bunch of not job feminists running community college humanities departments for that media to point to. Still, you've got a multi billion dollar media pushing an anti education agenda so they don't have to pay for your kid's college in the form of taxes. Plus there's those sweet high interest college loans. So yeah, college is gonna take a hit
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I can't believe no one has proposed this reason yet: Trump University. Republican are embarassed.
Republicans: Challenge accepted.
"The only good windmill is a tilted windmill."
In general, the people reading slashdot are left leaning, like universities have become. You can not imagine how someone could hate/mistrust an institution that echoes all your thinking. What you may not realize is that universities have become corrupted and failed in their mission because now they ONLY propagate one ideology. Universities are supposed to be about truth and helping kids find what they believe. You can't actually do this if you are only presented with one viewpoint. This is what the modern universities do. Why this happened has to do with the philosophies that started with rise of industrialism. At the time, these were new and exciting and captured the imagination of many young faculty, who later became the majority. The dangerous part of these philosophies is that they broach no dissent. You are with or against. Think about what went down in Russia in the first part of the 20th century. It happened in our universities, here.
Many of you probably think that there is no sound and deep conservative thought. You may be shocked to learn that there is plenty of great conservative thought that challenges many of your assumptions. Sadly, you have never been exposed to them. Think about college. You can probably fondly think remember a course with a dynamic professor who spoke of intriguing ideas about privilege and economic redistribution. Your other professors probably reinforced his points. Now, can you speak about the class where the counter points were given and argued just as passionately? Do you really think no such arguments exist? Did you ever really seek them out? Do you understand that the absence of this discussion is the anathema of true intellectual thought?
You can see the shadows of these conservative ideas on these very forums. The party line says that all races, genders, places or origin etc. are exactly the same. Any deviation from this means that you and your organization is flawed and fundamentally corrupt run by corrupt people. But, lets face it, the IT/tech world is not a diverse place. In your own life, you know who is good and who is bad, and while it may have nothing to do with what group you belong, for the most part it turned out a certain way. You can see this argued on these forums. You do not call yourselves bad guys, but offer explanations for why it is this way. Yet, you are not so charitable about other people's industries or vocations. The world is full of ***isms, but they are just for others, right?
The same ideology is laughably unable to deal with what goes on in professional sports franchises, which are not terribly diverse either. It is ignored because it gives a wrong answer.
So the political right is now, correctly, identifying the universities not as places of learning and education, but as fallen organizations that peddle indoctrination. For a long time, these people were patient justifying to themselves that exposure to different thoughts were good. Arguably too late has the right figured out the real game.
If you want a test to see if you have been intellectually corrupted, simply ask your self what is the last book that you have read from the conservative perspective? If the answer is a real long time ago, or why bother, then you are honestly not the person that you think you are. You are an intellectual but a zealot. You can thank the university for that.
"Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.
We think colleges and universities are staffed with too many ultra-leftist liberals who inject their twisted philosophies into the minds of impressionable youth, regardless of whether or not the subject matter of the class demands it. These "teachers" also promote and instill an environment of hostility and fear.
We DO NOT think higher education is bad. LEARN THE DIFFERENCE!
i agree that colleges are bad, but not because they are heaven for independent thinking like TFA mentions, but because to some degree you dont need them. We are told from a young age that we need higher education to be someone, to be successful, to be happy. But reality shows that we might not use what we learned in college for our job, that some university graduates eventually work in areas different than the one they graduated or in areas that require no graduation at all. We are neither successful, nor happy, not even someone of note. And this has created the current generation of depressed people who are still struggling to pay for their student debts, a debt they only got by studying something they dont use.
We need to start valuing the common life again, that one can still be happy and successful while working at a diners, at petrol stations, as a farmer.
But that would require a cultural shift that i believe most people wouldn't be inclined to.
"life is a joke, and someone is laughing at me"
I was in college in the 80s, so a bit after you. We had groups like you mentioned, but we didn't have nearly 100% of our Professors teaching/preaching their leftist ideology during lectures. I am paying for my kid to go to college today so get to read assignments, lectures, and material. It's quite a different animal.
When every single course is lecturing not so much the subject matter, but leftist ideology, we have problems with our education system. Biology courses are filled with anti-American rhetoric and promotion of 3rd wave feminism. Even Math and Physics lectures are filled with anti-American rhetoric.
The ideology is not new, but the pervasiveness certainly is more recent and having impact. The normalization of punishing people who question the narratives is also more recent.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
On one side....On the other side...
Don't you get tired of constant, pointless Team A vs. Team B bullshit? None of that team nonsense is about helping the country or the people. Why not give up pretending it is?
... hell-bent on feeding the Educational Industrial Complex with the goal...
Don't you get tired of peddling ultra-exaggerated conspiratorial narratives? Everyone knows this kind of crap is mostly false, even if there's a tiny bit of truth underneath the mountains of nonsense. Why not give up the dramatic storytelling and just be factual?
Evil recognizes evil.
The problem with your pithy comment is that your two isles are bot descriptions of the left. Educational standards have dramatically fallen under the left-controlled education establishment. In fact, emphasis on rational thought is discouraged, and "feelings" have been given primacy. So, contrary to what you think, the left is largely responsible for the Kardashian culture.
Either you misunderstand capitalism or you are in complete understanding of the statist-leftist view of it. I am not sure. The left does indeed want to control the educational-industrial complex, and it has caused diminishing returns. With the emphasis on being SJW over profit, companies have done worse. What, you all bitch about the high price of Apple products but don't link this to why?
Ironically, former communist countries in Asia are the biggest practitioners of capitalism, and lets be honest, it is working out really well for them. The amount of money and opportunity being generated is incredible. Contrast this with Detroit. The ideology of Capitalism has many flaws, making money is not one of them
"Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.
Yup - google "Yuri Bezmenov". The mid-80s vids on youtube explain a lot.
... the same study indicates that the majority of Democrats feel that banks and financial institution have a negative effect on the country. And at first glance, it kind of makes sense - look at the very real problems these institutions have. For example, their role in causing the 2008 meltdown. It is totally plausible to imagine them being much better. But then go and imagine a U.S. without banks and financial institutions at all. What would that be like? Unless a person is a pretty committed communist, they would agree that it would be decidedly not good! While there are some extremists on both sides, I think that in the case of both the Republicans and the Democrats in the study, people focus in on 'non-optimalities' of the respective institutions, and answer accordingly, rather than seeing the tremendous good that these institutions provide, even with their problems.
In my experience as a professor of 10 years, most universities and colleges already are purely liberal. In fact, if you do not hide your conservatism, you are hunted. Your promotion and tenure can be greatly hindered. You can undergo inquisition from various PC police type boards and committees if you buck the party line at all.
I do not think you go far enough in describing the chilling effect of leftist groups and compared to those of the right leaning groups. Can you perhaps share with me some story where you have seen or heard of a left leaning person unable to come to the campus because of threats of death and violence? Because, I can relate dozens to you. Do you know that Ann Coulter could not speak at Berkeley this year because of these threats and the inability to have a reasonable chance at her safety?
Do you understand that in any way? At a fucking university, you can not have someone come express their thoughts without fear of death. Worse, the students were proud of this...Yeah man, we shut down free speech!
I am not saying agree with Ann Coulter. I am saying things have deteriorated so far they can't even handle an idea from someone who disagrees? If you think that is a "chill" I am honestly concerned what you think a freeze would be.
If you think the chill goes both ways, I give you this challenge. For one semester, espouse conservative principals to your class and coworkers every chance you get. This is routinely done with leftish thought. So, try it the other way. Then, report back what happens. Until you do this, you will never, ever truly appreciate the monstrosity the universities have become.
"Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.
It's because colleges are the most left leaning places in America. I'd bet more American flags are burned at American colleges than in Russia and all middle eastern countries combined.
Possibly true but that's what free speech means. I do find it curious that the most educated parts of the population tend as a general group to lean left in their politics. I think that says something meaningful but I'll leave it to you to fill in the blank.
It's not that republicans hate education.
Some do, most don't. It is true that a LOT of blue collar republicans think people who go to college are "elitist" snobs. Many certainly do not place a high value on scientific education particularly the more virulently bible thumping amongst them. You know, the ones who think prayer in school is a good thing and that "evolution is just a theory". Those folks certainly do not value education very highly.
I think the fact that they made an unqualified idiot like DeVos secretary of education speaks a lot to what republicans value.
They also hate teachers as a collective group because they are staunchly democrat. More specifically teacher's unions fund democrats. That's a major reason why republicans are so eager to pass so called right to work bills - it hurts teacher's unions which as a body seldom support the political right. Has nothing to do with them hating education per-se but it does have a everything to do with them being willing to tear down big parts of the educational system in pursuit of power.
Anti-intellectualism has always been a part of the American makeup, not a recent phenomenon of the right. Richard Hofstadter's Pulitzer-winning "Anti-Intellectualism in American Life" is the best history of this undercurrent.
His straw man version of modern right-wing Republicans is one hell of a lot closer to reality than Fox New's and many right-wingers' straw man version of today's liberal and Democrats. Especially the version that states "I hate America" because I have liberal views.
most of the left's ideology can be summed up as "Don't do bad things to people" and "Take care of people". That's not an ideology. It's basic human decency.
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I'm not american so I don't have to worry about stuff like this, but let me tell you guys that this isn't a great signal and people should be extremely careful about ideas like those...
Obviously, as with anything else, education is never perfect. People will pick and choose the worst examples to say how colleges and whatnot are awful.
But that fact that there are indeed bad colleges and bad education does not mean that no education is the better alternative.
I've heard this rhetoric of universities and college degrees being worthless here were I live before. It was among the justifications for electing a couple of presidents that never went through college and university plus a whole bunch of politicians taking representative seats.
And I'm not saying that people who didn't go through college and university are always idiots, stupid, ignorants and bad administrators... nothing like that. Some of the brightest people I know don't have a degree, or ended up working in areas unrelated to their degrees.
But what we've seen here was a weird and misguided glorification of ignorance. Picking exceptional cases like millionaires who flunked higher education to put it as the norm, people thinking it was better to vote for politicians that did not have a degree in anything, and a misguided idea that not having passed through college or university education meant that the candidate was "more honest", "closer to the people", "knew what poor people passed through" and stuff like that.
The end result of all that is a country in deep recession with the worst corruption crisis in history, one ex-president arrested, another impeached, and one current that should be impeached, tons of politicians in jail, numerous example cases of extremely bad administrative decisions, and the general sense that the country is indeed run by ignorants, corrupt people and bad decisions.
Sure people love to talk about the SJW epidemic, all the white knighting, all the young adults behaving like spoiled brats, political correctedness, plus a bunch of other stuff. It's easy to blame institutions for behaviours like those, but more often than not, it's an age thing.
People get this skewed perception that bad things happen on campus while ignoring all the shit that happens outside of it.
So there you go. Sure, college isn't perfect. A degree isn't an indication of morals, ethics and great behaviour. And there are plenty of people who do very well without going through college. But people better be careful about sweeping generalizations, because some lines of reasoning (or lack thereof) can end up very very badly.
it's an old joke, but it's not far from the truth. Right wing economics (Supply Side, or what is disparagingly called Trickle Down or Voodoo economics) doesn't work. It's been tried again and again in Red States (Kansas is the latest) and failed miserably. And sure, Communism doesn't work. But Democratic Socialism _does_.
That said, it's not that they're 'growing out of it' but that they're becoming fearful. As you get older and you have something to lose you turn conservative. Not Right Wing. Conservative. You don't want change because you're terrified of losing what you have.
Personally, I'd like to live in a world we're we're not all living in constant terror of dying in a gutter.
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barrage than anti "SJW". There's a big media complex that would like it very much if you didn't ask questions like why are your taxes so high and a billionaire's so low or why can't your kids afford college or why are your wages stagnant for 30 years or why are there so many people here on work visas for jobs you could do.
The SJW nonsense is just more of the Right Wing propaganda machine pushing a narrative that keeps the working class at each other's throats. It's been working like a charm for 30 years, and there's plenty of evidence of it. This article is just the latest bit of evidence. Hell, the need for evidence on the Left makes it harder for us to move on things like this. It's been obvious for 20 years that economic right wingers and oligarchs have been attacking education. But it took a study to make us start talking about it let alone doing anything.
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"Most leftist think going into debt to banks and hedge funds for hundreds of thousands USD, all who have no individual risk, to get an education of questionable value is a good thing."
If you want the right to get in line with your crazy education ideas, do away with all guaranteed student loans. The cost of education will normalize to the level that a student can take a part time job and still pay for school(this used to be the case) As it is the media has the left convinced that education is not a tool of the elite to keep the TV consuming masses in debt, and agreeing with the elite all the time.
Colleges do not educate anymore. They indoctrinate. The students will be paying for this indoctrination until they are 40. Around witch time they will have an original thought and they will move conservative.
The billions of dollars of student debt is directly attributable to the Republican insistence on cutting taxes and support for state Universities.
In 1975 states paid for approximately 75% of an education at a State University with the student contributing the other 25%, meaning the majority of students could pay for college with a summer job and working part-time during the school year, maybe with some help from family. Additional financial assistance was available for truly needy students. The taxpayer accepted their part of the social compact to provide a higher education to the youth and support the large Public Research and Land Grant universities. Universities that were established and funded by our founding fathers that valued higher education for all youth.
Fast forward to today, the percentages are reversed 75% student/25% state funding with the gap made up by even public university students going into debt that will take decades to pay off. The conservative Republicans that insist on paying as little in taxes is short-changing today's youth and repudiating the vision of the founders as the the value of higher educations.
We already have kids in mandatory school for 12 years till the age of 18. We ought to provide them with some usable employment skills by then. Say people live till the age of 80 these days. If you start working at 22, pay off college debt by 30 and retire at 65, that's only 40% of life as a productive, independent adult. This is not sustainable from either social resources or personal freedom point of view. Today, many drop out from high school and those who graduate do the same jobs they would do without any education at all. We got to get this fixed!
Second, if you get higher education, it should be optional and focused on your professional aspiration, be it coding, 3D printing, solar engineering or organic farming. Ideally we would focus on appreticeships that let students support themselves while earning more advanced skills. NASA and Lawrence labs can do the same for individuals with talents in pure science that can not be done in private sector.
And if you want to discover yourself, party in fraternities or play football, please do - but on your own time/dime and without burdening anyone else with overhead of your personal interests. Or maybe NFL will pay you to play or whatever.
This attitude is way more of a Republican thing than a right-leaning or conservative thing. You might even say it's an excellent example of the enormous ideological chasm in between conservatives and Republicans, one of the things that makes them nearly completely incompatible.
The simplest reason I would suppose is that if one-third of the jobs are done by computers or robots in ten years time then certainly the persons who would have done those jobs don't need to go to college. They are already superfluous to a functioning economy. And your opinion doesn't matter. Nobody asked me if it was a good idea to start replacing people with machines. I can see how in the long term this will be problematic.
because your media tells you to be upset, and it's hard to stand up to that barrage of media. You're media's telling you that because they don't want to pay taxes for your kids college. They'd much rather you take out high interest loans that you pay back for 30 years.
The anti-college thing has nothing to do with that. My kid's been in college for a year now and has no idea what political correctness is let alone a SJW. Her classes are almost entirely focused on her major save for the odd ball physics, English and a few math courses (she's in Nursing, e.g. medicine).
This entire SJW nonsense is being blown out of proportion by people looking to separate studends & parents from the money. It's a scam and we're falling for it hook/line/sinker.
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What the *bleep* are you talking about? The only folks I knew at my college (a big State U) making good money where the football coach and the dean. The dean was just doing OK. Few hundred grand a year and for that he brought in millions in grants and donations. The profs made shit and could walk any day to private sector for a _lot_ more money. Even the humanities guys could get jobs as HR drones making 2-3x as much.
Now, if you're referring to the loan industry that sprung up when we slashed federal subsidies in the 90s (thanks Clinton) to make way for massive tax cuts for the rich (and itty bitty ones for the poor and middle class) than yeah, there's a complex there. The solution isn't to stop sending kids to school. It's to bloody damn well restore the funding and make the rich pay for their kids education. Get mad when you see them bringing H1-Bs in here because they can't find qualified Americans? Make them bloody well pay to train their workers and hire American.
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It's not so much that people think higher education is bad in and of itself.
It's that the culture and cult-like indoctrination present on many campuses is a toxic witch's brew of deliberate distortion of fact, intolerance, bullying, sexism, racism, etc masquerading as a "tolerance" movement.
Those who have infiltrated and perverted the higher education system in this country have managed to distort college from being a place of "diversity of thought and ideas" into "diversity of self-segregated communities".
And yes, it's actually now possible to emerge from college more stupid and useless than when one went in.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
'Over? Did you say "over"? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!'
'[whispering] Germans?'
'Forget it, he's rolling.'
>Too bad so many on the Left require group-think and cannot stand or tolerate open debate and voicing of different opinions - you might learn something!
This is an annoying reflection. Left or liberal by definition does stand to tolerate open debate or differences in opinion. The problem is when they actually do listen but then turn around and give a different opinion and start a debate, suddenly the rightward conservative gets bent out of shape because they're hearing things they don't agree with! And then they get verbally or maybe even physically violent because they can't sway the other person to come around!
As to why the conservatives feel they get drowned out, it's because these vocal conservatives literally say the same thing word for word and it's just plain TIRING to try to debate the issue of the day. Because it's largely no point, because then the next day fox news or conservative radio spits out its next message to all of its flock, and they again try to shout the issue at anyone, again often word-for-word. Since radio/TV/internet news is typically one-way communication, the conservative has nothing to come back with on these different opinions and cover their ears, get defensive and proceeds to shout uninformed BS, getting louder and louder and more threatening until they feel they've won the argument. Victorious, they then waits for the next day's programming instructions.
Slashdotters are generally wary of Facebook and Microsoft - not because Slashdotters are against computers, but because of their desire for privacy.
Conservatives are generally wary of modern-day colleges - not because they're against education, but because they read about colleges these days (with Evergreen, Mizzou and Berkeley the most extreme examples), and they see a strong bias against conservatives in most colleges.
We're not against education, but against being forced to attend classes taught by teachers with an obvious bias against men, white people, and/or conservative people.
Which is good.
Because left-view-enforcing faculty is going to tolerate differences and dissent.
Unlike right-view-enforcing bible ass crammers.
The conservative critique of the social sciences in the mid- and late-1900s, he said, has grown to include the hard sciences in the last 20 years, largely among subjects like stem-cell research, climate change, and evolution.
I went to just the one political speech in college (70s). It was free. Germaine Greer, and I went because I'd heard her name before. Other than that, I was too damn busy with classes; what little spare time I had I wanted to keep for partying, my chief concern being that "I had no life" as opposed to the poor and oppressed,or the State Of The Nation, or whatever.
So: if you want to comment on how forcing people to go watch TV or hit the web for political commentary is the same as "denying free speech" because the only thing that counts as free speech is being paid to give a speech, could you please first state the names of three college political speeches you've ever attended? Because if YOU don't go to them, then you can hardly say they are all that important a cultural moment.
Germany has a good trade schools system that works and does not dump people into collage with big loans.
Back in the 80's you where able to work part time / summer jobs to mostly pay for collage. Now days the cost is very high and in some places like with CS you can have big skill gaps for IT jobs.
so 4 years collage gen studies) + 1-2 year in a tech / trade after that?? is your idea who do work for sallie mae??? that makes big bank off of loans that can't be gotten rid with cheaper 11 or 7?
How many people can start life at 25-28+ 150K or more in the hole working at an starting wage in there field? It's not like you make doctor wages in meany fields.
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> "Higher education" is far more general terminology than "colleges and universities",
Higher education (n): education at universities or similar educational establishments, especially to degree level.
Nop, higher education == colleges + universities. Even if you thought you had another definition, that is the common definition (and most likely the one respondents used)
The real "SJWs" are the ones who are so sensitive to a handful of student activists (news flash: not everyone in their early 20s has the most nuarnced view of the world) that they reject the entire higher educational system. Because they oppose the social position of a few people and consider "safe spaces" and other censorious attitudes unjust, they go to war against an entire institution. In response to percieved social injustice, they call for war, because they oppose "social justice warriors."
All academia in the West is mostly liberal and has a great participation of politicis in it. It is a fundamental piece of western democracy, and it was in USA too, before corporate lobby hyjacked it.
The main resistance in the Vietnam war was organized in universities. And it was a great thing that it did!
No, it is a straw man that an inteligentzia rules over America, nothing further from the truth. The US government porcentual representation of educated population is nowhere as brutal as the representation of wealthy population.
Somehow, the USA has become dumb enough to think that a university graduates are an elite even more so than the fortune 100. That's beyond stupid, bordering insane
Was the survey specifically about the education offered or was it more broad?
Because while higher education can valuable, the debt bubble it had created will have disastrous effects when it pops.
"Higher Education" pretty much equals "College and Universities". Throw in Community Colleges if you want.
You're confused, let me help you.
Fascism is a combination of left wing economic policy (although not communism) and right wing social policy. The Nazi's got to be one of history's biggest villains not because of their left wing economic policies but because of their right wing social policies. Big patriotic rallies, not big on gays, not big on minorities; these are all attributes of the right.
Furthermore, fascists were big on the rule of law and they certainly gave their police force a wide set of powers.
Now I'm not trying to say the Right in this country are Nazi's, I'm just pointing out that you got the meaning of some words wrong.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
In every culture, the leading universities have been the institutions that transmit the core values of that culture to the next generation, as well as being repositories of the literature and arts that culture originated. Our own liberal arts schools already have a problem with enforced groupthink and suppression of free speech by bands of thugs. If they actually come to believe that the Western Civ they are supposed to be transmitting to our young is something evil, then they will have become as useless as they are overpriced.
In the US of the 1950s, the GI Bill provided unheard of access to college and was instrumental in the growth of the middle class Through the early 1970s. "Going to college" became the mantra for success. Sixty years later, we have PhD.s selling coffee an participation in the skilled trades is looked down upon. Now that unions have less influence on entry to those trades, a college education seems less important to financial success in life . . . unless you like to server coffee.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
Well my two cents. While an education is good for the country. The present system is not. Aside from the low numbers that aren't getting jobs in their field, the high amount of student debt is crippling both people and the country. Unforgivable debt that'll chase a person into their grave. Even when the system is working right, it gets a lot wrong. Anyone doing any kind of risk/benefit analysis can clearly see the current system is a bad deal and shouldn't enter into it till it's fixed.
It DOES NOT MATTER if the colleges are more left-leaning or right-leaning. A little political slanting is NOT WHAT'S CAUSING problems in our economy.
People get SO caught up in these civil issues that they completely miss the big picture, on which I shall shine a spotlight here:
1) In many fields we are churning out more graduates every year than there are jobs available in the entire country. This ridiculous oversupply of labor causes wages to fall off a cliff.
2) The costs continue to soar, largely due to the huge amount of government-supplied loans available. The colleges do not need to compete on price, and the people who wind up bearing the burden are the students that wind up debt-ridden for their entire lives, mostly because they believed they had to accept all this debt in order to stand a chance in this economy.
3) Education, no matter which side of the political spectrum, tends to raise people's self-esteem and expectations. This is creating widespread social upheaval in the form of depression and opting-out of family. You have to be blind to miss the headlines that have been floating around about this. People are falling into depression because they cannot land the high-paying intellectual jobs they have been told to dream about, and further they are refusing to marry and form families (both from the same debt-no-job problem, and also the too-good-for-everyone problem that is over represented among educated people). This, in turn, is creating an army of poverty-stricken single mothers (which creates further economic problems that roll forward into the next generation).
We have an addiction to education, and it is causing terrible harm. But everyone just wants to keep believing that if they "follow their passion" everything will be great.
It won't.
The red menace has more or less died out. Trump's Russian ties are killing off what little is left. Folks overwhelmingly support Single Payer Healthcare & Subsidized/free college tuition. Heck, Trump got elected on a far left populist platform while his opponent ran a right of center one. Bernie Sanders is the most popular politician in America (though the 1%ers are putting big money behind a right wing democrat primary challenger).
Folks are ready for Democratic Socialism, they just don't know how to get there.
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Americans are the biggest wimps and whine about everything too! I've lived here all my life and I've seen it 1st hand. People are more isolated from each other and feel like it's their right to not have to deal with ACTUAL diversity. It has been getting worse with time.
Conservatives for the most part are more out of touch with reality than ever before and that is not to say the newer generations of literals are immune from the trend, they are not.
Technology has been helping; but mostly helping strengthen bubbles and intolerance while boosting emotional resistance to thinking. Maybe it can be used in a good way but it seems that all our current technology has a net negative influence on society. Naturally, we will solve these tech created problems with more tech... like always. Someday we might even break even (but we'll be starting far behind where we've fallen already.)
Conservatives will have trouble with any university because by nature they cling to the past and universities exist to create our futures. Old people become conservative because they dislike the changes as life passes them bye; it's a myth that they became wiser simply due to age. That general mindset doesn't belong in university.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Although I'm an independent, I come from a family of Republicans. All of us were expected to go to college. Some attended top universities, some have advanced degrees, etc. The value of higher education was never questioned. At least not until recently.
The problem is that colleges are losing their practical value. A gender studies degree, for instance, is great if one aspires to be a store clerk, but it's unlikely to provide the skills one needs to get ahead in life. Even the trades are more lucrative and provide a better standard of living. It wasn't always like this.
Unless my child plans to go into a STEM field, I will encourage them to explore other options. At the very least, a healthy young adult should be financially self-sufficient. Anything that detracts from their ability to pay their bills or self actualize, anything that keeps them slave to the state (think student loans for a major with low ROI), is simply unacceptable.
I see similar sentiments among my Republican family members and conservatives in my social circles. They're not anti-intellectual. They just want education to be worth something. Say what you will, but a debt-laden degree in gender studies is not as valuable as an engineering degree, or even as valuable an entry-level trade school certificate.
There has been a longstanding bias in favor of leftist ideology on college campuses. Much of that was tolerable by remembering that opinion is just that... opinion. At least we could agree on most of the facts. Strip away the practical fact-based value that even the most obscure college degrees used to to provide, however, and all you're left with is a bias that conservatives disagree with... and possibly a kid that won't "launch". Is it any wonder that they perceive this trend as bad for the country?
Good luck trying to get anyone to watch an hour long sociology lecture.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
In medival times in Europe, the Islamic world had its golden age. They advanced mathematics, astronomy etc. They were real science guys. Unfortunately, some Muslim cleric came up with the idea that manipulating numbers is from the devil. This idea became widespread and killed off science. That is why they retreated. Fortunately for us, Europe went through the Renaissance and developed 'enlightenment'.
Nowadays people disregard science and people who advance science. In the US they even fight science. Looks like they want to deindustrialize the USA. This would not be an issue for the rest if the world, but the same Waco's have nuclear weapons.
http://aphelis.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/ASIMOV_1980_Cult_of_Ignorance.pdf
College-hating is an OLD sport for the American right wing, and less-so but present in Canada and the UK. Colleges were of course hotbeds of "radicalism" for the Boomers, the first generation to have more than a few percent of their number go to college. I put "radicalism" in quotes because Civil Rights for black people are now uncontroversial, as is the proposition that the Vietnam War and the Draft were bad ideas.
It was also "radical", of course, to have the opinion that cannabis is a largely harmless intoxicant, unlikely to addict you or drive you insane. ("Reefer Madness" was already a joke-film to us, but our parents still believed that shit like gospel.)
But it goes back way before the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, of course. From the Wikipedia:
"God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of “Academic Freedom” is a 1951 book by William F. Buckley Jr., in the author, based on his undergraduate experiences at Yale University, criticized Yale and its faculty for forcing collectivist, Keynesian, and secularist ideology on its students. "
1951 is ten years earlier still; somebody not born yet when it was published has been drawing (socialist) Social Security for a year already.
So, please, any notion that this is because 0.1% of the 4700 colleges in the US have recently uninvited a few speakers, spare us. The malice towards higher education goes back to an era when the ones forbidden to speak at Universities were all from the left wing. (Read up on the UCLA "Speaker Ban", which was applied mainly to communiists - but also to former VPOTUS Henry Wallace, just because he was speaking in opposition to Cold War policies:
http://www.jofreeman.com/sixti... )
The Republican Party still hated colleges even when the only speakers they forbade were Communists, Anti-Militarists, and pro-socialists in general.
because we have no farm workers left
Look Dan East you claim that the term "higher education" does comprise more than colleges and universities. Nice claim. Then give at least one example what you think is high education, like Bible schools or gangs in Chicago. As long as you cannot provide substantial examples, you are saying nothing.
Stupid is what stupid does. Americans have turned into a bunch of loud-mouthed anti-intellectuals and they are doing exactly what is expected of stupid people. Destroy the environment, destroy the education system, destroy the Internet all in the name of stupid short-sighted politics. The US will never be great again, simply because they are clueless of what made the idea of United States great in the 1st place.
If schools have to teach finances and cooking, they better be done with this before 18 years of age. Not everyone will go to college and those who will not need money management skills even more. We have 12 years of free and mandatory schooling. Lets allocate the time wisely and let people at least start training for a career afterwards.
Are republicans calling themselves "colleges" now? That's the only way colleges would be bad for America.
republicans typically think colleges are liberal
republicans rather follow a book (religion) than make up their own minds (free thinking)
republicans believe in strong leadership. they want to be led and thus, have structure/discipline.
republicans crave fairness, hence greed/selfishness are typically traits. Really fairness promotes greed/selfishness in a capitalist, adam smith society. Mainly cause opportunity creates a illusion of fairness.
Because his old college buddy, the Pope, asked him to. BTW FWIW the 2 theories they were debating, Tychonic and Copernican, are mathematically equivalent (they literally make the same predictions) and Galileo was trying to prove Copernican right with a theory of the tides that at the time people realized didn't work. I could point out that the reason he got in trouble at all was the fact he published in Italian where he put in a crack about the omnipotence of god which apparently was taken a rebuke of catholic theology. (IE He didn't get in trouble over science and he didn't have the evidence anyway. He got in trouble when he started talking theology.) Yes for those that don't know you were pretty much taught a myth about what happened. (Just like I was taught other myths like the Minutemen won because they used guerilla tactics and used rifles instead of muskets.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
As I dont think America can survive Fox news.
I am overjoyed to hear that right wingers will self-select against getting college degrees, as this will drive them further into becoming a permanent, poor underclass due to their lack of education and thus inability to get good paying jobs. Way to go right-wing media, keep up the good work of lying to your adherents!
Common Core All the Way Baby!
Yeah, let's make the headline look like conservatives oppose higher education. Such BS. EVERYONE knows what kind of liberal indoctrination machine colleges have become. Professors regularly openly chastise conservatives students, bash conservative policies and in general push their liberal agenda. This is a fact. We all know it. Universities allow liberal groups to dictate to them,allow them to suppress free speech...the lists goes on.
You're damn right I'm opposed to my child going to a liberal university and, yeah, I think the fact the colleges are no longer a bastion of free speech or a place to openly discuss points of view you don't agree with is HIGHLY dangerous.
In never ceases to amaze me how liberals refuse to acknowledge what they are dong - suppressing speech they don't agree with. Period. End of story. You can color it anyway you like - but it's simply un-American. Toss the race card. Toss the hate card. Toss the violence card. The justification that ensues is mind boggling.
Honestly, if you can't understand how dangerous it is to raise a generation that isn't willing to listen to other points of view without responding with safe spaces, speech suppression or violence, I really don't have much use for you.. I think Russia would be more to your liking - because make no mistake, that's where you are steering this country.
Schools have been failing students primarily due to charging insanely high tuition, which is only justified by how much money they can get Federal government to hand out in student loans. Then, when they graduate with their degree, they find there's no way they can earn enough with it to pay back the debt they've racked up.
This has gone on at many of the notoriously liberal colleges throughout America, so definitely not just a Republican/conservative thing.
Quite frankly, the people insisting that "Creationism" be taught along-side evolution are a minority of loud-mouthed religious fanatics. The vast majority of people I know who identify as Republican are just fine with the theory of evolution, despite being Christians of one denomination or another. (You have to be of the Fundamentalist sort to be fixated on the biblical creation stories being purely literal.)
I went to college, and was too busy to "protest"
I had actual work to do. I also worked a full time job.
Colleges aren't bad, but they do allow morons in. The morons are the problem. The places have had to become a baby sitting service for stupid people. If a person is over 18, they should be leading a responsible adult life.
Something tells me that these protesting idiots are not involved in any meaningful course of study and should not be there.
and try harder with your trolling. You've got an entire multi-billion dollar media machine behind you to give you talking points. You can do much better. Me? All I've got is Bernie, Liz Warren and reality on my side.
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Brace yourself for a shock. Hitler lied.
He wasn't the only one. Later on East Germany wasn't a "Democratic Republic" either.
Educated masses can see past the establishment narrative.
Honestly, I read the article and wanted to see real statistics in the findings. Causality has been blatantly ignored here.
Does the political bias of the person polled justify their beliefs about the university? Or are their underlying socioeconomic conditions which justify their bias which also is the cause of their political bias?
What I suggest is that a coal miner who has had their livelihood negatively impacted by engineers designing mining machines, environmental protection laws, etc... would see engineers and scientists as their adversaries. That same person would look to "business friendly" politicians who are willing to ignore environmental protection in order to produce more jobs on mining as their friend and therefore choose the team which allows them to do better.
I don't believe this is an issue of left and right. I believe their are underlying factors that attract these voters to favor populist politics instead.
Let's also consider that universities are somewhat dangerous in the sense that they are populated almost entirely by children. These children are expressing their new freedom from their parents by identifying themselves in very public ways. Often, they are rapidly gathering information which was not available or interesting earlier because they were forced to study general education selected for them. Their opinions were dictated to them and as they develop into adults, they are thinking freely and excited by the experiences open to them. They also have long periods of breaks and light work loads that permit them to protest, march on Washington, sit in Wall Street for a month, etc...
As they develop and gather enough information, even the most liberal of them will adjust and start identifying that cause and effect is not a single step. They will learn that the cause was an effect as well. But during their most energetic and expressive point in life, they will unite and be heard.
They are not wrong and I believe this is a very important learning phase for them and Ibhave learned much by seeing them protest and hearing what they have to say. I also often don't agree with them, but value their perspective, sadly those perspectives become popular and popular gains votes and populists implement popular politics to gain votes.
But consider that most people only see the protests and hear the noise generated by the newly liberated children. They don't see what happens once these children settle down to study because then the students are too busy working to say "Wait!!! I learned something new!!!" Instead they build companies which employ millions and billions of people. They find ways to stop bleaching of coral reefs. They invent solar cells with high enough efficiency to charge EVs, etc...
I won't call fake news here. But I will say that it was extremely poorly written and thought out. It was a big booming headline and a story which required more thought before splatting out there. I believe simply pondering the implications of the story enlightened me. But to be fair, whoever wrote the headline got what they wanted. Their flamed a war between "political experts" who are passionate enough about team red or team blue to hate the other team or live their own team enough that they will abuse each other.
I don't chose a team. I'm on whatever team includes all of us, not just red or blue. Let's call it team biped... or maybe team carbon based organism. This story is not about politics. It's about socioeconomic demographics.
The article could be correct, who knows, but when did a trashy business magazine become something to quote on a tech site? Factual reporting is not what they are know for, it's "business trends" and "feel" or "what is your business power animal".
It's not just the fringe dwelling conspiracy theorists quoting it now, seems like everyone is linking to that thing that may as well be the National Enquirer.
Um, no. Fascism did not have a "left-wing economic policy. Left-wing economic policies deal with individuals in poverty and monetary crises. Fascism deals with the support of businesses for government ends. Way, way different.
The best explanation I ever heard of the fascist economic ideology was: "When government and industry come together to create a better tomorrow, we call that fascism." IMO, that sums up both the fascist means and ends, from the point of view of an individual fascist supporter.
(Personally, I find it disgusting because I know what they mean when they say "a better tomorrow", and it does not jive with my motivations. Sorry, ending rant.)
There is much contention surrounding the opinion of whether fascism corresponds to any economic policy. Please don't suggest that this policy was left-leaning, or at least mark off your words as opinion, because presenting these ideas as fact is incorrect. Also, please don't confuse Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.
"Distrust in higher education" means the ruling class wants to protect itself.
The billionaires do not need any fucking education, or any smart and talented people to challenge them.
Time for a reset.
Can not survive Faux news. We must put back the regulations that made you present the opposing point of view for all opinion news stories.
I went to college in the 80s at state.
Tuition was 1/5 of what it is now. Textbooks were much cheaper and min wage was $3.50/hour.
You worked during your BS MAth CS program - 25-30 hours a week?
Amazing! You must have had a very easy school.
That's why my company doesn't recruit from state: only top schools.
BS CS from state? IT support is looking for people.
the cost to attend is the problem. we should join other countries and figure out a cost effective way for everyone to attend college without carrying student loan debt burdens. I personally wouldn't mind paying more taxes in order to not have to pay student loans every month.
I am a political junkie on the right and I have never heard that colleges are bad. There are some great colleges and universities in America, and there are some terrible ones as well. However the concept of an 18 year old going off to college is an exciting rite of passage that is absolutely apolitical. So again another lie to keep the matrixed mind control going a little while longer...
This paradigm is old and worn out and about as old as the Good Cop-Bad Cop paradigm...Don't fall for it!!!
Perhaps a result of third wave feminism, plus the desire for safe spaces where no other opinion is allowed, and the helicoptering parentage has turned Universities into what might best be described as a looney bin. This is coming from a person who spent a career there.
This does not negate the value of an education, in fact, an education where you are prepared for a career, while being exposed to a multitude of opinions, and with critical thinking being exercised is an excellent thing, very critical IMO.
But Universities have morphed into something else. In general, there are a lot more women now attending college then men.http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/03/06/womens-college-enrollment-gains-leave-men-behind/
This is not limited to America https://www.theguardian.com/ed.... The Guardian briefly and dangerously touches on the idea that it might be cultural.
Dr Helen Smith gives a veiewpoint http://www.educationviews.org/...
The that's racist-that's-sexist-that's prejudiced crowd has managed to get comedians JerrySeinfeld, Chris Rock and Larry the cable guy to agree on something, no small feat. But they won't play campuses because of the hostile environment of people who cannot abide by any opinion but their own.
So while I don't ascribe to the Republicans personal vendetta against Universities, they are not incorrect. Universities have a huge problem. I would recommend anyone - male of female - looking for a college education to get it through an online institution, and avoid the cesspool that Universities have become. Which is a whacky tyranny of the left, which is as onerous as the whacky tyranny of the right.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Academic gatekeepers are the bane of middle America. My wife is working to become a registered nurse. She is a wonderful LPN. Unfortunately she now needs to pass collage algebra to continue. How does being able to factor polynomials make a person a better nurse? My youngest daughter (a high school honor graduate) dropped out of the last semester of court stenographer school when she needed to pass an algebra test to continue.
We are not a family of slack-jawed inbreds. My other daughter is a college English professor and a son is a corporate lawyer.
I'm republican, I guess.
Education is extremely important. Colleges are nothing more than a place to be educated. However, Colleges have huge problems:
1. Too dependent on lecture. Lecture is one of the least effective methods of education.
2. Extremely expensive.
With today's technology a 3 credit hour class could be taught effectively with a visual, auditory, active learning experience created one time with very low cost, making learning basically free.
3. Free speech is enforced, unless the religious participate in free speech, then free speech is stifled. Free speech doesn't exclude religious speech. Other than a few zealots who are anti-science (they are entitled to their points of view) both science and religion have a place and both should be taught. For example, evolution is an unproven theory. We teach it despite not have proof of it.
4. Rape culture. Beer pong, fraternities, etc.
5. Slow teaching, similar to #1, but the human brain can learn a lot fast. We have the technology. With better educational methods, we could learn as much in 1 year as we do in 4 years of college.
6. Nearly complete departure from apprenticeships, one of the more effective and speedy forms of training. Thank goodness electricians are still apprenticeships. Could you imagine how bad colleges would bungle that skill?
The good of colleges:
1. Bringing those who wish to learn together.
2. Sharing knowledge with others.
3. Sharing opinions with others.
4. Thesis and the search for new undiscovered knowledge.
5. Sports - learn to accept winning and losing
If you're just going to keep purposely characterizing your opponents positions?
The idea that everyone should go to college is clearly wrong. Many people won't benefit from college, especially if they plan to major in booze, sex and parties.
American education is severely broken in so many ways. Many people "graduate" from high school unable to read or do basic arithmetic. That needs to be fixed, ASAP. One good first step would be to abolish the NEA.
In college, student loans should be available only for degree programs that might allow you to pay off your student loans. Nobody gets jobs in "Ethnic Studies" that pay 100K a year to enable you to pay off a $100K debt. Student loans should be dischargeable in bankruptcy, but the college itself should take half of the hit. That would give colleges a reason to be more cautious in granting student loans.
There should be a lot more "trade" schools than there are. There's a severe shortage in people who can build things and fix things. Every high school should have "shop" classes available to anyone.
No reply to your "refutation" that applies equally to dictators and Tzars then? Your "but I will not continue replying" looks rather a lot as if you like to shout ridiculous things and not have to back them up - the act of a coward.
I worked with a simpleton who couldn't even look up Wikipedia for accurate numbers. Or check out a Google query he himself told me to do!!
What a copout - how does "the state exercised great control over the economy, welfare system, and social programs" refute it?
You are like a child ringing a doorbell and running away.
1) At 58% that is a bit misleading for anything but very low values for "Most"... (i.e. 8% above "half")
2) Considering the amount of for profit colleges in the US, and all that entails, they are likely quite right in that it is very much a negative impact on the nation. Has nothing to do with politics or view points however and more to do with them ripping off taxpayers by gaming the loan system to the tune of trillions of dollars, while at the same time indebting the population with little or no educational benefit. Parasitical might be the best term to use.
The problem is that universities no longer seek to educate students as much as indoctrinate them to think like they do. Years ago, universities were places to share ideas and discuss differing points of view, even ones that differed from those of the various professors. Sadly, that is no longer the case. Either you regurgitate the university's political doctrine or you get punished with bad grades.
Colleges or Higher Education, there is a distinct difference. I would never endorse sending someone to enroll in one of the public universities that are training grounds for Liberal propaganda and #Resist movement terrorists.
I really have to question the validity of this study. I am a right leaning Republican with Libertarian views. I am sending my young son off to college and paying six figures for the privilege. The reality is that I do trust the principles on which colleges were designed. I am afraid that those principles (Freedom of speech, dialogue, and educating young students based on core principles) have been replaced by an ideology. This ideology is based on postmodern, communistic, utopian principles. Dialog has been suprressed. Professors (particularly in the humanities) are pushing a world view which does not work. What happened to the Milton Freedmans? But, in the end of the day, I will send my son there. Because I know he is smart enough to develop a rational, workable world view in spite of this. And yes, I don't believe that colleges are bad for the country in spite of this.
As an old saying goes, fish do not know that they are wet. If you do not see the left bias in slashdot and on your campus, then you may be more left than you think. I do not mean this to imply any malice towards you. It is just that sometimes when you are so far in something, it is hard to know where you really are. You are the opposite of a troll and that should be commended.
However, if you want to see what I am talking about, then please take the challenge that I mentioned earlier. You can start of slashdot. Make a second account if needed. Start posting from a conservative bias. Make your arguments thoughtful as you like. You can include logic and defend your arguments with links. Then, see what happens. You will quickly find you will be modded down. You will find people name calling you will be modded up. You will see that very seldom will anyone take the time to engage you in discussion, but posts with one liners saying you are wrong will be modded up.
Please try this. You might be surprised and also find out how wet is in here.
"Liberalism is a very noble idea, currently controlled by some very bad people. Be sure you do not get the two confused.
I don't think it's college that's at issue but the liberalization and propaganda mills so many of them have become.