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

[elrous0]

And I wish Evergreen were just a completely fringe case. But sadly, even many mainstream universities in red states are now indoctrinating students and stifling any dissent. Even reddest of red states, Tennessee, had to pass a law (against the opposition of its own public university administrations) just to guarantee students basic free speech rights.

Re:Evergreen State

[Grishnakh]

One example isn't proof of anything. By that dumb logic, I could point to LIberty University as "proof" that colleges are all ultra-conservative hellholes, but obviously they're not. One example is only good for disproving something, like this assertion I just made here is obviously disproved by Evergreen State.

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

[Nikkos]

moronic Republicans on the education boards insist on "teaching the controversy" of their invisible sky man over evolution

Yes, because adding one small thing regarding the evolution debate just kills all other subjects in school. If you think _THAT_ is the dealbreaker you're just as clueless as the rest.

I'm conservative, and I'm all for evolution, and I don't have anything against the invisible sky-man. I'll even think less of schools that don't teach evolution.

But that doesn't mean that the rest of the curriculum - history, math, english/language - is going to be shit. What's shit is schools that hold kids back so that the idiot glue-eaters can 'catch up'. My father was a 5th-grade teacher for 30+ years. By the time he retired, he was teaching stuff in his class that was 3rd-grade material when he started. He had countless kids that could barely read or handle basic mat - the teachers in the earlier grades would simply pass the kids with high because they didn't want to deal with parents. And of course the administration didn't care, nor did the school board - that is until standardized testing exposed how terrible the teachers were.

Do you know what happened then? The teachers started stealing the tests before the exams and had special 'study' sessions. Again the administration looked the other way - the better testing scores looked good, and the union made any type of punishment impossible anyway. My father couldn't get out of their fast enough.

The unions and the touchy-feely 'everyone gets a trophy' and 'everyone is special' crowd have completely fucked up our education system, not the republicans.

Re:Evergreen State

[Nikkos]

fixes: marks, math, and there.

Dad didn't teach language and typing.

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.

Re:Evergreen State

[brianerst]

Except, of course, that Liberty University has a long history of having leading figures on the left come and speak to its student body. Ted Kennedy was a frequent speaker, and last year, students were required to go to a Bernie Sanders speech.

The students were respectful and listened, even though they disagreed with Sanders on most points.

I wouldn't go to or send my child to Liberty U, but the differences between a Liberty University and a Berkeley or Evergreen or Yale or Middlebury are pretty stark. Liberty U expects a respectful audience and gets one, the others have let the inmates run the asylum.

Re:Evergreen State

[TsuruchiBrian]

Colleges are also how we end up with electrical engineers and doctors. It's too bad that what happened at evergreen state was so insanely terrible that it is not outweighed by the good colleges in general do for our country.

Sure I can get an MRI and have a super computer in my pocket, but I'd trade it all to stop some leftist students from disrupting operations on a leftist college campus, where they where taught their leftist ideology by the leftist faculty.

Re:Evergreen State

[ShanghaiBill]

I love how you snowflakes cry.

A "snowflake" is someone who whines about their own sense of entitlement, not someone who speaks up for the rights of others.

Suppression of free speech on college campuses is a serious issue. Liberal advocates of restrictions should learn from history. In the past, policies designed to suppress the right were later turned against the left. McCarthyism was based on laws originally intended to suppress the far right, rather than "commies". Judicial activism was originally a tool of Liberals, but is now increasingly used against them.

Re:Evergreen State

[Voyager529]

See, this is why we can't have nice things: getting past the headlines to see the spectrum that truly exists takes effort.

Get past "earth was created in 6,000 years and fossils exist to test us because god hates fags" flavor of creationism, and you'll find far more nuanced interpretations. Some believe that "days" in the Genesis account mean lengthy eras of time. Others believe that the earth was created halfway through its lifecycle (Adam and Eve were unlikely to be created as infants, after all). Others believe something along the lines that God is simply the initial cause of the Big Bang, with God opting to have a much less influential role in the course of the development of life. Are people with a more sensible view of creationism building massive arks and trying to change textbooks? Generally not. More to the point, they're more apt to learn more about the information regarding what is observed, rather than turning it into a political battle.

On the topic of climate change, again, we've got a spectrum that doesn't get headlines because the folks insisting the climate isn't changing have that market cornered. Get past it, and the questions are more sensible: Is the primary way to stave it off really to increase taxes? Is it sensible to make certain things unaffordable to the most cost sensitive people in order to save the planet? If the manufacturing of a hybrid is more environmentally unfriendly than an ICE car, is it really helpful to fervently pitch their manufacture and purchase? Same for solar panels - if their production is very toxic to the environment, are we doing any long-term favors just because China is willing to make them affordably at the expense of their environmental state? Obviously, these questions and many more are present on the topic, and some do have viable answers, but the problem is the lack of any middle ground - say "maybe we should see if it's possible to have more environmentally friendly solar panels before giving tax incentives for them", and you're a corporatist republican who doesn't care about the environment. Say, "perhaps it would make sense to use the more resource intensive panels for larger buildings so that the air conditioners will at least be mostly solar powered and their impact will be negated quicker", and you're a tree hugging Al Gore groupie who cares more about mother earth than the children who live in it.

Is it possible for there to be a return to the dark ages? Anything is possible. Is the best way to fight it by forcing both sides further to the extremes and engage in a battle of attrition? I think not.

Re:Evergreen State

[laird]

True. But keep in mind that teachers are required by law ("no child left behind") to teach to the test; if they don't, they get pay cuts and then fired, and entire schools can be shut down. When Texas started this strategy under Bush Jr., it led directly to corrupting the school systems, because they were forced to do so to save their schools. So, for example, they spent all class time cramming for the material on the test, and taking practice tests, which helps test scores but hurts actual education. Then as the bar was raised and penalties started really hitting, teachers "corrected" tests before submitting the scores, or transferred "bad" students to another school (on paper) the day before the test, so their scores wouldn't hurt the school. But it created (fake) rising test scores, so it was a "success" for the politicians.

Then Bush Jr did the same thing to the whole country, with the same dismal results.

This had nothing to do with parents or unions - generally, both parent and unions opposed the disaster of "no child left behind" and oppose "teaching to the test". But they didn't have the leverage to stop it, since it was pushed by the GOPs national and state political leaders, then enforced by the school administrators, who care a lot about their budgets.

Re: Evergreen State

[acrimonious howard]

I'm trying to extrapolate some coherent point from this post. It's difficult, but seems like some common ... thoughts ... should be addressed:

The liberals were the fascists in the Nazi party (Nazi meaning new socialist)

Where the heck does this come from?? Every single iota of non-biased information I've ever seen points to the opposite. Eg Wikipedia:

the Nazi Party was a far-right political party in Germany

You ... are a "climate denier". Notice that none of these ad homonym attacks...

If you deny the scientifically-accepted theory of climate change, then you're a climate denier. It's not ad homonym. (face-palm). It's not ad hominem to accuse someone of a position that they hold.

Re: Evergreen State

[WindBourne]

how the fuck did you get modded up at all, with your rewriting of history and not a single thing to back it up?
This is why we get so much fake news from you far righties.

Constantly, historians, have shown that NAZI facism was far right. In fact, it is by definition, consider to be a far right action.:

fascism
faSHizm/
noun
an authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. synonyms: authoritarianism, totalitarianism, dictatorship, despotism, autocracy; More (in general use) extreme right-wing, authoritarian, or intolerant views or practice.

Here are more links:
Fascism /fæzm/ is a form of radical authoritarian nationalism,[1][2] characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and control of industry and commerce,[3] that came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe. The first fascist movements emerged in Italy during World War I, before it spread to other European countries. Opposed to liberalism, Marxism, and anarchism, fascism is usually placed on the far-right within the traditional left–right spectrum.[4][5]
Then we have the implication of your posting that NAZIs were left-wing, which is as far from the truth as your calling W or trump liberals.
National Socialism (German: Nationalsozialismus), more commonly known as Nazism (/ntszm, næ-/[1]), is the ideology and set of practices associated with the 20th-century German Nazi Party, Nazi Germany, and other far-right groups. Usually characterised as a form of fascism that incorporates scientific racism and antisemitism, Nazism's development was influenced by German nationalism, Pan-Germanism, the Völkisch movement and the anti-communist Freikorps paramilitary groups that emerged during the Weimar Republic after Germany's defeat in World War I.
Nazis were strongly opposed to the far left, but added minor elements of it, to appease ppl. The real fist in the nazis was PURE RIGHT WING, just like Trump today is. NAZIs HATED the far left which is why they invaded USSR as soon as they thought they could. Perhaps the ONLY element of the left that they accepted was the lefts love of science. Sadly, the NAZIs perverted science, just like today's GOP does

Here is how the ORIGINAL socialist party was perveted in under a year, by hitler and his far right cronies.
The small number of party members were quickly won over to Hitler's political beliefs. He organized their biggest meeting yet of 2,000 people, for February 24, 1920 in the Staatliches Hofbräuhaus in München. Further in an attempt to make the party more broadly appealing to larger segments of the population, the DAP was renamed the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) on February 24.[12][13] Such was the significance of Hitler's particular move in publicity that Karl Harrer resigned from the party in disagreement.[14] The new name was borrowed from a different Austrian party active at the time (Deutsche Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei, German National Socialist Workers' Party), although Hitler earlier suggested the party to be renamed the "Social Revolutionary Party"; it was Rudolf Jung who persuaded Hitler to follow the NSDAP naming.[15]

That is history. What you are writing is nothing more than a total re-writing of history in hopes that the idiots will follow your line of thinking .

Re: Evergreen State

[Jesus H Rolle]

... [churches] are funded voluntarily by individuals, not the state.

In the US, churches have been supported by the state for about a century now. Their tax exemption means I am forced by law to pay their bills.

There's an obvious reason

[SmaryJerry]

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.

Re:There's an obvious reason

[RotateLeftByte]

Higher Education has a long history of being rather left leaning. It is well known that most who are on the left when they are at University become less left wing as they grow older.

When I was at University in London in the mid 1970's we had many very left leaning factions. There were groups of Communists, Marxists, Marxist-Lennists, Maoists, Trotskyists, Broad Left and a few more. One of the Marxists is now a local politician for a right of centre party. That was something he would not have considered happening when he was in his early 20's.
University is the first time for most people where they are free to develop their own opinions. Being different from their parents/family is a natural stance to take.

I would not worry about it. 99% of them will grow out of it.
The French have a perfect way of describing it. 'Vive la Difference'.

Re:There's an obvious reason

[OzPeter]

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.

Flag burning was ruled by the supreme court to be protected under the First Amendment.
Why do you hate the constitution?

Re:There's an obvious reason

[beelsebob]

Right, and that's why we have:

  - States trying to ban people marrying the person they love because it disagrees with the Bible.
  -States trying to force women to carry babies to term even when it'll kill them, because the Bible apparently says they have to.
  - States erecting public monuments to christianity, despite constitutional requirements that they don't.
  - States trying to force people to be taught non-science in science classes because it disagrees with the Bible.
  - States trying to give tax payer funding to churches and calling them schools
  - ...

Don't give me that bullshit about no one trying to ram ideology down throats other than the left. The religious right has been trying to ram the bible down everyone's throats for decades.

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:There's an obvious reason

[PopeRatzo]

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

Sadly, there's plenty that do. I'm currently living in Texas, and I can take you to meet several of them right now. Here's a Republican elected official over in Arizona.

http://tucson.com/news/local/e...

“It got hijacked by Washington, by the federal government,” said Melvin, a candidate for governor, and “as a conservative Reagan Republican I’m suspect about the U.S. Department of Education in general, but also any standards that are coming out of that department.”

Melvin’s comments led Sen. David Bradley, D-Tucson, to ask him whether he’s actually read the Common Core standards, which have been adopted by 45 states.

“I’ve been exposed to them,” Melvin responded.

Pressed by Bradley for specifics, Melvin said he understands “some of the reading material is borderline pornographic.” And he said the program uses “fuzzy math,” substituting letters for numbers in some examples.

Re:There's an obvious reason

[0100010001010011]

I'd bet more American flags are burned

I bet more American flags are burned by veterans and Boy Scouts than at all colleges combined.

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: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: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.

Re:There's an obvious reason

[RightwingNutjob]

You're quite right. Nowhere did it say explicitly that the accused don't have rights. What it did say is that I ought not act like the burden of proof lies on the accuser. From which I reasoned that they don't want me pointing out that accused have rights, the most fundamental one of which is that the burden of proof lies on the accuser, and not the accused. Not much of a logical leap, is it now?

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.

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]

+1

Universities have become a haven of political correctness, speech-banning, and catering to every special flower at the expense of critical thinking, diversity, and learning. It doesn't help that the costs have gone through the roof and the average graduate (those who actually do graduate) are often less educated than high-school students of many years ago.

If you want to understand why most Conservatives are so upset about the state of Universities/Colleges, just check out some PragerU videos on the topic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

I certainly don't agree with everything Prager U puts out, but they have lots of very good points that are well illustrated, well supported, and educational.

Re:SJW/Antifa backlash

[JoshuaZ]

So, I'm currently a faculty member of a major university. Prior to my most recent position I was at Birmingham Southern College (a small school in Alabama) and before that I was at the University of Maine. It is pretty clear that left-wing student protests and threats of student protest are having a real chilling effect on what schools do and what sort of speakers they invite; there's also a clear chilling effect from the right, albeit smaller. However, none of this is impacting regular education much at all. The vast majority of classes are not impacted; it is a serious mistake to think that because we have a problem with some student groups trying to push for control and censorship now that somehow there's a problem with colleges and universities as a whole. Colleges remain the primary and best way to get serious education on almost any topic; as technology and science become more advanced and more relevant to serious issues we face as a society, the importance of colleges and universities if anything has grown. Universities also remain the hotbeds of basic research, a vital aspect of a long-term healthy economy.

It is unfortunate that people are using the genuine but minor problem of student activism as an excuse to have a generally anti-intellectual position against colleges as a whole. Moreover, if one is concerned about the influence of such groups, the last thing one should want to do is to give up the colleges and universities to them wholesale. If they become purely "liberal" or "left-wing" institutions, we all lose.

Re:SJW/Antifa backlash

[dunkelfalke]

A sudden decline? In the 1960ies republicans happily set the bloody national guard on students who built a park on a patch of unused land. It is not a new strain of anti-intellectualism, it is a very old one because stupid people generally distrust intelligent people, and studies have shown again and again that lower iq and weak education correlate strongly with conservative views and strong religious beliefs.

Re:SJW/Antifa backlash

[Golgafrinchan]

I'd never heard of Prager U until I read this post. I began searching for more info about it, and after a few minutes I ran into the Twitter page of Dennis Prager, the creator of Prager U. Yesterday, he tweeted:

"The news media in the West pose a far greater danger to Western civilization than Russia does."

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

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: Get back to tech news please

[that this is not und]

Slashdot didn't die. Malda just sold it. It's been skidding along ever since. And that was a long time ago now.

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."

Obligatory Asimov quote:

[Pig Hogger]

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

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:Those places used by the left to indoctonate

[MightyMartian]

In the sense that education inevitably seems to reduce conservatism

Spin it!

[Dan East]

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?

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.

[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: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:Those places used by the left to indoctonate

[Bengie]

Indoctrinating critical thinking. In most of my classes, right or wrong, if you could make a good argument you got nearly full credit. A good Devil's advocate was always rewarded.

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.

Some slash-perspective

[Texmaize]

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.

Re:Mod Parent Up

[MoarSauce123]

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

The politcal right vs education

[sjbe]

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.

Generalization...

[XSportSeeker]

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.

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.

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.

Billions of dollars of student debt

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re: Mod Parent Up

[Brockmire]

Uh, I associate environment protection and education with the left, not the right. You have a very loose definition of control. Which side likes to control your body? Oh, the right. Perhaps we need a 3D scale instead of a 2D scale.

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.