Antipathy Toward College Educated (doctor, requirements, require, vs)

[redguard57]

According to exit polls, since we've been tracking the "college educated" vote which has only been since the Nixon years, people with 4 year degrees voted Republican until 2008. They shifted slightly Democratic that year, back to slightly Republican in 2012, and then fairly decently shifted toward Democrats in 2016 and 2020.

So if we're going to make this political, the shift left among the college educated has been within the past decade.

[HappyHappy001]

Originally Posted by retroit

i think the sentiment has been there for a long time (decades). Consider a non-college educated person who has been working for four years encounters a college educated person who hasn't, specifically someone with a useless liberal arts degree which doesn't really prepare you for much. The former has a real world understanding and the latter has had liberal smoke blown up their behind by liberal professors trapped in their liberal bubble.

It's different for those with a technical degree, like a doctor, engineer, scientist. I think they always have been respected by the non-college educated.

this.

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by redguard57

According to exit polls, since we've been tracking the "college educated" vote which has only been since the Nixon years, people with 4 year degrees voted Republican until 2008. They shifted slightly Democratic that year, back to slightly Republican in 2012, and then fairly decently shifted toward Democrats in 2016 and 2020.

So if we're going to make this political, the shift left among the college educated has been within the past decade.

To me the shift, and to be clear it's never been as significant and some would imply in voting terms, makes sense. During the late 1970's women began to earn as many college degrees as men and since then have earned degrees at significantly higher rates and a greater proportion of women are more small "l" politically liberal res ipsa loquitur.


FWIIW younger women 18-29 are much, much more likely to ID as liberal than same aged men.


https://www.bestcolleges.com/news/an...more-than-men/

https://www.voxburner.com/blog-sourc...beral-than-men

[mitsguy2001]

Originally Posted by tnff

I suspect there are a lot more conservatives that are highly educated than a reading of media stories would lead one to believe. Rather, like most conservatives, they are too busy getting things done to be making headlines complaining about those who get things done.

Another difference is that conservatives tend to have private sector jobs, and are often the sole or primary breadwinner in their family. Liberals are often teachers, professors, or have other government jobs where they don't have to worry about getting fired.

It seems that all of my former high school classmates who are frequent Facebook posters list as their career either "liberal teacher", "liberal professor", "liberal activist", or "feminist housewife". All any of these people all day is post liberal nonsense on Facebook, and call anybody who disagrees with them a racist and a sexist. I was wondering why everybody from my high school became so liberal. Then it hit me: I had a graduating class of about 550 students. Maybe 10 of these students are constantly posting on Facebook and have the careers I listed above. That means 540 of us are silent, and have political beliefs unknown to the public. Since we know that our private sector employers can and will fire us if we post anything on Facebook that they don't agree with. So that leaves only a small number of tenured teachers, tenured professors, and "feminist housewives" (their term, not mine) who don't have to worry about getting fired.

I also think that liberals fail to understand that silence does not mean agreement. Liberals are used to being able to say what they want without consequence, either because their view is the politically correct view, or because they don't have to worry about losing their job.

I don't think there is antipathy toward the college-educated in general. I think there is antipathy toward PhD's. I think part of it is that most of us know that they are no smarter than us, just luckier. They always had easy teachers in high school, were always the teacher's pets, never put any effort into school, dropped any class they were getting a B in, so they get into Ivy League schools for undergrad. They pick easy majors in college, they get easy professors, they party their way through schools that are hard to get into but easy to graduate from. Then they get into a PhD program. Then they become out of touch college professors who post liberal nonsense all day and call anybody who doesn't agree with them a racist and a sexist. Of course there is going to be antipathy toward them by the rest of the population. Outside of academia, medicine, and government research, everybody knows that, at least when differentiating a 4.0 vs a 3.98, it's basically a random lottery. I mentioned before that from my high school, it was determined by which AP Bio teacher we got in 10th grade.

[kj1065]

Originally Posted by mitsguy2001

Another difference is that conservatives tend to have private sector jobs, and are often the sole or primary breadwinner in their family. Liberals are often teachers, professors, or have other government jobs where they don't have to worry about getting fired.

It seems that all of my former high school classmates who are frequent Facebook posters list as their career either "liberal teacher", "liberal professor", "liberal activist", or "feminist housewife". All any of these people all day is post liberal nonsense on Facebook, and call anybody who disagrees with them a racist and a sexist. I was wondering why everybody from my high school became so liberal. Then it hit me: I had a graduating class of about 550 students. Maybe 10 of these students are constantly posting on Facebook and have the careers I listed above. That means 540 of us are silent, and have political beliefs unknown to the public. Since we know that our private sector employers can and will fire us if we post anything on Facebook that they don't agree with. So that leaves only a small number of tenured teachers, tenured professors, and "feminist housewives" (their term, not mine) who don't have to worry about getting fired.

I also think that liberals fail to understand that silence does not mean agreement. Liberals are used to being able to say what they want without consequence, either because their view is the politically correct view, or because they don't have to worry about losing their job.

I don't think there is antipathy toward the college-educated in general. I think there is antipathy toward PhD's. I think part of it is that most of us know that they are no smarter than us, just luckier. They always had easy teachers in high school, were always the teacher's pets, never put any effort into school, dropped any class they were getting a B in, so they get into Ivy League schools for undergrad. They pick easy majors in college, they get easy professors, they party their way through schools that are hard to get into but easy to graduate from. Then they get into a PhD program. Then they become out of touch college professors who post liberal nonsense all day and call anybody who doesn't agree with them a racist and a sexist. Of course there is going to be antipathy toward them by the rest of the population. Outside of academia, medicine, and government research, everybody knows that, at least when differentiating a 4.0 vs a 3.98, it's basically a random lottery. I mentioned before that from my high school, it was determined by which AP Bio teacher we got in 10th grade.

There are definitely kids whose parents buy their way into highly selective schools, but in general, a kid has to be genuinely accomplished to be admitted to the Ivy League, and even many who are that accomplished end up passed over. Being a teacher's pet and dropping AP classes doesn't cut it.

[ohio_peasant]

Originally Posted by mitsguy2001

I don't think there is antipathy toward the college-educated in general. I think there is antipathy toward PhD's. I think part of it is that most of us know that they are no smarter than us, just luckier. They always had easy teachers in high school, were always the teacher's pets, never put any effort into school, dropped any class they were getting a B in, so they get into Ivy League schools for undergrad. They pick easy majors in college, they get easy professors, they party their way through schools that are hard to get into but easy to graduate from. Then they get into a PhD program. Then they become out of touch college professors who post liberal nonsense all day and call anybody who doesn't agree with them a racist and a sexist. ...

While I disagree with some vehemence with your thesis, the conclusion is broadly true... if there's "antipathy" towards persons with college degrees, this antipathy is much starker and more universal, against persons with academic doctorates.

This comes from multiple directions. In engineering, the PhD is viewed as a pie-in-the-sky daydreaming irrelevance, as opposed to the more hardnosed and practical training/experience of engineers with a Bachelor's or a Master's. In the professions, MDs and JDs regard PhDs are their poor cousins, lacking the imprimatur of a formal exam and license. And in the general public, PhDs are associated with egghead professors or pompous and clueless "experts" who are either corporate shills or too clueless even to be coopted.

[Jstarling]

[quote=springfieldva;64333638]

Originally Posted by Jstarling

What is the actual percentage of people who would benefit from this loan forgiveness? It seems to me that these loan borrowers who feel so heavily burdened by their own student loans are a relatively small segment of our society. They are vocal and they are loud and boy, do they ever know how to whine, but they certainly do not represent most student loan borrowers and they sure as heck don't represent most people.

We are talking about a "forgiveness" program that would hurt most Americans while giving a chosen handful a nice little windfall.

There are states like Florida that offer promising HS students Bright Future merit scholarships which are paid for out of the state lottery proceeds. College is absolutely affordable in many states.

Where is it absolutely affordable? Not my experience at all except for community college.
Funding college educations via the lottery isn’t the answer. States must do their part and schools absolutely must ensure that promising students are able to stay in school and complete a degree. Don’t accept students if you aren’t willing to offer support.

[redguard57]

Originally Posted by EDS_

To me the shift, and to be clear it's never been as significant and some would imply in voting terms, makes sense. During the late 1970's women began to earn as many college degrees as men and since then have earned degrees at significantly higher rates and a greater proportion of women are more small "l" politically liberal res ipsa loquitur.


FWIIW younger women 18-29 are much, much more likely to ID as liberal than same aged men.


https://www.bestcolleges.com/news/an...more-than-men/

https://www.voxburner.com/blog-sourc...beral-than-men

Which would mean that the shift is more about the kinds of people going to college especially in the past 10-15 years, than it is about whatever college itself does.

I went to a state university in Texas, and in my experience, nothing about the classes nor basic environment were particularly liberal unless you searched liberalism out. There were many, many liberal constituencies on campus represented by various groups and activists, but you had to put yourself out there to them.

The professors I didn't really care about at all. I just remember thinking they were old. They probably leaned liberal, but not in a way that mattered to me. Interestingly my dad said the same thing about his experience of going to college in the 60s-70s. His comment was that his professors seemed to him "the kinds of people who voted for FDR," which to him at the time, was not relevant.

Who mattered much more to me were my peers. Definitely a lot of liberalism among the peers.

[Slater]

According to the media anyway, it's evidently rare to find college faculty that aren't liberal.

[ohio_peasant]

Originally Posted by Slater

According to the media anyway, it's evidently rare to find college faculty that aren't liberal.

That might be the case for the arts and the social-sciences, and for law. Less likely for the hard-sciences or medicine. Even less likely for engineering or business.

In engineering, the plurality of the faculty are probably from India, China, the Middle East. These are hardly societies that in the Western sense are regarded as "liberal".