07-10-2017, 10:48 PM
Majority Of Republicans Think Colleges Are Bad For The U.S., Poll Shows
Sharp Partisan Divisions in Views of National Institutions
![[Image: PP_17.06.30_institutions_lede_party.png]](http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2017/07/10093953/PP_17.06.30_institutions_lede_party.png)
![[Image: PP_17.06.30_institutions_media_churches_colleges.png]](http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2017/07/10093957/PP_17.06.30_institutions_media_churches_colleges.png)
1. Is it any surprise that Donald Trump did so well among under-educated white people? The educational system did not serve them well, and they probably resented teachers in K-12 education (which is typically as far as they got). People with genuine educations are typically proud of their education. But if one is in Michigan and never went beyond high school, all that one knows about the University of Michigan is about the "Wolverines".
The talent for selective contempt against a wayward college professor or the ability to criticize college policies usually requires a college education in itself.
...It may now surprise people that in the 1950s, Dwight Eisenhower won huge majorities among college educated people, and even in a landslide loss in 1964, Barry Goldwater won a majority of college-educated people. Of course such was more than fifty years ago, and fewer people then attended college, let alone had degrees from college; also, college education was still heavily associated with economic elites who had a stake in economic conservatism and knew such from childhood. Until the GI Bill, college was still largely a WASP phenomenon -- well-heeled WASPs, that is, before the large number of Polish-American, Italian-American, and even Irish-American kids attending college. That may be a difference. It is possible that being well-educated tends to cause people to prefer certain temperaments in leaders, and I have frequently said that Eisenhower and Obama are similar in temperament.
Liberals see education as a solution; right-wingers see education as a problem. Yes, shutter Harvard (and Stanford, the University of Chicago, and all other renowned colleges and universities) and put Corinthian Colleges (the awful for-profit vocational schools that the Obama Administration shut off college loans for students attending them, effectively bankrupting them).
2. But Trump did badly among poorly-educated blacks, Asians, and non-Cuban Hispanics while doing similarly badly among educated blacks, Asians, and non-Cuban Hispanics. I'm guessing that the non-white ethnic groups depend heavily upon formal education to get where they are, and that they are more likely to be mentors to poor people of their ethnic groups. White people are much more atomized in that respect.
3. Right-wingers love Big Business, hate labor unions, and hold colleges in contempt. The economic sadists who dominate the GOP (yes, I recognize this as inflammatory language, but it is regrettably true) seem to believe that life for all but themselves is to be a miserable time of being sweated and starved in This World in return for great rewards in Heaven for those who suffer in contented compliance. Anyone who stirs up dissent, whether journalists, college professors, or 'union bosses' deserves to go to Hell and will in the Afterlife.
But what about FoX News? It simply does not go far enough in praising the Great and Glorious Leader even to the extent that his farts are great wisdom of the ages.
4. Banks and lending institutions still have a bad name for what they did in the previous decade -- but right-wingers are more likely to excuse them.
Quote:More than half of the Republicans surveyed for a Pew Research Center poll released Monday say colleges and universities are hurting the country, a drastic shift from how the same group viewed such institutions two years ago.
Fifty-eight percent of Republicans say colleges have a negative effect on the nation, according to the survey, which also polled respondents on institutions like churches, banks, the media and labor unions. Thirty-six percent of GOP survey participants say colleges are having a positive impact on the U.S.
Those numbers represent a dramatic change from 2015, when 54 percent of Republicans said they had a positive view of colleges. And although younger Republicans tend to have more favorable views of colleges than their older counterparts, the number of Republicans under 50 years old who view college positively has dropped 21 points since 2015.
Sharp Partisan Divisions in Views of National Institutions
1. Is it any surprise that Donald Trump did so well among under-educated white people? The educational system did not serve them well, and they probably resented teachers in K-12 education (which is typically as far as they got). People with genuine educations are typically proud of their education. But if one is in Michigan and never went beyond high school, all that one knows about the University of Michigan is about the "Wolverines".
The talent for selective contempt against a wayward college professor or the ability to criticize college policies usually requires a college education in itself.
...It may now surprise people that in the 1950s, Dwight Eisenhower won huge majorities among college educated people, and even in a landslide loss in 1964, Barry Goldwater won a majority of college-educated people. Of course such was more than fifty years ago, and fewer people then attended college, let alone had degrees from college; also, college education was still heavily associated with economic elites who had a stake in economic conservatism and knew such from childhood. Until the GI Bill, college was still largely a WASP phenomenon -- well-heeled WASPs, that is, before the large number of Polish-American, Italian-American, and even Irish-American kids attending college. That may be a difference. It is possible that being well-educated tends to cause people to prefer certain temperaments in leaders, and I have frequently said that Eisenhower and Obama are similar in temperament.
Liberals see education as a solution; right-wingers see education as a problem. Yes, shutter Harvard (and Stanford, the University of Chicago, and all other renowned colleges and universities) and put Corinthian Colleges (the awful for-profit vocational schools that the Obama Administration shut off college loans for students attending them, effectively bankrupting them).
2. But Trump did badly among poorly-educated blacks, Asians, and non-Cuban Hispanics while doing similarly badly among educated blacks, Asians, and non-Cuban Hispanics. I'm guessing that the non-white ethnic groups depend heavily upon formal education to get where they are, and that they are more likely to be mentors to poor people of their ethnic groups. White people are much more atomized in that respect.
3. Right-wingers love Big Business, hate labor unions, and hold colleges in contempt. The economic sadists who dominate the GOP (yes, I recognize this as inflammatory language, but it is regrettably true) seem to believe that life for all but themselves is to be a miserable time of being sweated and starved in This World in return for great rewards in Heaven for those who suffer in contented compliance. Anyone who stirs up dissent, whether journalists, college professors, or 'union bosses' deserves to go to Hell and will in the Afterlife.
But what about FoX News? It simply does not go far enough in praising the Great and Glorious Leader even to the extent that his farts are great wisdom of the ages.
4. Banks and lending institutions still have a bad name for what they did in the previous decade -- but right-wingers are more likely to excuse them.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.