Right-wingers make no secret of their contempt for higher education for the masses

[marmar]

from the American Family Assn., a case study in what results from a lack of education:



More education = sound economy?
Pete Chagnon - OneNewsNow - 7/16/2009


President Obama has suggested pumping billions of dollars into community colleges to help the economy.

According to the Obama administration, America needs to educate its way to a better economy. Therefore the White House has suggested pumping as much as $12 billion into community colleges over the next decade in order to graduate five-million more students.

Neal McClusky, who is with the Cato Institute's Center for Educational Freedom, says this will just add to the already hundreds of billions of dollars being wasted on other foolish Obama administration programs, such as the economic stimulus.

"Nine-billion dollars will be sent to colleges as grants to (let) them do whatever they want, whatever the department of education will say is innovative. And then about $2.5 billion is going to be used for renovation and construction," he notes. "About $500 million will be used by the federal government to develop online courses and material -- courses that essentially will belong to the federal government." ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.onenewsnow.com/Education/Default.aspx?id=604844

[BlooInBloo]

1. DUers don't have much love for it either. It's just an *American* trait....

Nobody will fight harder for their right to be an idiot than an American.

[marmar]

3. Reading the response posted after yours, I guess you're right.....

:wtf:

[AngryAmish]

2. I'm skeptical as well

No matter what if someone has an 90 IQ they just are not capable of learning college level material. Then college just becomes extended high school with more beer.

[izquierdista]

5. The Army has a different view

They seem to have the knack of taking the wretched refuse of our teeming high schools and teaching them a valuable skill, be it Arabic language or helicopter maintenance. Of course, they have a little more leverage over the student than the average community college.

[Jazzgirl]

7. That is interesting....IQ tests don't always reflect

the true ability of a person. When my Mom was working for her Master's, she used several neighborhood kids to give IQ tests to. One was a next door neighbor. The young lady came out with a score around 84-88 (forget exactly). The young lady went on to college and actually went on to achieve a doctoral degree. She was very well respected in the community as a very effective educator. Don't put too much into an IQ test.

[AngryAmish]

11. By your reasoning we should make everyone with low IQs go get doctorates

Of course there are exceptions and if I was unclear please forgive me.

But, IQ correlates very well with all sorts of things that make for a happy life - income, marriage, incarceration, health, etc. These are averages. Exceptions obviously exist as is the case with all human measurement.

But resources are scarce. We should not waste the resource of college education on someone who will not get it, will be frustrated by the attempt and will get no use of it. Better to train these folks for jobs that do not require higher level reasoning.

[Ikonoklast]

12. I'm glad that you will never be the person making that call

But resources are scarce. We should not waste the resource of college education on someone who will not get it, will be frustrated by the attempt and will get no use of it. Better to train these folks for jobs that do not require higher level reasoning.

Nice display of a progressive and liberal attitude there, Ayn.

Yeah, we need ditch-digging proles, so let's keep higher education only for those we see fit.

[AngryAmish]

13. College education costs money

Right now it is paid for by everyone collectively and the person getting the education (with some private scholarships thrown in on the margins). Do you really think making someone with an 85 IQ sit through six years of lectures then granting them a phd will per se make them a professional and capable of doing the work we expect of professionals? That is nonsense on stilts. How would you feel is you had a massive, undischarged debt for a degree which has no use and will not earn you anything in the future? Assuming the debt is $85,000 - that means several years of work just to pay off your loans. That is cruel.

I don't want someone with an 85 IQ building my bridges.

I don't want someone with an 85 IQ operating on me.

Does that make me an elitist? Or a realist?

[Ikonoklast]

15. You assume IQ=Ability to learn, in each instance.

You cannot equate the two, and trying to do so is a mistake.

The guy that fixes my appliances has a genius IQ, I went to school with him. He flunked out of two colleges.

I don't want him as my surgeon, either.

And the amount of debt load a person takes on pursuing higher education is their problem, not yours.

My father always told us kids he didn't care what we did, as long as we got an education. He would say, "I don't care if you end up as a fry cook, at least you'll be an EDUCATED fry cook."

He valued education for its own sake, not as some way to translate it into earning power in the future.

[PVnRT]

17. Huh? I'm paying off my college loans myself.

Explain to me how "everyone is paying collectively" again? Aside from scholarships and grants (a tiny percentage of the education budget) people pay for college themselves, through loans or self-financing.

Furthermore, you seem to have this idea that all one needs to do to get a PhD is "sit through six years of lectures." Have you attended graduate school? Evidently not, or else you'd know that most of getting an advanced degree has little to do with lectures and much to do with individual research. Not just research, but original research. There are plenty of high IQ people who couldn't handle that if they wanted to. A PhD (or MS, or MA, or MBA, etc.) does not make one a "professional" either.

Your post is frankly an insult to anyone who was worked through college and graduate school to get an advanced degree. Try knowing something about what you're spouting off about before spouting off.

[AngryAmish]

20. Please note the word "and" in my sentence about who pays for college

We pay collectively - Pell Grants, Federally subsidized loans and the like. On the state level there are many state run schools which receive subsidies from the state - the in-state tuition does not come close to covering the costs of education in most cases and is certainly true in my state. Private colleges? they don't pay property taxes in their communities. Bottom line: college is considered a good thing and is subsidized by those not in college to promote common good. And it is. The land-grant university system, for example, has allowed America to be the most productive agricultural system the earth has ever known.

As a matter of fact I myself hold an advanced degree. It involved almost exclusively lectures. And where do I state that all high IQ people were tempermentally able to get advanced degrees?

[EOTE]

19. You seem to know very little about the American educational system.

Both in terms of who pays for it and in terms of how it benefits people regardless of their IQ. The more educated you are, the less likely you are to be taken advantage of you and the more control you have over your own lot in life. I don't know if you're an elitist or not, but you're certainly not compassionate. And you're DEFINITELY not a realist.

[meow2u3]

16. Some people with deflated IQ's simply suffer from severe test anxiety

It's the test anxiety that lowers the IQ's of some persons who are actually bright, sometimes near geniuses. My mom suffered from IQ test anxiety; if you told her she was taking an IQ test, she'd end up in the borderline retarded category, and she was anything but. On the other hand, if someone gave her the test and presented it as a questionnaire and/or a puzzle solving session, she had scored as a subgenius.

IQ tests are not foolproof nor are they 100% reliable. It depends on the anxiety level of the person taking the test.

[AngryAmish]

4. dupe

[HopeHoops]

6. If it weren't for uneducated dumbfucks, there wouldn't BE a GOP base.

And FOX wouldn't have any viewers.

[BOSSHOG]

8. Those guys on right wing radio just loves to keep their base stupid

[Mr. Blonde]

9. The world needs ditch diggers too.

Not everyone is of equal intelligence we do need to focus on getting people into a job field where they can improve their quality of life and provide a valuable service. Not all jobs that do both of those things require a college degree. Sending a lot of kids to Vo-Tech during high school would be a good alternative plan.

[PVnRT]

18. Community colleges and vocational schools tend to cater to those seeking

to be a "technician" or something along those lines. You don't need a college degree to be an x-ray technician, but you do need specialized training. Ditto for welders, or plumbers, or electricians, or drafters. There are plenty of people smart enough to get into those trades, but lack the financial ability to do so.

[Fresh_Start]

10. in all fairness to the right wingers

they don't have much use for higher education for themselves either.

They just love ignorance so its not prejudice against the masses, its fear of knowledge which might force them to evaluation their beliefs

[get the red out]

14. Community Colleges teach skills

Community Colleges have a lot of two year programs that can get people through and employed quickly. Many health care programs where people get jobs and start paying taxes and buying things. It isn't all "fluff" for people that want to party for two years then work at McDonald's. I have a friend that took a two year radiology program and was employed immediately and is doing great. And she was in her 30s making a career change when she did that. Older students like her are about getting a career, not having play time.