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.

Comments

Evergreen State

[Rockoon]

Proof by example.

Re:Evergreen State

[Daemonik]

First of all, our schools have been "failing" our students because moronic Republicans on the education boards insist on "teaching the controversy" of their invisible sky man over evolution, and insisting that there has been no debate over climate change. Then throw in the numerous tax cuts that under fund the schools while they try to smooth talk us into believing that charter schools will be more than ponzi schemes to milk even more wealth out of the system. I'm seriously waiting for the conservative push to teach the Flat Earth "controversy".

Your biased lecture against colleges neglect that there are quite a number of alternative conservative colleges which are still quite happy to indoctrinate students and teach women that they are lesser beings to be raped and tossed aside as whores if they dare to question their role in the conservative lifestyle.

The truth is that conservatives hate education. Educated people ask questions and conservatism doesn't like to be questioned. It's an article of faith, like religion, and questions highlight the many conflicting inconsistencies that patch it together. Plus kids go to college, get a degree and then look back at the rural economic wasteland their conservative parents have surrounded themselves with and immediately go live somewhere they can get a job, typically the big scary liberal city.

Re: Evergreen State

[WindBourne]

Yeah, only right wing fascist indoctrination camps should be funded. Sheesh.

Re: Evergreen State

[Anonymous Coward]

Church

Re:Evergreen State

[allcoolnameswheretak]

Don't confuse anti-US College with anti-education

Really? Have you ever learned about the Age of Enlightenment? It's that era that went hand in hand with the scientific revolution and took the western world out of the dark ages of medieval thinking, for good. It's also the reason why the west has been steering human progress for the last 300 years. The dark ages on the other hand where dominated by religious thought, superstition and fraught with prejudice towards critical thinking. Religious fanatics would rather burn progressive thinkers like Galileo Galilei on the stake rather than listen to reason.

I'm sorry, but the conservative right in the US with the denial of climate change supported by the *vast* majority of scientist, their antipathy towards the theory of evolution and efforts to teach creationism in schools, their tactics of spreading fear and uncertainty among the populace to legitimatize their crackdowns on civil rights and their boosting in defense spending, even though in reality terrorism is a marginal threat. All of this looks like steps of a counter-enlightenment movement, a return to the dark ages to me.

SJW/Antifa backlash

[elrous0]

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.

Re:SJW/Antifa backlash

[markdavis]

>"After reading that, it kind of makes it hard for me to take seriously anything else he says or produces."

That is unfortunate. So you didn't view any of the videos published by many bright and informed people because of your snap judgement from a single statement that might be read out of context, by one person? That is not the way to learn, but the way to censor your own exploration. It is exactly what we are talking about in colleges! You might not agree with something, but turning away from anything that challenges your beliefs isn't healthy.

Re:SJW/Antifa backlash

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, he's kind of right. The news media in the west elected Donald Trump as president. No I don't mean the individual employees voted for him, I mean they gave him 24/7 wall to wall coverage over every tiny thing he did. They know how to stop a candidate from getting attention and votes, just don't cover them. It's what they did to Ron Paul, it's what they did to Bernie Sanders. But Trump played them like a fiddle. Every move he made, from the biggest most obnoxious catch phrases to his tiniest farts were on full 24/7 news coverage. Combine that with their love affair with Hillary Clinton (and the fact that the DNC was once again snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, see also John Kerry), and you have DJT for president, bought and paid for by CNN and Fox and MSNBC and everyone else. Trump couldn't have spent enough money to get that sort of coverage, and the western news media gave it to him for free.

Re:SJW/Antifa backlash

[laird]

Perhaps read "none of this is impacting regular education much at all. The vast majority of classes are not impacted;" Students protesting an offensive speaker at an auditorium doesn't "create a hostile work environment" for anyone except the speaker that's pissed off the students.

Re:Those places used by the left to indoctonate

[beelsebob]

"Anyone who disagrees with me must have been indoctrinated. It couldn't possibly be that by becoming better educated these people see clearly the bullshit that the GOP has become."

Re:There's an obvious reason

[Grishnakh]

I doubt Republicans consider engineering, math, biology, English and such as bad.

That's incorrect; it depends which Republicans you're talking to. If you mean the old-style Barry Goldwater fiscal conservatives, you're correct. If you mean religious conservatives, like the ones who voted for Ted Cruz or Mike Huckabee, you're wrong: they see biology classes as evil because they teach evolution. With the Trump supporters, it's probably a mixed bag. But there is a very, very large fraction of Republican voters who don't believe in evolution, so science classes are a sore point for them. Even worse, it looks like some Republicans are turning to flat Earth-ism.

Re:There's an obvious reason

[apoc.famine]

A large part of the issue stems from STEM threatening religious beliefs, directly or indirectly. While climate change, evolution, and the origin of life and the universe are the common hot-button issues, where religion might directly contradict science, the entire process of questioning understanding, checking for facts, and drawing logical conclusions is antithetical to belief. With a sizable percentage of republicans relying on a base where religion is a very prominent core of their being, it's not surprising that they would be against something that threatens it.
 
As a whole, the education has the potential to give people the tools to question belief, but more critically, question authority. Given the extreme shift to authoritarian positions by the current crop of republicans, I can definitely see how education can be a threat.

Re:Reading between the lines.

[doctorvo]

Your sarcasm is unwarranted and misses the point. In fact, it's much simpler: conservatives want higher education to teach conservative values and ideas, while leftists want higher education to teach leftist values and ideas. The leftists have pretty much taken over US academia, and as a result, conservatives want tax payers to pay less for teaching an ideology that they disagree with.

And although dependence on big government programs is likely a nice political side effect for people who generally advocate such things, the primary reason for skyrocketing costs is the same as our public pension crisis: special interests lobby for more government spending for their causes, and traditionally, it's been hard for politiciains to say "no" to subsidizing education. If you subsidize something, prices generally go up.

Re:Mod Parent Up

[Anonymous Coward]

Fascists are not "leftist" no matter what they or other people may call them. You gonna tell me the People's Democratic Republic is a democracy?

They may be "to the left" of Dominionist Republicans, but that's still the extreme right.

Re:There's an obvious reason

[dunkelfalke]

You are also hypocrites - you have zero problems with killing humans. It is only the unborn that are, for some reason, sacred.

Re:There's an obvious reason

[nine-times]

I disagree somewhat with both you and the person you're responding to. I don't think it's explicitly the engineering or math that is upsetting them, and I don't think it's "brainwashing". The real problem is that, when you get a broad education and actually learn about the world we live in, modern Republican ideology is revealed to be complete insanity.

Evolution and global warming are real. Government isn't inherently evil. You can't always increase tax revenue by cutting taxes. The American "founding fathers" were not trying to create a "Christian nation". The Constitution does not work the way Republicans say it does. Muslims do have the right to practice their religion. There's no "historical proof" that Jesus was a real guy who was really the Messiah. The Bible doesn't say, "Poor people are just lazy. Fuck'em."

So these ignorant morons send their kids to college, and their kids come back saying, "Ummm... Yeah, so... that part of the Bible that says you should kill gay people...? That's roughly the same part of the Bible that says you can't eat bacon. So since you're not completely adhering to the rules in the Bible, maybe it's ok to not-kill gay people?"

And now they're upset. Their kids are using big words, and talking like murdering gay people isn't cool. The only conclusion their tiny minds can reach is that college is evil, and brainwashing their kids against "good ol'fashioned 'Merican values!" At some point, we might just need to find a way to stop listening to those people.

Re:Mod Parent Up

[MoarSauce123]

Fascists have always been alt-right fundamental nationalists, much like those who diss higher education.

Re:There's an obvious reason

[tgrigsby]

I grew up being taught about the Bible as well, but then I grew up, learned critical thinking skills, and realized there is no proof for any god. Since man is the only animal smart enough to understand that it will die someday, the fear of death is a convenient tool by which to control people and gain power. And while people do some really good things to impress their gods, kids also do some really good things to impress Santa, but they grow out of that one day and do those good things, hopefully, just because they are good people. I regularly do good things just because I'm a good person, not because I feel the need to impress a mythical figure.

As such, my life is now ruled by logic, not by the moral standards of people who lived in very different times and who turned to dust thousands of years ago. Since science is built on logic, I trust science, my knowledge of history, and my own moral compass as my guides.

The Republican Party's power is based largely on the manufactured consensus of the fearful, ignorant, and with the addition of the religious right, the superstitious, so it's plain to see why colleges and universities pose a huge threat to their power base, and it clearly explains the impetus for Fox "News" and other right wing propaganda sites to tear at the foundation of our educational institutions by describing them as generating "lefties", "communists", "Marxists", and other buzz words that gin up conservative hatred and fear.

Reality has a liberal bias

[rsilvergun]

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.

Here's what words mean

[skam240]

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.

Re: There's an obvious reason

[quantaman]

Your straw man conception of modern Republican ideology was written by vox and think progress. It's not anywhere close to reality.

Have you been paying attention the last 8 years?

They've been in complete denial of the scientific consensus of climate change, explaining away scientific consensus with outlandish claims of mass international conspiracies.

They're convinced of massive widescale voter fraud without any evidence, I don't even mean Trump's crazy millions, even the endless claims of thousands of illegal voters never amount anything more than a couple people confused non-citizens.

Large portions of the party were convinced that Barak Obama was an illegal alien.

They spent 8 years of campaigning again a Republican healthcare bill (ie, Obamacare), and after getting in power they're now realizing they've made a series of completely contradictory promises, came up with an absolutely awful bill, and are still trying to ram it through. What do they even expect to accomplish if they do pass it? Do they think people won't notice when the individual health care market explodes?

This is not the action of a rational party.

I won't dispute for a second that intelligent rational conservatism exists, but the GOP is not it.