THE WOBBLY STATE OF HIGHER EDUCATION – AT 12:21 P.M. ET:   Of course, we report on this regularly, the poor state of higher education, outside the sciences.  The humanities and social sciences have, on too many campuses, become jokes, or simply propaganda operations of the far left.

Do people out in the real America actually care?  It turns out they do, and that caring can ultimately result in the cutting of federal aid, or even the disappearance of departments within colleges or some of the colleges themselves.  From the Washington Times: 

Soaring tuition costs, degrees of dubious value and nonstop student activism have combined to bring public confidence in the ivory tower tumbling down.

Even college and university presidents acknowledge that the country is becoming disillusioned with higher education. In a recent survey conducted by Inside Higher Ed and Gallup, 51 percent of institution leaders said the 2016 election “exposed that academe is disconnected from much of American society.”

The erosion of higher education’s brand comes as no surprise to Cornell Law School professor William A. Jacobson. He said the public’s negative perception of academia reflects the “reality of left-wing bias disconnected from American society.”

“Particularly in the humanities and social sciences, many faculty view political activism and indoctrination as a core part of their academic mission,” said Mr. Jacobson, who runs the Legal Insurrection blog. “While they may have the academic freedom to do so, there is a price to pay for the higher educational system.”

When asked to assess which factors are responsible for the negative view of higher education, 86 percent of college and university presidents cited the perception of liberal bias on campus.

And...

A survey released last year by the Pew Research Center shows that just 36 percent of Republicans believe colleges and universities have a positive effect on the way things are going in the country, compared with 58 percent who say they have a negative effect.

Those numbers are nearly reversed from 2010, when 58 percent of Republicans said higher education has a positive effect and 32 percent a negative effect.

Seventy-two percent of Democrats, meanwhile, had a high regard for higher education, which is up slightly from 65 percent in 2010.

COMMENT:  Read the entire piece.  Well written and well worth it.  The colleges are in trouble, and properly so.  They have shown too much contempt for the nation they presumably serve.

There are consequences to decades of decline.

March 16, 2018