why higher education is under constant attack by those with vested interest in...

[butters]

...keeping enough people stupid. let's not forget t's infamous words: "i love the poorly educated"

https://www.salon.com/2021/10/24/ho...-win-the-against-neoliberalism-and-supremacy/

Since the 1980s, higher education has been subject to devastating attacks as a result of punishing neoliberal austerity policies and ongoing attempts by conservatives to both privatize and defund public institutions. Right-wing attacks on the public good, the corporatization and militarization of higher education and a growing authoritarianism in the culture have led, as Christopher Newfield observes, "to the abandonment of egalitarian and democratic impulses."

The effects are visible in the gutting of tenure-track positions, increases in tuition, an onslaught of administrative positions, and the redefinition of higher education as a competitive and profit-making institution. The attacks on tenure have been especially effective in transforming higher education into an adjunct of corporate interests. Writing in the College Post, Marianne Besas reports that "in 2018, 23.7 percent of faculty members at institutions across the country were tenured, and 10.2 percent were on a tenure track." Tenure, along with the power of faculty, is in absolute decline. Only about one in five of the overworked and beaten-down faculty members in the academic labor force have tenure.

At the same time, students are relegated to the status of clients. No longer viewed as a democratic public sphere, post-secondary education has forfeited its willingness, if not its responsibility, to instill in its students and the wider public the shared values, ideals and social practices crucial to developing democratic institutions and an informed and critically engaged public. Instead, it has become complicit with a cultural and political crisis — characterized by lies and bungling political leadership — which on the one hand has turned lethal with regard to the COVID-19 pandemic and on the other hand has been mostly silent regarding the threat to democracy posed by the growing racism and authoritarianism in the wider society.

Under such circumstances, higher education has failed to create on a mass scale not only a shared national civic purpose, but also a wider formative culture promoting the habits, sensibilities, dispositions and values crucial to democracy's survival. It has detached itself from the obligations of citizenship and social responsibility, while harnessing itself to economic interests. Defined by neoliberal values, higher education has surrendered its purpose and mission to a culture of commercialism and exchange. The new normal in higher education is based on the brutalizing assumption that knowledge, ideas and visions are only valuable if they can be measured and aligned with the culture of business and the market. Everything is rated according to its monetary value and turned into an object of consumption — nothing appears to escape its regressive spiral of commodification, social atomization, and reification.

the entire piece is considerably longer but worth the time

 

[CornusKousa]

In this case "educated" means leftist indoctrination and has nothing to do with actual education.

 

[pecksniff]

In this case "educated" means leftist indoctrination and has nothing to do with actual education.

I've been to college and grad school and never got any leftist indoctrination, save through independent study.

 

[rae121452]

same here, i was an old hippie who went back to school after working for 10 years only to find myself surrounded by a bunch of little capitalists. on my first day of an art history course, i said to the kid next to me, "i'm really excited about this course, are you?" to which he replied, "I'm just here for the credit. when i graduate i'm going to work at my father's bank."

campus culture is hardly leftist and hasn't been since about 1970.

 

[CornusKousa]

I've been to college and grad school and never got any leftist indoctrination, save through independent study.

That means pretty much nothing coming from a radical leftist that's so out of touch with reality he can't even accept the consensus definition for large portions of the English language because it would shatter his leftist fantasies.

I was blasted with it outside of STEM and even had to fight a history professor for my undergraduate degree because she tried to fail me even though I did well on all my assignments, because she didn't like my viewpoints.

Thankfully at the time U of Texas wasn't woke enough to deny people credit because they refused to toe the woke narrative like a good comrade.

 

[CornusKousa]

same here, i was an old hippie who went back to school after working for 10 years only to find myself surrounded by a bunch of little capitalists. on my first day of an art history course, i said to the kid next to me, "i'm really excited about this course, are you?" to which he replied, "I'm just here for the credit. when i graduate i'm going to work at my father's bank."

campus culture is hardly leftist and hasn't been since about 1970.

^^ Another totally out of touch with the times boomer.

 

[Dribble]

same here, i was an old hippie who went back to school after working for 10 years only to find myself surrounded by a bunch of little capitalists. on my first day of an art history course, i said to the kid next to me, "i'm really excited about this course, are you?" to which he replied, "I'm just here for the credit. when i graduate i'm going to work at my father's bank."

campus culture is hardly leftist and hasn't been since about 1970.

So true.

This isn't saying there aren't a few institutions that lean left...but as a whole they are very very conservative. One can always identify a person that claims to be a student here on Lit, that isn't, because they have no clue whatsoever

 

[CornusKousa]

So true.

This isn't saying there aren't a few institutions that lean left...but as a whole they are very very conservative. One can always identify a person that claims to be a student here on Lit, that isn't, because they have no clue whatsoever

https://c.tenor.com/bN0hO7r_M40AAAAM/laughing-laughing-hysterically.gif