For the past couple of generations, choosing a less expensive school has generally meant going to a public university rather than a private university. But these days, public higher education is very much under siege, facing even harsher budget cuts than the rest of the public sector. Adjusted for inflation, state support for higher education has fallen 12 percent over the past five years, even as the number of students has continued to rise; in California, support is down by 20 percent.
One result has been soaring fees. Inflation-adjusted tuition at public four-year colleges has risen by more than 70 percent over the past decade. So good luck on finding that college “that has a little lower price.”
Another result is that cash-strapped educational institutions have been cutting back in areas that are expensive to teach — which also happen to be precisely the areas the economy needs. For example, public colleges in a number of states, including Florida and Texas, have eliminated entire departments in engineering and computer science.
The damage these changes will inflict — both to our nation’s economic prospects and to the fading American dream of equal opportunity — should be obvious. So why are Republicans so eager to trash higher education?
It’s not hard to see what’s driving Mr. Santorum’s wing of the party. His specific claim that college attendance undermines faith is, it turns out, false. But he’s right to feel that our higher education system isn’t friendly ground for current conservative ideology. And it’s not just liberal-arts professors: among scientists, self-identified Democrats outnumber self-identified Republicans nine to one.
As most of you know I have been making the point, for quite some time now, that the reason Republicans are trying to undermine education, by promoting the voucher system, Christian schools, and home schooling, is that they understand that ONLY the most undereducated Americans are willing to believe their bullshit and vote for them. (Which by the way was probably NEVER better illustrated than in a clip on last night's Real Time filmed by Alexandra Pelosi.)
What they want is for people to put their critical thinking skills in neutral and just BELIEVE in their political message, without using that rather unnecessary organ, the brain, to THINK about what they are really being told.
If the GOP can just find a way to lower the nation's IQ, to say the Palin family's level, then THEY can dominate politics in this country for decades to come.
I am just glad that journalists like Paul Kruger are FINALLY putting the pieces together.
Hopefully it's not too late.
there are 4 downloads of Game Change available now
ReplyDeleteafter I check them out, make sure they are real and safe
I will post links
Are you so late to appreciate the Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman that you call him a journalist and get his name wrong? He has been on top of the current economic mess since before Greenspan was saying there's no housing bubble. The only problem with Krugman is that he is a fact driven member of the reality based community so he is roundly ignored by policy makers -- he's a real Cassandra when it comes to making predictions that get ignored.
ReplyDeleteExcept Paul was a bit slow on the uptake that the GOP actually wanted the economy to tank. I would accuse Krugman of naiveté more than anything.
DeleteKrugman was an almost lone voice all along in saying we should learn from the mistakes of the Great Depression: Spend big during downturns, reduce spending during prosperity. (I say Obama was in the tricky spot of needing to compromise to get ANYTHING done.) Krugman is well worth reading every time.
Delete"Krugman is well worth reading every time."
DeleteA resounding yes to that!
It is hugely important the Krugman keep educating the public and pushing the administration.
DeleteWe would be much worse off without his voice over the past three or more years.
The piece by Ms. Pelosi was great... IF you do not believe that's what people all over the country, but specially in the South, look like and think that way, you are delusional. They were EXACTLY THE SAME 50 years ago and if we don't decide to be better than that, they'll be the same way in another 50 years...
ReplyDeleteIt seems to be too late.
Winski:
DeleteMy great great Grandfather fought in the civil War, he was with Sherman's army when the siege of Atlanta took place and in the victory march in washington D.C. at the end.
After reading his letters(which are in a museum to his wife, I have often thought the north was far too easy on the south. We welcomed them back with open arms, no restrictions,and helped getting them back on here feet. Having meet a few southerners on my Grandfathers resort,I have a very low opinion of the south. Would never want to live with the so called southern hospitality and the very small minds, unless you believe just as they say they do. All the while forgetting the lessons taught in the way christ behaved towards those in need, were ill, or hungry.
One day, I was wlking past a park in Denver. There was a large amount of activity going on and I stopped to watch. As I stood there a little man dressed in southern gray came up to the fence, asked me if I knew anything about the civil war. Said I sure did and showed him the ring I wore from the civilwar [period(wedding) with the intials in side and the date ,told him of my Grandfathers experience and that he was with Sherman. He turned around,without saying a word and ran back to his play acting. I felt like I had just faught a battle,and I had won.
Your correct Winski,the south is of very poor quality in careing about knowledge. I for one would never, wish to live there.
Ironically, this southern-style thinking will reap just the opposite of what it wants. By dumbing down America, very few Americans will be left who are adequately trained for high-level jobs. Thus, foreigners will have to come in, in droves, to take over those positions– not only outnumbering whitey, but outsmarting and out-earning him. As for the American young people who aspire to obtain advanced degrees in physics, chemistry, and science, they will have to study in other countries. Both of these things are already happening to a fairly large degree, but the scale will dramatically increase as American colleges are more fully defunded. Undereducated righties who do not go into the military will be left competing for burger-flipping jobs – if they can find them. Wages will go down across the board as overall job qualifications are eroded and good jobs diminish.
DeleteIt is no longer impossible to imagine a world in which people in third-world nations are better-educated (and thus, ultimately, even wealthier) than Americans. The reality of such a world would turn the already-silly concept of American Exceptionalism on its head, and make America a universal laughing stock.
Sadly, the righties will never learn that selfishness is ultimately incredibly expensive – to THEM!!!!! They will never learn that you (and not just someone else) will always reap what you sow, and that what you wish for others is what will eventually rain down upon your own head.
Gryphen: "If the GOP can just find a way to lower the nation's IQ, to say the Palin family's level, then THEY can dominate politics in this country for decades to come."
ReplyDeleteAND, their corporate paymasters can further dominate an increasingly less educated and more gullible populace who won't dare join unions and expect a living wage in return for an honest day's work.
That's the goal!If they could achieve their goalsfor more $$$ and power by aligning themselves with Hitler, authoritarian Dictators, genocide, slavery, Satan - that would be their meme! Of course - people are on to them and realize that really IS their meme couched in terms of Patriotism, God and the Bible, fighting "Socialism", etc. They are so arrogant they forgot to hide what they really want and value for this country!
DeleteGOP = Christian Dominionists = Taliban.
ReplyDeleteThat's "Paul Krugman", not "Paul Kruger", in your next to last sentence, Gryphen.
ReplyDeleteOh, those flying fingers!
Fear and ignorance are the essential foundations for modern conservatism. The gop panders to the "lizard brain," cynically ignoring or downplaying anything fact-based like climate change or the fact that Obama WAS born in the USA (oy...). All the different "flavors" of fear like xenophobia or racism are thinly veiled (or sometimes not so much) within the gop agenda and the demographics to which they pander get the message loud and clear. An educated populace is anathema to the gop, as is evidenced by the statistics in Krugman's article. "...among scientists, self-identified Democrats outnumber self-identified Republicans nine to one." That right there says it all.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the only saving grace is that the right (which used to be the far right, and before that the far, far, fringe-RWNJ right) CONTINUES to tack to the right. I know, it doesn't seem possible but the gop continues to up the wing-nut ante. The attacks on birth control from limpybaugh and santorum et al., the whole "our first priority is to get Obama out of office" statement that led to unprecedented obstructionism in Congress and ANYTHING that spews forth from snowdrift snooki's gaping maw are prime examples of how hard the gop is embracing the crazy, and it seems to me that it's fast becoming to their detriment. So, here's to them staying the course (raising my mimosa)! :)
Cheers,
Smir
"Dominate" is the operative term. When a person or group persuades the weak and unmotivated to not learn, ignore others the intention is to dominate. I was alarmed one day reading at C4P the minions posted agreement to only hear, listen to Palin conned she alone speaks truth and is all knowing. They were not reading nor listening to news. Scary.
ReplyDeleteThe education of Jeremy Morlock, Track Palin is a stellar example. Boys will be boys and all.
ReplyDeleteBTW another United States service member went off in Afghanistan today, targeting civilians. Kandahar Province, where it was said Palin's son is. The military will give him special attention and he is not a threat. Most likely he is safely protected from harm as well. He is a prime example for recruiting, boys of his educational level can also be a success. Uncle Sam wants you!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/12/world/asia/afghanistan-civilians-killed-american-soldier-held.html
And the Palin, et al, hate rethoric spreads far and wide - this is why the hate speech by the leading political RWNJ's needs to be stopped - this is what the result is. Dehumanizing "the others" gives permission to kill them indiscriminately, civilians in other countries, and citizens in our own country. A young African American boy was killed in New York by a member of the community watch group in a gated community for the crime of going to the store to buy a snack, oh - and of course, he was BLACK! The racist who killed him had a prior record of violence - the boy? None! Words do matter, graphics do matter - understand, Sarah? Probably not - are you working up your next hate f**kfest on Hannity where you bash the victim's parents and community for their grief and outrage that an innocent child was murdered because of the hate speech you continue to spew and support? No? Oh, right - he's writing all the questions and the answers - you are just the dummy they use to get their dogwhistles out there so the public will blame the violence all on the dummy!
DeleteThe stupid just hurts! Lower the nation's IQ level by attacking education - get rid of higher education courses such as science, engineering and computer technology - oh yeah, that will have this nation competing at the top of the world's market! NOT!
ReplyDeleteThe GOP is constantly saying that the United States is the greatest nation on earth; then why are they trying so hard to turn us into a 3rd world theocracy?
To: Anonymous Mar 11, 2012 01:04 PM Your analysis is spot on. Sad, but true.
ReplyDeleteI look at the two most important events in European history that lead to the ending of the thousand year long strangle hold of the Catholic church over Europe, as being the publishing of the Vulgate Bible, printed by Gutenberg in the 1450s along with its rapid decimation afforded by Gutenberg's movable type and portable printing press.
ReplyDeleteAnd Martin Luther's translation of the Bible out of Latin. Again the printing press allowed for the wide and rapid spread of a Bible, and scientific treatise that could be read by anyone who was literate. Suddenly people could make up their own minds about the Bible said and meant and self educate themselves about science.
It took a couple of centuries more for education and literacy to be wide spread along with the freedoms and rights that accompany knowledge.
An illiterate populace is one that is readily lied to and easily controlled.
That is what people like Man on Child Santorum and his billionaire sugar daddy want.
Where the Repocons and their proxy TeePeeers are taking this country is a truly frightening place and the spineless dims need to get their game faces on big time and do it yesterday.
It is interesting that the Military has not figured this out. They need the tax base to be well to do and they need high tech skills in their recruits to remain the strongest bully in the world.
Unless they have their own even more ugly plans.