Why the Republican Party doesn’t want you to go to college:
For about the last 20 years as national elections start to poke their heads into the regular news cycle phrases like “the liberal college professors”, and “educated elite” start being used over and over again by republican politicians and their surrogates.
Because… education is bad? Yes, education is bad when your political party has founded itself on bad policy and you want to make sure your base doesn’t figure that out.
College teaches people one important thing that unfortunately isn’t instilled in our lower grades: ask questions and don’t make assumptions. College teaches people HOW to ask questions, follow-up with more questions, and dig deeper into issues – rather than merely read the headline and accept that as the open and shut issue.
From pre-school through high school we are taught to respect authority and do what we are told to earn our Diploma, but college teaches us to challenge authority and become authoritative. When an entire political party is centered on bad policy that might make a good bumper sticker, but has proven time and time again that it does not work… then that party will go to great lengths to mock higher education and try to limit access to it for a large portion of society. Welcome to the Republican Party of the 21st Century!
Every major society in history has shown that restricting access to education helped keep the kings, churches, nobels, and/or wealthy in power. If only a select few could read and write, then they would always have an advantage over the general, working-class population. People who’s primary goal is to hold onto power have always used restrictions on education as a major tool of doing so. It’s not any different today, only the relative measure of “higher education” has just changed. In previous centuries it was reading, writing, and arithmetic – in this century it’s higher education that teaches the skills to be an authority on matters of social sciences and business. When people ask questions that those in power cannot answer… those in power lose their jobs. It’s easy to see, then, why political parties with terrible policy positions would prefer to restrict educational resources to as many people as possible without looking to tyrannical. A small restriction here, another one there… jus enough to keep the general population in check through ignorance.
As was demonstrated with Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and all republicans in the 2012 election: when republicans are asked questions about their POLICY they get backed into a corner and either,
- don’t answer at all (“No specifics” is the new slogan of national elections);
- Repeat their bumper sticker talking points, or;
- answer the question, which invariably makes the majority of America shudder in fear, because it gives insight into how extreme the republican policy agenda has become.
The core anti-education Republican party talking point (once again we have to admire their consistency) is that college is bad. “Liberal” college is full of elite, socialist, anti-religious people. They say it with the sneer and a curl of the lip – as if disgusted (which Rick Santorum is actually really good at: the Republican Sneer). They make it look like being well-educated smells bad, and swear to the evangelical parts of their base that colleges “indoctrinate students with liberal ideologies” (video).
And of course, in 2012 we learned that the Republicans believe that anyone who thinks it is a good thing for all our kids to go to college, “is a snob.”
I am a liberal, non-religious (which does not mean anti-religious), person who was educated at a four year Catholic university. Philosophy with some law and business peppered here and there. Catholic university. Studied Nietzsche and Marketing with Catholic priests side-by-side with those crazy atheist and secular professors. I’ve seen and hear pretty much every viewpoint that can be thrown out into the void. The one truth I’ve learned: Education is good. Education is good because it empowers the person who has it. The more people in a society who are educated, the more they are involved, ask questions, and work to make things better. The fewer people who are educated, the more the people look to their leaders for all the answers, and take what they are told at face value.
Why do Republicans think that a college education is bad?
I’m basically a liberal, because I believe in universal, high-quality education, single-payer health care, and not letting poor people starve. I’ve worked in education both vocational and universities. I’ve taught very smart, and very not-so-smart students in both environments. The one universal tool we could give that made the difference in the lives of a 4-year business student or a 2-year vocational student was the same: teach them how to think and solve problems for themselves. More than teaching math and grammar (I always hated grammar) respect and social norms and responsibilities… that’s the first 12 years of our education system… but teach them how to be independent minds who can have new thoughts rather than just regurgitate what other’s have told them.
Republicans don’t like new thought. Conservative = status quo = avoid change (or at least only change that those in power want). And that happens only by reducing the amount of questions asked by the public. Why do you think religious institutions who are the most change-avoiding organizations in history partner so well with the republican party?
When your policy is outside reality… you want to do basically everything you can to keep your base outside of reality. Hence the Republican Party hates education, they embrace Fox News and conspiracy theories… anything they can to distract from the fact that their policies are balderdash and the only reason they are in government is to advance their own business careers.
Vocational schools teach skills. Like I said: I did this for a long time and I think vocational schools are a VERY good thing. But the traditional 4-year university model is more than education: it’s also a phase in life – and it teaches people how to think for themselves, not just follow the rules. That aspect is literally built into each curriculum.
People who attend university or who go to vocational or trade schools both grow into outstanding, contributing adults, but they do it in different ways: vocational school lacks the extended period of what I can only call “discovery coupled with freedom” that universities offer due mostly because of the manner in which curricula are designed and the duration of the total degree programs. Trade schools teach towards a goal of a specific career. Graduates get good at it very quickly. Universities don’t focus on that – universities (as is often the tag line) focus on the entire student as a whole…. but according to Republican dogma, that means indoctrinating liberal ideologies. Is it, really? Or does that just mean that Truth and Fairness tend to lean more Left than Right? Something the extreme Right doesn’t want to happen. Remember: restricting access to education as a means to control and keep the public submissive has been used for centuries: this is no different than any other instance in history.
If I could, I’d send people to both vocational schools AND traditional universities. THAT’S a well-rounded person who has skills AND knows how to think for themselves.
Republicans don’t hate smart people. They need smart people, but they need more under-educated people who believe everything they’re told in order to maintain power. Education? That’s for snobs (sneer and jeer). Education kills religion. Education makes people lose their values and want to kill babies… what a party the Republicans have turn themselves into. They know that the only way to maintain it is by keeping its base ignorant of facts and wallowing in conspiracies, and they are doing a very good job. All we can do is keep voting for better education. Hopefully with that and time the insanity might start to go the way of being taught in school that if a woman floats when thrown in the water she’s a witch and should be burned at the stake. See… leanin’ is good.
