Poll: Majority Of Republicans Now Say Colleges Are Bad For America

[turbinetree]

By CRISTINA CABRERA Published JULY 10, 2017 2:00 PM
A Pew poll released Monday shows that Republicans’ views of higher education institutions have taken a dramatic turn for the worse since 2015.

In September 2015, 54 percent of Republicans told Pew that they had a positive stance on college and universities, while 37 percent felt negatively toward them.

Today, their attitude seems to have taken a complete U-turn, with 58 percent of Republicans saying that colleges and universities had a “negative effect on the way things are going in the country.” Only 36 percent maintained that they’re good for the country.

[Freedomofspeech]

1. That's because they are all a bunch of dumbasses

and they fear the educated. I swear they get more stupid each day...if that is possible.

[Caliman73]

23. I agree that many are dumbasses, but...

I do not think they fear the educated. I think that they do not like to have their narratives challenged because they cannot defend them against anything more than the most basic investigation. Likely they have been told that Universities are places where radical ideology is indoctrinated into the minds of gullible youth. I have family members who are constantly posting things about how conservative viewpoints are stifled, how professors encourage students to riot, railing against "safe spaces" and "trigger warnings". People who get their news from Fox, Breitbart, and other right wing outlets, are regularly and exclusively getting this picture of universities.

They think that people are not being educated but brainwashed. Add to this mix, the many, though not significant amount of students who have gone to university to obtain degrees in fields that may not lead to significant employment opportunities. It is a standard joke on the right that people going to school to get a "liberal arts" degree are wasting time and money for them to get a job as a Starbucks Barista. Even though a liberal arts degree is often a precursor to a law degree and even medical degree. Most have probably not been to University and maybe know one relative, who they probably have a strained relationship with, who has been to college.

They certainly seem to remain firmly rooted in their ignorance.

[dawg]

31. Yes.

It is possible.

[dhol82]

2. That's scary.

[DrDan]

3. filling the student's mind with all those fake-facts - like evolution and humans having an impact

on the climate.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

4. Do you have a link?

Not saying you're wrong but you seem to be quoting a news article.

[unblock]

5. explains a lot, doesn't it...

[gratuitous]

6. This didn't happen by chance

There has been a sustained battle against education for a long time, and no, both sides don't do it. There is a reason that certain moneyed interests in our society want the populace as uneducated and ignorant as possible.

[elleng]

7. Yes, repugs have been working on it for a long time,

destroying our country through ignorance.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

8. They have been brainwashed into thinking that their kids will turn liberal

if they go to college. Which could be true, since getting exposed to information, science and philosophy can often do that. But the right wingers believe that colleges are places specifically set up to turn their decent, God-fearing young people into gay communist jihadist vegans who believe climate change and gravity are real.

[raccoon]

9. I say Republicans are bad for America. nt

[unblock]

10. looks like a case study in just how malleable republicans' brains are these days.

skulls are as thick as walls for us, we can't convince them of one damn thing.

but for fakesnews, republicans' brains are putty in their hands. all they have to do is start repeating some negative slogans, run a few attack stories, and voila, a new target for right-wing bile. they started doing this a couple years ago with universities and this is the result.


there are some evil people literally sitting around somewhere pondering what they should make that audience hate next....

[MedusaX]

11. The only negative effect is the huge student loan debt which is amassed...

[smirkymonkey]

12. Wow, just wow!

[exboyfil]

13. Here is a summary of the Pew study

http://www.people-press.org/2017/07/10/sharp-partisan-divisions-in-views-of-national-institutions/

My observation is the more times we have an Evergreen State, Yale, Missouri, Middlebury, or Berkeley; the more likely that the support for universities as a public institution will decline.

There are better ways to handle these fruit loop speakers. Have speakers before or after critique the arguments of the speakers (either at the venue or near the venue).

Civil unrest and battery should have consequences to the academic standing of the participants.

[loyalsister]

17. And it can't possibly have anything to do with not wanting to look like a bigot

when having those schools on their resume?

[mountain grammy]

25. Thank you for this, we needed that link.

Depressing as it is..

[maxsolomon]

30. What we have at Evergreen is RW trolls threatening violence on that campus,

Last edited Mon Jul 10, 2017, 03:54 PM - Edit history (1)

and one was arrested last week. So IDK what "Fruit Loop" speaker you're talking about there.

Maybe you're thinking of Milo Yiannopoulis? He spoke at U Washington in Seattle on January 20th this year, and a Right Winger SHOT an Antifa protester who was trying to stop her husband from pepper-spraying a crowd.

None of those involved were students.

[exboyfil]

33. The gang of students shouting

down the professor using repeated f_k you. Probably not exactly a speech issue but taking the administration "hostage" (read the description of what they did) along with the intimidation of the professor noted above.

In general that professor seems like a pretty good guy. The students went overboard and everybody is watching. Parents have a very real say in where their kids go to college. For schools like Yale and Berkeley it is not a big deal, but it is a big deal for second tier universities like Missouri and regional colleges like Evergreen.

Never saw the President call the students out for their behavior. Never saw the students apologize for it.

You can have you demonstrations all you want, but remember who controls the purse strings. Missouri is feeling that now. Evergreen will be next.

[maxsolomon]

35. So, you're saying their parents should stop them?

Or the Administration should fight back because future generations won't be allowed to go there by their parents?

Maybe that's the case in Missouri, but I suspect you don't know Evergreen that well.

[exboyfil]

39. No. I am saying the market will decide

As far as violating university rules, I am going to vote with my tax dollars and it will be an issue if something like Evergreen State happens in my state.

[regnaD kciN]

36. I'm from Washington state, and about as leftist as they come...

...and even I thought the Evergreen students' reaction was ridiculous.

So, a professor holds conservative private (i.e. not indoctrinated as part of his class) opinions -- your solution is to start holding demonstrations with the "non-negotiable demand" that said professor be immediately fired? Screw that -- that sounds more like the approach of one of those right-wing groups seeking to "rid our campuses of commies." If I had been college president, I would have promptly told those students to take their "demands" and f*ck off...all the way to some other institute of higher learning, preferably.

[exboyfil]

38. Yes. That is the solution

I would have expected from the administration.

I think the one f__k you woman was looking for notoriety. It is a shame her identity is not know so that future employers can appreciate her contribution to civil discourse.

As a side note two of the primary students who confronted Dr. Christakis, a Yale professor, got a special award in race relations from the university.

The Nakanishi Prize

http://news.yale.edu/2017/05/19/outstanding-students-honored-class-day

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/05/26/today_in_conservative_media_yeah_gianforte_assaulted_a_reporter_but_something.html

[maxsolomon]

42. I'm in WA as well, and yes, minority college students are incredibly attuned to offense now.

Yes, they are overreacting - look at the fight over the Viking mascot at WWU or the fight at Seattle U over a book a prof recommended to a student.

Especially in light of the shooting at UDub, I still think the bigger issue is Right Wing trolls threatening the student body with violence because of the actions of these misguided few. Evergreen had to move their graduation to a securable location.

[exboyfil]

45. When the threats are received

an investigation occurs, and the perpetrators are charged and prosecuted.

As of now it appears those who are disruptive of the mission of the university are not sanctioned by the university. In some cases they are even rewarded (see the Yale award for the students who confronted the professor).

Parents are noticing what is going on. No one agrees with violent threats, but what punishment did the students at Middlebury receive for obstructing the path of a guest speaker and even committing a battery on his person.

[Pachamama]

14. Yes, because a mind is a good thing to waste...

[spanone]

15. the dumbing down of america...compliments of the gop

[haele]

16. Could the headline be more "30% more Republicans are afraid to identify as Republicans in polls?"

ensuring that it appears that more Republicans are dumb-f***s who'd rather live in their little snow globes believing if they say the world is only a little over 6000 years old hard enough and blind themselves to the rest of the world around them, they'll go to a Heaven run by a bi-polar authoritarian who craves adoration who might be more than a little bit like the male social patriarchs they grew up with and are in the habit of pandering to.

Haele

[niyad]

18. true. because you cannot control an educated populace capable of critical thought.

[Dream Girl]

19. In about 5 years, people who wear glasses and/or own books will be rounded up and inprisoned nt

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

20. Like Pol Pot did in Cambodia.

Sent anyone who went to school or could read to the killing fields.

[Dream Girl]

21. Exactly!

[NickB79]

24. My best friend's parents were sent there

They watched their oldest son, all of 5 years old, die of starvation and disease, before they were able to escape through the countryside and cross the border, eventually ending up in South Dakota as refugees, taken in by a US foster family through a church program.

Their crime was owning a successful restaurant and a Mercedes.

The depths of human cruelty never ceases to amaze me.

[Dream Girl]

43. Awful...so much of it spurred on by the crowd mentaility

People are able to exact cruelties they would never consider on their own but for the crowd.

[GallopingGhost]

22. Everyone in Amerika

will need to make sure they don spectacles (forgive the pun) and make sure they have a copy of Salinger's Rye on their bookshelf.

[BSdetect]

26. Hoped the title referred to Electoral Colleges.

[SHRED]

27. Taliban USA

[Dem2]

28. Know nothingism has apparently become a thing

Let's hope that it is short-lived.

[Cattledog]

29. A return to Dickensian times.

[Freethinker65]

32. That much of a swing in less than two years is crazy

Wondering if perhaps the pool of "Republicans" is decreasing and those that previously, and still do, value higher education no longer identify as Republicans?

[alarimer]

34. Stupid and compliant is what they want.

Questioning authority is what these assholes hate more than anything else.

[Ilsa]

37. They don't want their kids to think critically, accept people on the basis of the

content of their character, not the color of their skin, turn away from authoritarianism, fascism, etc.

"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

[lpbk2713]

40. They teach that science stuff.

Science bad.

[KG]

41. anti-intelluctualism is a strong current in the swirling waters of the toilet bowl of conservative

beliefs

[Proud Liberal Dem]

44. Oh FFS

When did THIS come up for grabs????!!! I mean, I remember Rick Santorum kinda sorta bringing this up once back in 2011-2012, but that certainly wasn't "mainstream" Republican thought (until now, I guess).


But hey, if they want to forego College, I guess that that just creates more space for progressive, free-thinking people to attend College and improve themselves and go on to lead the country while they are working themselves to death at the local Wal-Mart.

[treestar]

46. The more educated, the more likely a person is

to be a liberal.

That's why they always whine about college professors being liberal.

[malaise]

47. I was just reading the NYT piece

How We Are Ruining America

College-educated Americans have become devastatingly good at making sure children of other classes can’t join their ranks.

Madness!

[neeksgeek]

48. I don't want to over-simplify this, but I think it boils down to a tidbit of logic

Educated people ask questions.

Conservatives don't like questions.

Therefore, conservatives don't like educated people.

[Thrill]

49. And this is how you get Republicans running the country