59% Republicans think University has Negative Effect on US

J Mysterio

Bizarre findings from Pew Research poll in US. Apparently 38% of Americans - 59% of Republicans - think colleges/ universities have a negative impact on America.

Franz Von Peppercorn II

I would say that’s true of a fair amount of the grievance studies.

Jim2007

J Mysterio wrote: »

Bizarre findings from Pew Research poll in US. Apparently 38% of Americans - 59% of Republicans - think colleges/ universities have a negative impact on America.

It's not bizarre at all if you consider that unlike most of Europe, the US treat education as an industry and they demand, or more likely feel they have a right to a good result. People come out of US colleges with say $50,000 - $100,000 of debt and a dumbed down degree that is useless in the work place.

Back in the day, I used to do a lot of recruitment work for a well know US MNC and we had a simple filtering rule: US Masters equals Europe Bachelors degree. And it usually proved to be the case.

Manic Moran

Unsurprisingly, the devil is in the details,

For example,

Majorities of Republicans (77%) and Democrats (92%) say high tuition costs are a major reason why they believe colleges and universities are headed in the wrong direction.

Also, majorities of both parties agree that the degrees themselves can be important. There are also issues over ideological matters. The heckler’s vetoes which have been evident over the last few years have rankled republicans in particular.

nkl12xtw5goz70

OP, the way you've phrased things suggests that Americans think education has a negative effect on society. If you dig into what the article actually says, that's not it at all.

On the left, many Americans think that the cost of college, which has escalated far beyond the rate of inflation for decades, harms their country. At elite private universities, the cost of attendance (including tuition, fees, room and board, books, etc.) can exceed $75,000 a year -- that's over $300,000 for a four-year degree, which potentially makes it more expensive to attain a BA than to buy a house. There is more than $1.5 trillion in student debt outstanding in the US, which many believe harms the country.

Many Americans on the left also believe that universities contribute to social inequality. Top universities like Stanford and Yale enroll more students from households with incomes in the top 1 percent than from households in the bottom 60 percent. Companies that pay the highest wages, including Wall Street firms and top law firms, recruit almost exclusively from these top universities -- meaning that most of the highest paying jobs go to those who are already from wealthy backgrounds. Again, it's not irrational to believe that this harms the country.

For their part, those on the right often object to the liberal dominance of higher education: A recent study found that the faculties of exclusive liberal arts colleges like Wellesley, Williams, and Swarthmore have ratios of Democrats to Republicans at or above 120 to 1. They also object to efforts by universities to protect students from viewpoints they may find objectionable or offensive, believing that this is no way to prepare young adults for the real world.

Still others believe that universities are not imparting real skills or preparing students well for the workplace. A $300,000 degree in gender studies isn't necessarily going to impress prospective employers.

For the record, dumbed-down degrees are in no way exclusive to the US. Grade inflation in Ireland means that a high percentage of the young population are walking around with first-class honours degrees and 2:1's, all while employers complain that they can't find qualified workers.

Quin_Dub

Aubree Black Valve wrote: »

OP, the way you've phrased things suggests that Americans think education has a negative effect on society. If you dig into what the article actually says, that's not it at all.

On the left, many Americans think that the cost of college, which has escalated far beyond the rate of inflation for decades, harms their country. At elite private universities, the cost of attendance (including tuition, fees, room and board, books, etc.) can exceed $75,000 a year -- that's over $300,000 for a four-year degree, which potentially makes it more expensive to attain a BA than to buy a house. There is more than $1.5 trillion in student debt outstanding in the US, which many believe harms the country.

Many Americans on the left also believe that universities contribute to social inequality. Top universities like Stanford and Yale enroll more students from households with incomes in the top 1 percent than from households in the bottom 60 percent. Companies that pay the highest wages, including Wall Street firms and top law firms, recruit almost exclusively from these top universities -- meaning that most of the highest paying jobs go to those who are already from wealthy backgrounds. Again, it's not irrational to believe that this harms the country.

For their part, those on the right often object to the liberal dominance of higher education: A recent study found that the faculties of exclusive liberal arts colleges like Wellesley, Williams, and Swarthmore have ratios of Democrats to Republicans at or above 120 to 1. They also object to efforts by universities to protect students from viewpoints they may find objectionable or offensive, believing that this is no way to prepare young adults for the real world.

Still others believe that universities are not imparting real skills or preparing students well for the workplace. A $300,000 degree in gender studies isn't necessarily going to impress prospective employers.

For the record, dumbed-down degrees are in no way exclusive to the US. Grade inflation in Ireland means that a high percentage of the young population are walking around with first-class honours degrees and 2:1's, all while employers complain that they can't find qualified workers.

The points you make are valid and fair criticisms of Higher education in the US however if you look at the data , the shift towards a negative viewpoint has been entirely on the Republican side of the US.

Those labelled Democrat/Left leaning have remained positive about the impact and the levels have varied only slightly - A low of 67% positive today and in 2012 with a high of 72% in 2014/2015

The GOP/Right leaning however have completely flipped - 53% positive/35% negative in 2012 to essentially the inverse today - 59% negative , 33% positive.

All the cost and "dumbing" down issues should largely apply to everyone , so we're left with the likely key issue for the right being your point from above

For their part, those on the right often object to the liberal dominance of higher education: A recent study found that the faculties of exclusive liberal arts colleges like Wellesley, Williams, and Swarthmore have ratios of Democrats to Republicans at or above 120 to 1. They also object to efforts by universities to protect students from viewpoints they may find objectionable or offensive, believing that this is no way to prepare young adults for the real world.

Is the real concern on the right in the US that a college education makes you less likely to be a GOP voter/Conservative , particularly among younger voters?

This research after the 2018 midterms shows a fairly clear shift to the left among younger college educated voters.

There's also this piece that discusses the shift towards the left among college educated voters in recent years.

nkl12xtw5goz70

Quin_Dub wrote: »

Those labelled Democrat/Left leaning have remained positive about the impact and the levels have varied only slightly - A low of 67% positive today and in 2012 with a high of 72% in 2014/2015

And yet 61 percent of Americans overall, including 52 percent of Democrats and 73 percent of Republicans, believe that higher education in their country is going in the wrong direction.

Is the real concern on the right in the US that a college education makes you less likely to be a GOP voter/Conservative , particularly among younger voters?

Not exactly. Republicans are more inclined to feel that the liberal dominance of higher education leads to a lack of balance. 59 percent of American adults believe that politics on college campuses lean toward a particular viewpoint -- while only a quarter of Republicans believe that students are hearing a full range of viewpoints in their college education. There's thus a tendency, especially among Republicans, to believe that students are being indoctrinated with liberal philosophy rather than educated in a balanced and nonpartisan manner.

Manic Moran

It's not exactly a new perception either. From last year.
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/11/education-gap-explains-american-politics/575113/

Sixty-seven percent of Republicans, the survey found, had “some” to “little” confidence in colleges as institutions. A number of factors contribute to this distrust, the rising cost of tuition and the perception of a liberal bent at colleges among them

There is also the 'understanding' problem. Conservatives in liberal-dominated areas such as universities are often inclined to keep their heads down and not say much. This results in a lack of an open exchange of information, and a bit of an echo chamber on the liberal side.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/republicans-and-democrats-dont-understand-each-other/592324/
Perhaps because institutions of higher learning tend to be dominated by liberals, Republicans who have gone to college are not more likely to caricature their ideological adversaries than those who dropped out of high school. But among Democrats, education seems to make the problem much worse. Democrats who have a high-school degree suffer from a greater perception gap than those who don’t. Democrats who went to college harbor greater misunderstandings than those who didn’t. And those with a postgrad degree have a way more skewed view of Republicans than anybody else.