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

Reading between the lines.

[geekmux]

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.

Re:Reading between the lines.

[swillden]

regardless of the growing lack of return on that investment

You're nuts.

Average lifetime salary of a person with a high school diploma: $1.3M
Average lifetime salary of a person with some college: $1.6M
Average lifetime salary of a person with a four-year degree: $2.3M
Average lifetime salary of a person with a master's degree: $2.7M
Average lifetime salary of a person with a doctorate: $3.3M
Average lifetime salary of a person with a professional degree (MD, JD, etc.): $3.7M

These are overall averages, but the variation based on field of study is large. STEM degrees are particularly lucrative, and the average STEM graduate with a four-year degree out-earns the average person with a master's or doctorate in the social sciences, education, etc.

or the personal impact of massive debt.

Debt is not required to get an education. There are plenty of inexpensive colleges and universities. With a little hard work it's not hard to get partial or full tuition waivers at the undergraduate level, and scholarships and stipends are the norm at the PhD level and in many Master's programs.

Of course, this requires picking a school based on practical requirements and affordability (including cost of living... you may need to live at home and attend a local commuter school, for example), rather than the quality of the football program or the awesomeness of the party scene. And it requires working hard to maintain high grades (to get tuition waivers), rather than partying, etc.

Personally, I got a BS in Math and CS and not only graduated without any debt at all (never borrowed a penny for school), but with some savings accumulated while in school. I went to a local university so I could live with my parents, joined the Air Force Reserves to get the GI Bill, kept my grades high to get and stay on an academic tuition waiver (my high school grades were too bad to qualify for a scholarship) and worked 20-25 hours per week throughout my education.

In hindsight, I should have taken an education loan or two, because there was a GI Bill program that would have made payments on the loans... and there's nothing saying you need to actually spend the money on education. I should have borrowed the money and invested it, letting the military make the payments. I left money on the table.

Of course, that was all some 25-30 years ago... but I have two sons who are doing much the same thing now. They didn't do the military thing, and don't (yet) have the tuition waivers, but they're working part time and able to pay for school themselves by living at home and attending an inexpensive university (same one I went to). One of my sons just got married and moved out, so his costs are increasing but his wife has a decent (for now) full-time job, so she's going to support them while he finishes his education, then he'll go to work and she'll go to school. It will be a lot of work, but they'll both have educations and no debt.

Getting a higher education is very much worth it, and needn't come with a heavy debt burden. You just need to be smart about it.

Re:There's an obvious reason

[RightwingNutjob]

I went back in for the grad school thing and as a condition of registration, I had to take a sensitivity test where to pass, I had to assert on the multiple-choice quiz at the end that 40% of women on college campuses are victims of rape. And that accused don't have rights because I had a moral duty to "believe the victim."

See what happened? If you challenge the believability of that number ("Look to your left, look to your right, one of you is being raped right now!"), you confess to not "believing." Lovely game, no?

This was ten months ago, and not at some backwater no-name liberal arts school, either.

Re:Obligatory Asimov quote:

[swillden]

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

I think this is an old (older than the US as a nation) reaction to the pro-intellectuallism of the Northeastern states -- Yankeedom. The culture of this region has always been very pro-education, to the point that during the Puritan era social status was primarily determined by education level. The southern part of the country, of course, had constant economic and ideological conflict with the north. The north was aggressively egalitarian and prized communitarian notions of freedom and community self-government. The south was aristocratic and prized the individual liberty of the aristocrats. Social status in the south was based on wealth and heritage; education was largely irrelevant, though some sub-cultures in the south lionized classical education as a sign of and means to culture and gentility.

I think anti-intellectualism arose primarily as a straightforward rejection by the south of all things northern. As history rolled on, this view became deeply embedded in the conservative culture, and was regularly reinforced by the fact that intellectuals always want to apply their knowledge and theories to change society, while conservatives obviously don't want change.

Re:Pervasive vs. present

[tgrigsby]

I have three kids in college right now and one that's graduated already.

Yes, I regularly hyperventilate about how much it costs. I hyperventilate more about the weddings they describe and think I'm going to pay for (three girls).

And none of them knows what the hell you're talking about. They don't typically hear left leaning ideology. They hear lectures on the course topics. And of those professors that do bring up politics in the classroom, and they are apparently a small percentage, it seems balanced between left wing and right wing.

Don't let Fox "News" and Breitbart convince you that higher education is bad. Growing the uneducated portion of the population serves the GOP's need for an ignorant and fearful power base.