Post: #1

I think that defunding all public education except that which has some worthy economic benefit would be a good thing for the economy and also help to counter progressive indoctrination in schools.

Allowing students to attend "womyn's studies" or "LGBT studies" classes via taxpayer funded student loans has no economic benefit; many who graduate with these degrees likely spend the next 15 years living with mommy and daddy using what little they make from their part-time job at McDonald's just to pay back the student loans.

Essentially everything other than essential education and hard job skills should be cut from every public education institution. That and athletics should be mandatory education as much as reading, writing, arithmetic.

---



Nearly half a trillion spent on "education", and this is the result:

Post: #2

Looks like Trump wants to kill "liberal arts" sections of schools:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016...-developed

Quote:Donald Trump has been quiet about higher education policy during his triumphant march through the Republican presidential primaries. That could be ending soon.

Sam Clovis, the national co-chair and policy director of Trump's campaign, outlined for Inside Higher Ed the ideas that the presumptive GOP nominee is preparing to put forth. While final decisions have not been made on when the ideas will be formally unveiled, not to mention many details worked out, Clovis said the Trump campaign expects higher education to be a major issue in the fall general election.

Some of the ideas under consideration could be "revolutionary," Clovis said. Proposals currently being prepared would upend the current system of student loans, force all colleges to share the risk of such loans and make it harder for those wanting to major in the liberal arts at nonelite institutions to obtain loans. And even if some of the proposals would face a skeptical Congress, these ideas could gain considerable attention if Trump uses them to parry with his Democratic opponent.

Clovis is a tenured professor of economics at Morningside College, a small private college in Iowa, who is currently on leave to work for the Trump campaign. Some of Clovis's recent pronouncements on Trump policies have been widely criticized by Washington experts as unworkable or unrealistic. And Clovis said he expects some higher education leaders to react the same way as Trump outlines these ideas in the fall campaign. He said the campaign remains open to ideas as long as they put the emphasis on student success in ways that have more impact than efforts of past administrations.

First off, Clovis made clear that the Trump campaign will fight and not endorse Hillary Clinton's proposal for debt-free public higher education or the Bernie Sanders plan for free public higher education. The response on those ideas will be "unequivocally no," Clovis said. "How do you pay for that? It's absurd on its surface."

Further, Trump will also reject President Obama's proposals for a state-federal partnership to make community college free for new high school graduates. Community colleges are "damn near free" now, and "almost anyone can afford community college," he said.

Big Changes for Student Loans

Many of the ideas on which the Trump campaign is working involve a complete overhaul of the federal student loan system, moving the government out of lending and restoring that role to private banks, as was the case before President Clinton partially and President Obama fully shifted loan origination from private lenders to the government. "We think it should be marketplace and market driven," he said. Local banks should be lending to local students, he said, but colleges should be playing a role in determining loan worthiness on factors that go beyond family income.
Further, he said that all colleges should have "skin in the game" and share the risk associated with student loans. Many in Congress (and not just Republicans) have voiced support for that idea. But many Democrats have argued that some institutions -- historically black colleges or community colleges, for example -- should be exempt, given their histories of educating many students from low-income families who may not have the financial resources of others. But Clovis said that the principle of colleges sharing risk must apply to all institutions.

Further, he said that the risk needs to be substantial enough to change the way colleges decide whether to admit students, and which programs they offer.

Clovis said he hoped many colleges would continue to provide remediation for those unprepared for college-level work, although he said that he preferred the term "student success programs" to remediation. But he said that colleges should not be admitting students that they aren't confident can graduate in a reasonable time frame and find jobs. That means a shift in who is involved in deciding on student loans, with less emphasis on parent contributions and the Free Application for Federal Student Aid and more of "a partnership" between the student, the bank and the college. "We think if the college has real skin in the game, it will change its model."

And these reforms would make it legitimate for colleges and banks to make decisions in part on students' prospective majors and their likely earnings after graduation, he said.

"If you are going to study 16th-century French art, more power to you. I support the arts," Clovis said. "But you are not going to get a job."
A college should factor that in when deciding on a student's loan eligibility, and the requirement that colleges share the risk would be a powerful incentive to do so, Clovis added.

"If you get into the esoteric aspects of a particular art field, you have to know that those are the circumstances," he said.

And Clovis said this does not mean the Trump campaign is against the liberal arts. "The liberal arts education is the absolute foundation to success in life," Clovis said, adding that he hoped business and engineering and health professions and education students would include liberal arts courses in their college educations. But it is a different thing altogether, Clovis said, to focus on such fields. "If you choose to major in the liberal arts, there are issues associated with that."

There may be colleges that decide they are comfortable backing loans for students who study the liberal arts. A prestigious college could legitimately decide that anyone it graduates -- regardless of major -- will do well in life, and so go ahead with approving the borrowing. "If you go to Harvard, you can major in anything you want, and once you get in the door, you'll be OK," Clovis said, so such a college might be fine with its students borrowing to study the liberal arts. "But not all colleges are in the same system," he said.

Community Colleges, For-Profits and More

Clovis said the Trump campaign would encourage community colleges, just like four-year colleges, to focus on serving students who can succeed. And Clovis said that, based on his research, there is much for community colleges to be proud of. He said many job-training programs at community colleges are very well run and help many students.

The Trump campaign has not yet focused on for-profit higher education, Clovis said. "The business model for for-profit higher education is quite different" from that of nonprofit colleges, Clovis said, and the campaign needs to figure out how to propose improvements for the sector. The Obama administration has been widely seen as tough on the sector, and many Republicans in Congress have accused the administration of overstepping its authority in this area. Clovis, given a chance to weigh in on such criticism, passed. He said the focus of the campaign's ideas on higher education was public and private nonprofit higher education.

Clovis said he was a fan of nonprofit colleges that adopt some strategies from for-profit models. For example, he praised Regis University, where he once taught. The institution has a traditional residential campus in Colorado, but a much larger student body enrolled online.

The Obama administration has also been notable for overseeing many more investigations of colleges on how they handle sex assaults and for guidance that has encouraged colleges to take tougher stances in investigating alleged assaults. Clovis did not comment on those investigations per se, but said that one idea the campaign might propose would be to move the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights to join the civil rights division of the Department of Justice.

"Once we get into office, we're going to take a hard look at the Department of Education," he said. "There are lots of things that serve people well, but there are many operations that do not. Civil rights is an important aspect of everything," but students and colleges might get "better guidance and effectiveness" if we put it all "under one tent" at the Justice Department.

On the issue of affirmative action, on which colleges are currently waiting for a Supreme Court ruling on a challenge to the admissions system of the University of Texas at Austin, Clovis said the campaign would defer to the legal system. "Affirmative action needs to be settled by the courts," he said.

Free Speech and Trump Chalkings

As Trump's campaign has taken off in the Republican primaries, many campuses have seen Trump supporters chalk their support on campus walkways or build walls that refer to the candidate's plans for a wall on the border with Mexico. On some campuses, the chalkings have included anti-Muslim or anti-immigrant statements. On some campuses, students have called these actions intimidation and demanded that chalkings be erased or walls come down.

Clovis said the campaign has been watching these campus debates and has been concerned about issues of free expression. "I think in the spirit of academic freedom, a college campus should be a place where people should be allowed to express themselves to the fullest as long as they don't injure another party. We don't support violence," he said.

Colleges should defend the right of students to support Trump, or any candidate, he added, and colleges should reject demands that they condemn pro-Trump activities on campus.

"When students react in a particular way and they make demands, there has to be a calm approach to it, to say, 'Look, this is free speech and this is the speech that is on this campus. You may not agree with this individual, but this person on this campus, and you should hear what they have to say.'"

College administrators should be speaking out in defense of free speech, he said. "We need leadership that says that one side does not get to dictate what is said."

Is Trump like manna from Heaven or something? Not only does he want to secure borders and regain national sovereignty, but he's also aiming to defund the liberal arts indoctrination scam. It's so good I can hardly believe it's true. Trump CAN KILL FEMINISM! It will be a glorious day for America if Trump succeeds in pushing his education reforms through.

Post: #3

I hope Trump puts more of a focus on K12 education while de-emphasizing the importance of higher education.

No one should have to get a college degree and waste more of their life in school. At 18 years of age it's time people grow up and hit the real world instead of some glorified school summer sex camp.

With that said, his plan to give colleges more skin in the student loan racket will adversely affect private institutions who peddle useless liberal arts programs. It's time for the majority of these to go under.

Post: #4

Quote:Many of the ideas on which the Trump campaign is working involve a complete overhaul of the federal student loan system, moving the government out of lending and restoring that role to private banks, as was the case before President Clinton partially and President Obama fully shifted loan origination from private lenders to the government. "We think it should be marketplace and market driven," he said. Local banks should be lending to local students, he said, but colleges should be playing a role in determining loan worthiness on factors that go beyond family income.
Further, he said that all colleges should have "skin in the game" and share the risk associated with student loans. Many in Congress (and not just Republicans) have voiced support for that idea. But many Democrats have argued that some institutions -- historically black colleges or community colleges, for example -- should be exempt, given their histories of educating many students from low-income families who may not have the financial resources of others. But Clovis said that the principle of colleges sharing risk must apply to all institutions.

Interesting. Although "complete overhaul" sounds like maybe an exaggeration. This is somewhat over-simplified but essentially, before Obamacare the way most (2/3rds) student loans worked is that private institutions lent money to students and got paid the interest while the government assumed most of the risk. This was a sweet deal for lenders like Sallie Mae and Nelnet, and the gravy train ended in 2010 with Obamacare. The remaining 3rd of the market was already originated by the Federal Government's Direct Loan program. Since Obamacare, 100% of guaranteed student loans have been originated by the government[1]. These profits help fund Obamacare[2], so the change did not actually help students at all, unless they needed subsidized healthcare. The gravy train, such as it is, is simply now flowing to insurance and healthcare providers instead of private lenders.

Trump's idea seems good on the face of it. In the old way, taxpayers assumed the lion's share of risk while the private lenders got the profits. Obama's way is that taxpayers still assume all the risk but the profits go towards healthcare welfare. Trump's plan is to shift some of the burden of risk off the federal government to colleges themselves. "Skin in the game" is a great way to put it. Although Colleges do already rely on alumni patronage, it makes no difference to them whether a student is successful or not if neither is likely to donate.

Post: #5

(05-28-2016 04:11 AM)The Beast1 Wrote:  I hope Trump puts more of a focus on K12 education while de-emphasizing the importance of higher education.

No one should have to get a college degree and waste more of their life in school. At 18 years of age it's time people grow up and hit the real world instead of some glorified school summer sex camp.

College isn't supposed to be a sex camp. College is for academic specialization. K-12 provides basic reading, writing, and math along with surveys of other fields like science and history. College provides advanced reading and writing along with the first real phase of specialization. You study concepts and principles related to a particular field in a guided, rigorous fashion. A bachelors's degree is meant to be more specialized than high school, though not a specific vocational training. While I grant you there is a problem with degree inflation and a dangerous combination of entitlement and irresponsibility in students, there's still a place for incremental specialization. I'm not willing to throw out the baby with the bath water yet and glad to see that Trump's plan isn't just to tear the whole thing down.

Post: #6

(05-28-2016 05:14 AM)Blaster Wrote:  

(05-28-2016 04:11 AM)The Beast1 Wrote:  I hope Trump puts more of a focus on K12 education while de-emphasizing the importance of higher education.

No one should have to get a college degree and waste more of their life in school. At 18 years of age it's time people grow up and hit the real world instead of some glorified school summer sex camp.

College isn't supposed to be a sex camp. College is for academic specialization. K-12 provides basic reading, writing, and math along with surveys of other fields like science and history. College provides advanced reading and writing along with the first real phase of specialization. You study concepts and principles related to a particular field in a guided, rigorous fashion. A bachelors's degree is meant to be more specialized than high school, though not a specific vocational training. While I grant you there is a problem with degree inflation and a dangerous combination of entitlement and irresponsibility in students, there's still a place for incremental specialization. I'm not willing to throw out the baby with the bath water yet and glad to see that Trump's plan isn't just to tear the whole thing down.

And Trump's plan isn't to do that, however under the new light of Trump's higher education plan most colleges won't be able to shoulder such risks. I know of a ton of liberal arts colleges and for-profit schools that focus mostly on the useless creative arts endeavors and charge upwards of 40-50k a year in tuition. These schools won't be able to survive when they have to shoulder the cost of non-loan payment.

Surprisingly there are quite a large number of small liberal arts colleges like this that are spread across America. 95% of them will go the way of Burlington College when they can't rely off of subsidized student loans to pay for their gender, music, and theater studies programs.

The big name schools will survive just fine because they have large research components, big money from sports, and reputations as institutions where real work gets done.

Post: #7

Is it correct to equate feminism and liberal arts? Many forum members appreciate the classics. They should not be exterminated simply for failing to make profit.

Post: #8

(05-28-2016 01:02 PM)churros Wrote:  Is it correct to equate feminism and liberal arts? Many forum members appreciate the classics. They should not be exterminated simply for failing to make profit.

There wouldn't be any reason not to admit a liberal arts major who isn't relying on loans. This would essentially take non-career focused higher education back to its original purpose of training the aristocracy to be interesting at cocktail parties, instead of trying to play Finding Forrester by teaching Chaucer to some inner city kid that got duped into thinking any college degree is a magic ticket to success.

Post: #9

(05-28-2016 01:02 PM)churros Wrote:  Is it correct to equate feminism and liberal arts? Many forum members appreciate the classics. They should not be exterminated simply for failing to make profit.

This is a common fallacy. Bortimus answered this question succinctly as did I previously.

You don't need college classes to learn the classics.

A good K12 curriculum has more than enough time to cover classical literature, art, mythology, and philosophy. I know because I went to a public school that did.

Post: #10

^

Sounds good.

But now we're talking about reforming the entire public education system. That system, currently, is producing Ivy league entrants without a single foreign language.

Quite apart from that – if Trump goes ahead with this plan, do you think he'll compensate by implementing a K12 with the classics? It seems doubtful.

Post: #11

Also, can't help but address this:

Quote:

All this graphic says is that the US is the biggest country. Here's per capita for primary/secondary:



Here's post-secondary:

Post: #12

The problem is not what is being taught. It's the way it's being taught.

Ever since the 1970s, people in the liberal arts field have recast history through a Marxist lens. There are "oppressors" and "the oppressed" and that's about it.

This way of thinking politicized the arts, history, and even the sciences to some degree. And it all ultimately degenerated into a simplistic and inaccurate idea: "White man bad! All others good!"

To steal an annoying word from liberals, life is more "nuanced" (gag) than that. I'm going to focus on women's studies in this post, but what I have to say can be applied most anywhere. Camille Paglia recently said in an interview that women's studies departments evolved in vacuums. They had no historical perspective and didn't take into account basic biology - a huge blind spot.

If you taught women's studies with a biological perspective in mind, it wouldn't be so bothersome. That perspective would be:

"For most of history, humans were not civilized and lots of women died in childbirth. Men, who were brawnier, built the world because it was dangerous work -- and sending women out to do that would have resulted in more of their deaths, which was unacceptable. All of this wasn't due to "oppression." It was because men's bodies were built for building and women's to have children and continue the species. However, while men were out building the world, here is what women contributed to literature, to music, and to technology."

But this isn't how it's being taught. History is being recast as men spending all their time trying to keep women down. And once women gained some form of equality, they had to find news way to demonize men. Hence "rape culture."

But when assessing why women have the place in the world they do now, you only have to look back 100 years or so. The world was not the safe, convenient place it is today.

These courses are being taught by ideologues and people with grudges and personal issues, so don't expect changes anytime soon. Even mentioning all this will probably get you cast as a "rape apologists" or a supporter of rape culture. We're not dealing with rational, well-adjusted people here.

Which is why it might just be a good idea to cut funding. What good are they doing anyone by teaching the way they do?

Post: #13

Academia is full of politics like anything else.

Since the 70s at least, Marxism is quite distinct from feminism. Actually, feminists consider Marxism misogynistic. As for race studies, post-colonialism still has a presence, but is no longer that fashionable. There are still plenty of conservative-minded professors who teach the classics, etc. But they are a dying breed.

The truth is that professors are chosen to cater to demographics. Administration just wants them to kiss the students' asses, because they are customers first, students second. So they choose sycophantic, feminine, sympathising types. For that reason, the blame lies with the consumerist nature of American universities. That's why corporations behave just like universities, and vice-versa.

Further privatising them will not remedy this.

Post: #14

Cburros, Trump's plan is to push the responsibility of planning curriculums back onto the states where it belongs and not with a nation wide one size fits all common core.

If a state wants to teach the classics it will instruct its teachers to do so.

As for Higher education, what do you think is driving this push for limp wristed professors catering to changing demographics?

The whole higher education system has been in a persistent bubble since the early 90s because of the government expanding access to any nitwit that wants a degree. This has lowered the quality of degrees and degree programs since any one can qualify for a loan from FAFSA.

This is in effect similar to the market distortions of the FED on the housing market. Government backed student loans for gender studies, poli sci, sociology, and other liberal arts programs are unsustainable.

Pulling the plugs on these loans will cause most of them to go under. The higher quality ones will survive at the most deserving institutions with the highest merit.

Finally whether or not feminists see their ideologies as marxist based is moot. They've embodied the whole aspect of deconstructionism right down to deconstructioning the deconstructionism. As you said the problem is the nature of the universities.

Post: #15

(05-28-2016 09:40 PM)Days of Broken Arrows Wrote:  Camille Paglia recently said in an interview that women's studies departments evolved in vacuums. They had no historical perspective and didn't take into account basic biology - a huge blind spot.

Before Milo, there was Paglia. I remember her massive college tour twenty-five years ago. Overflow rooms, body guards, feminists foaming at the mouth.

Here's her recent interview with Reason, explaining the decay of the university.

Post: #16

(05-29-2016 11:19 AM)ElFlaco Wrote:  

(05-28-2016 09:40 PM)Days of Broken Arrows Wrote:  Camille Paglia recently said in an interview that women's studies departments evolved in vacuums. They had no historical perspective and didn't take into account basic biology - a huge blind spot.

Before Milo, there was Paglia. I remember her massive college tour twenty-five years ago. Overflow rooms, body guards, feminists foaming at the mouth.

Here's her recent interview with Reason, explaining the decay of the university.

She's a bernie sanders supporting libertarian who talks like a meth head. She has what I would call quasi red pill views but overall not really impressed. She sounds more like a disgruntled proto-hippie.

Post: #17

Alright. So when the states gain control of the curriculum, it might get better. But isn't it also possible it might get worse? My suspicion, personally, is that the problem just gets displaced.

What's pushing the change? You say government, I say corporations. We don't need to argue about that, because they're actually two sides of the same coin.

Clinton introduced higher education reform to replace traditional manufacturing job losses. He signed trade deals to move these jobs overseas. And the solution, as he saw it, was to expand education.

That didn't work for everyone, but it worked for Silicon Valley, I suppose.

Totally agree that too many people are going to university. But I disagree that state funding should be cancelled. We need to cut the rot out of the universities, not destroy the institution altogether.

Post: #18

Lately I'm of the opinion that liberal arts, classics, philosophy, etc is full of a lot of age-old wisdom which has been lost on today's generation.

On the same note though I don't see a lot of benefit in going to a university to study it, especially since those type of degrees aren't conductive to finding employment, IMO.

In the age of the internet people can read up on these things on their own; e.x. Ben Franklin's autobiography for example is available on Youtube as a free audiobook.

Sadly even with all of this free knowledge at their fingertips more people spend their time playing Farmville or watching cat videos on Youtube.

Post: #19

I attended a state university and with the help of my parents, I came out with no debt. Private schools are unsustainable for most. The government should continue to subsidize public universities.

Post: #20

(05-29-2016 11:50 AM)El Chinito loco Wrote:  

(05-29-2016 11:19 AM)ElFlaco Wrote:  [quote='Days of Broken Arrows' pid='1312157' dateline='1464489609']
Camille Paglia recently said in an interview that women's studies departments evolved in vacuums. They had no historical perspective and didn't take into account basic biology - a huge blind spot.

Before Milo, there was Paglia. I remember her massive college tour twenty-five years ago. Overflow rooms, body guards, feminists foaming at the mouth.

Here's her recent interview with Reason, explaining the decay of the university.

She's a bernie sanders supporting libertarian who talks like a meth head. She has what I would call quasi red pill views but overall not really impressed. She sounds more like a disgruntled proto-hippie.

Before Milo, there was Paglia. I remember her massive college tour twenty-five years ago. Overflow rooms, body guards, feminists foaming at the mouth.

I remember this tour too. Do you recall there used to be a commercial on TV that had the tagline "A sandwich is a sandwich, but a Manwich is a meal?" Well, I went around saying "A sandwich is a sandwich, but a Manwich is Camille" whenever anyone brought up her name.

After a while, this annoyed the hell out of people. So I made it a point to say it as much as possible. Hahahaha.

Not to get this thread totally off-topic, but...

Post: #21

(05-29-2016 02:34 PM)churros Wrote:  Alright. So when the states gain control of the curriculum, it might get better. But isn't it also possible it might get worse? My suspicion, personally, is that the problem just gets displaced.

What's pushing the change? You say government, I say corporations. We don't need to argue about that, because they're actually two sides of the same coin.

Clinton introduced higher education reform to replace traditional manufacturing job losses. He signed trade deals to move these jobs overseas. And the solution, as he saw it, was to expand education.

That didn't work for everyone, but it worked for Silicon Valley, I suppose.

Totally agree that too many people are going to university. But I disagree that state funding should be cancelled. We need to cut the rot out of the universities, not destroy the institution altogether.

Cburros, are you familiar with these issues at all or the policies behind them?

(05-29-2016 02:34 PM)churros Wrote:  Alright. So when the states gain control of the curriculum, it might get better. But isn't it also possible it might get worse? My suspicion, personally, is that the problem just gets displaced.

Before NCLB and the Common Core curriculum states dictated what they wanted in their text books and tasked teachers to work on them. This was how it was done up until Clinton destroyed manufacturing in the 90s.

Believe me, stupid people will always exist and before this push to give them all bachelor's degrees they went instead to vo-tech schools where they worked with their hands and then welded stuff together.

Contrary to what most of the world thinks, the US doesn't have an educational problem. Every major country has an underclass who could care less about the works of Homer, Chaucer, and Shakespeare. Everyone else is just better at hiding it. I get a kick out of hearing about England's lack of native students interested in math and science. Gee haven't heard that one before!

(05-29-2016 02:34 PM)churros Wrote:  What's pushing the change? You say government, I say corporations. We don't need to argue about that, because they're actually two sides of the same coin.

What's your point? They were one and the same up until this election cycle.

(05-29-2016 02:34 PM)churros Wrote:  Clinton introduced higher education reform to replace traditional manufacturing job losses. He signed trade deals to move these jobs overseas. And the solution, as he saw it, was to expand education.

This was where our nightmare of today started. Don't forget he also made it impossible to discharge student loans in bankruptcy.

(05-29-2016 02:34 PM)churros Wrote:  That didn't work for everyone, but it worked for Silicon Valley, I suppose.

Totally agree that too many people are going to university. But I disagree that state funding should be cancelled. We need to cut the rot out of the universities, not destroy the institution altogether.

The changes to education that happened in the 90s are starting to bear fruit today. Silicon Valley and the dot-com bubble would have happened irrespective of the changes done at that time.

Finally, the only de-funding going on is via student loans with Trump's plan. If Cornissota wants in state tuition at Big State U to be 5k a year it will still be there. Trump is a staunch state's rights advocate and it is up to the state to decide that how much subsidizing they want, NOT the federal government.

The only problem here are private colleges which are grossly out of step with state universities on costs. As I said previously they are the ones who will feel the pinch under the new plan simply on the basis of a 40k a year sociology graduate not being able to pay back the loans in any sense of the world.

Finally from another one of your posts:

Quote: Further privatising them will not remedy this.

You've offered no argument to support this statement. Are you telling us that you're for the government supplying tax payer backed student loans for gender studies?

Post: #22

So far every liberal I've discussed this with has had the exact same reaction to my point about herding financial aid students from humanities into career-oriented degrees: pearl clutching over depriving minorities from being enriched by art and literature, as if beat poetry about hating whites is somehow high art.

Post: #23

(05-30-2016 04:33 PM)BortimusPrime Wrote:  So far every liberal I've discussed this with has had the exact same reaction to my point about herding financial aid students from humanities into career-oriented degrees: pearl clutching over depriving minorities from being enriched by art and literature, as if beat poetry about hating whites is somehow high art.

And as if all the great writing and artwork of western civilization (even though the same pearl-clutching morons probably refuse to recognize either western civilization or the category of greatness) weren't already completely available to the general population. There are libraries where books can be had nearly for free, online stores where books are quite affordable, lots of excellent reading lists and reviews all over the internet...so exactly where people get the impression that it's against the laws of physics for non-college students to read good books, I'll never know.

Of course, there's also that open secret that very few liberal arts students do any thorough reading while they're in college: bad professors don't care enough to check and many otherwise good professors assign so much that it's nearly impossible to read any of it with any care or retention. Good students (to be distinguished from good thinkers) customarily skim through their readings and figure out how to game their essays to get high marks, but focused reading and thoughtful examination of the contents is a rarity (and, again, oftentimes a fool's errand given the sheer weight of assigned pages). I've met many who share my experience that the love of reading and learning was found after leaving college.

And it doesn't end there. Thanks to the commissar-like ideological intolerance of the professoriate, rampant credentialism in the admissions process and the determined intellectual apathy of wide swaths of millennials (after the lofty example set by prior generations), in-class discussion in today's colleges is about as vibrant, robust and energetic as one can find in a morgue...and yes, that goes all the way to the vaunted Ivy League (which trades only on its absurdly obsolete reputation belonging to a bygone age).

It will be remarked upon with amazement by future generations that today's "higher education" not only failed to enhance thought, but actively and uniquely impeded it.

Post: #24

I don't want to get into a point by point about this, but I'll just state my basic position to be clear.

I don't see any difference between state and federal curricula. The problems of the latter will be mirrored in the former. The burden of proof is on you to tell me why this will not be the case.

I support federal funding, because:

1) To create universities that are truly elite, they should be founded on merit, not wealth. This is only possible once money falls out of the equation. It should be accessible to everyone who is good enough. That already cuts all the superfluous students, public or private.

2) Certain subjects are inherently of value, which nevertheless do not make profit. Gender studies etc. are obviously not included here, but the classics are. Culture costs money, and society without culture is worth nothing.

3) Universities without culture are nothing but institutes of technology. To privatise them 100% is to destroy them. I believe in a society that can maintain such institutions as a sign of its worth. If they must be federally funded, so be it.

Post: #25

Defunding the public education scam is an interesting mental exercise but politically and sociologically impossible. The merest mention of it would have every union activist and mainstream media journalism graduate screaming for blood. Try to imagine how they'd react if it wasn't some trivial racial or gender issue at stake but their very livelihood, knowing full well that the vast majority of them could never survive in the private sector.

A wildly popular administration at the beginning of a fresh electoral victory with control of both houses could potentially throw all that away for something piecemeal like giving a generous tax rebate for people that school their children privately. They would be a one term government and the marxists that gained power in the next election would scuttle the changes.

We are way too far down the road to fix the education systems of the West. A USSR style collapse is about the best we can hope for in that regard.