Why do universities dislike Republicans so much?
Writing at Salon last year, Sean McElwee and Robbie Hiltonsmith analyzed a Grapevine study from Illinois State University and found “when Republicans take over governor’s mansions they reduce spending on higher education by $0.23 per $1,000 in personal income (a measure of the state’s total tax base). Each 1 percent increase in the number of Republicans in the legislature leads to a $0.05 decrease.” As Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia told U.S. News & World Report, “Most GOP elected officials believe that universities are hotbeds of Democratic support—and the voting patterns in most college precincts support this.”
You know, a lot of faculty are pragmatic, moderate, mainstream Americans who would not be averse to a cautiously conservative government — but the Republicans have evolved into education-hating radicals. The voting patterns in college precincts reflect the contempt of the Republican party right back at them.
But just the overall statistics aren’t quite as strong a punch in the gut as the personal attacks on education and science and investment in the future exhibited in these two states:
During the Great Recession, virtually all states cut their higher education funding. But since the low point in 2009-10, states have raised their higher ed funding by an average of 10 percent. Wisconsin, on the other hand, has cut its spending by 4 percent. The day before Governor Scott Walker announced his candidacy for president, he signed a budget cut of $250 million for Wisconsin public universities. (He wanted to cut $300 million, but the legislature wouldn’t go that far.) He also wanted to gut the La Follette-era “Wisconsin Idea,” such that the university system’s mission was no longer “the search for truth” but “to meet the state’s workforce needs”—proposed changes that Walker unbelievably blamed on a “drafting error.”
Something similar occurred in Louisiana under another Republican governor who made a failed bid for the White House in 2016. “The scope of Louisiana’s disinvestment is both startling and unique,” mourned The Advocate of Baton Rouge. “Louisiana … according to national surveys, has cut higher education funding more than any other state since the slowdown began. State aid to universities here has been slashed by 55 percent.” At the start of the recession, Louisiana covered 60 percent of university expenses; under Jindal, it fell to 25 percent, with tuition rising accordingly.
Why do Republicans hate America? Why do Republicans want to destroy science?
If you ignored the truth and preached their ideology, they probably wouldn’t be so adverse to universities. I’ve had Republican friends who have said that a lot of the stuff that they teach in colleges are totally irrelevant for various jobs (as though that’s the only reason to get an education). The logic goes, if you’re going to be an engineer, what do you need to know about all that hippy stuff for? Just learn the science and math that you need and don’t waste so much time and money outside of the work force. It’s the same thinking that devalues degrees focused on creativity.
It isn’t just science. They want and need an ignorant population, like trump supporters. That way, they can continue pushing laws detrimental to the sheep who are too stupid to notice. An educated, rational electorate tends to notice things like that.
Why do Republicans hate America? Why do Republicans want to destroy science?
I can’t answer the first, but I’ll take a shot at the second:
Republicans want to destroy science because it keeps contradicting them.
Keep ’em dumb, feed ’em pablum, win elections
1) It isn’t an Xian theocracy. 2) Science causes change, which must be resisted since it can’t be managed by the non-existent theocracy.
Apply the prime rule: Follow the money!
What are the thugs’s paymasters telling them to do?
Known instructions include, as a one paraphrased example, . From that derives attacks on experts including bogus investigations, absurd laws saying (again paraphrased) , &tc.
Or (more paraphrasing) , and hence (e.g. & paraphrased) no funds for research into shootings (such as the Dickey Amendment, with the NRA probably being the paymaster).
Follow the money!
I remember how the Cultural Revolution in China was a disaster for science there, and how Stalin enabled Lysenko to set back biology in the Soviet Union for years. Let’s hope nothing of the sort happens in the U.S.
A similar thing has happened in the UK. University funding has been cut in favour of increasing student fees, combined with the pressure on young people to get a degree so that they might stand a better chance in the workplace. For those who decide against university it’s an even deeper con, in that there are so few traditional apprenticeships available from the age of 16 or 18 — yet government trumpets schemes which call themselves apprenticeships even though they only provide six weeks to six months of training and experience while the older people amongst us remember apprenticeships as providing a good five years of training and experience.
I think it’s all down to successive governments deciding that their selling point would be reduced taxes. What they failed to declare was that once a government’s tax income falls below a certain point, citizens see a reduced level of support. First they came for the unemployed, then they came for the students, and the health workers, and the carers, and even the Health and Safety bureaucrats who protected us against food poisoning in the face of denigration from the Daily Mail and its ilk. So here we are.
…. But from a very quick google search, it looks like many states (more than just two) are still in the negative. Isn’t that right? I mean, I haven’t spent any time on this, so I might be misinterpreting stuff. It may have bounced back somewhat generally (except perhaps for WI or LA where it keeps going downhill, although others may have made larger cuts). But funding hasn’t been raised 10% above the average levels over a longer period before the recession (I don’t think they were exceptionally or unreasonably high), just 10% above the minimum where it was especially low, which isn’t saying very much.
Actually they love science. As long as it’s the kind Lockheed Martin and Lawrence Livermore Labs do. Remember: the US’ fusion program is about to get $1t of taxpayers’ funding. It’s just worrying about how to produce all that energy at once, over a city.
Book larnin’ is of the devil!
“Stalin enabled Lysenko to set back biology in the Soviet Union for years”
Lysenkoism actually retarded Soviet Union biology for DECADES.
Local idiot calls universities babies because the ask for more money.
I had an old friend who did not think and did not recommend that his niece take any science courses in college even if they were not science majors. He said that they could always just hire some scientists if they needed to.
He was not very well at the time and did subsequently die. I just did not know where to start except to tell him it would be a good idea if they knew enough about science to know when they might need more science knowledge. I just dropped the discussion as pointless at the time.
I do not understand how the people who always tout their pro-business ideas do not want to do the investment in research and development that education represents. Those who run companies like that eventually go out of business after spending a lot of time and money playing catch-up with the market first.
So what they say busyness will go on but in this case without the leadership of The U.S.
uncle frogy
Science is not said in doublespeak. So you know it’s not from the echo chamber. Which automatically makes it double plus ungood.
Also the echo chamber has been lying to them for decades. I had an imbecile tell me earlier this week that the ISS is just repeating all the experiments from Skylab in the 70’s. If I made up something that nonsensical I’d have to tell him christian priests all wear suction cups on their legs and live on the ceiling. Because their god is everywhere and they want to be considerate and give him more elbow room. Wait, I take it back. My ridiculous example at least internally makes sense. >.<
This is very true! just ask NPR.
QFT
same with all subjects, for that matter.
you remember that, do you? you were there… for both I assume.
uh huh.
Whoah whoah whoah….you don’t expect republicans to understand consequences, do you?