Antipathy Toward College Educated (systems, law, majors, student)

[Cuero]

Originally Posted by Solere

Recent media reports of government proposed student loan debt forgiveness in my opinion seem to have unleashed a lot of antipathy toward college educated people collectively.

Not at all. The antipathy is toward people that don't want to pay for the services they purchased. It comes from all responsible citizens whether college educated or not. It's a matter a law going back thousands of years that if you enter into a contract you can't break that contract without serious negative consequences.

Originally Posted by Solere

Has there for many years been an underlying antipathy toward the college educated from the non-college educated that was aggravated by the recently announced debt forgiveness plan?

All career fields and social circles have a some type of established pecking order or ladder. There is always tension between those at different levels.

[ohio_peasant]

Originally Posted by elyn02

... Take for example the word "ain't", which an educated person would say is not a word, and they would be accurate when talking about English conventions. But if the listener understood what is meant, why can't it be used? That is where the feelings of dislike start to grow. "It's not right" is the usual response, but English conventions are not right or wrong. They are preferences agreed upon by the people who use the language. And they can change. Declaring a position right and the other wrong when preferences are being discussed is where distrust starts to form.

Yes, language drifts, and preferences are subjective. But one aspect of formal education is the cultivation of a certain kind of preference, or at least awareness that such preference is classical and formal. Historically, an important aspect of education was to preserve and to convey the cultural pillars of a society. That included grammar and rhetoric - literally, two of the seven canonical liberal arts.

Similarly, an educated person would be fluent or at least conversant in several languages. To be monolingual was a sign of lack of higher education. For a native English-speaker, the presumptive second language was French, or in some cases German. Earlier, it would have been Latin, or even Greek. America's skepticism of formal education bears much relation to its disdain for learning foreign languages.

[509]

Originally Posted by TamaraSavannah

Why all the hate for "liberal arts"?

These "people" Moderator cut: link removed, competitor site are using geography and that's liberal arts.

Basically, if there is antipathy, it may have been put into their heads by a media that may not know what they are talking about.

As a "science" graduate I never considered geography a "liberal arts" degree.

A geography major with a good background in GIS, plus classes in statistics, economics, geology, etc. and the natural sciences can write their own ticket these days.

It is one of the most interesting science degrees these days.

I had a woman working for me with a degree BS degree in math, and a MS in economics. We hired her in the Forest Service and trained her in GIS. She then picked up a pretty good background in the natural sciences.

When she started looking for a job outside the government the job offers just poured in and this was in the mid-1990's.

https://web.ccsu.edu/faculty/kyem/GE.../Chapter1A.htm

[albert648]

As someone who has a Masters degree, I have no antipathy towards college graduates.

I have extremely strong antipathy towards college graduates who got useless degrees with no realistic job prospects beyond Starbucks and expect taxpayers to bail them out by way of student loan forgiveness, or college graduates who think their B.A. in a liberal arts discipline makes them an expert when it does no such thing.

You knew what you were signing up for when you signed up for it, pay your damn loans.

[1AngryTaxPayer]

Originally Posted by springfieldva

I think that people who do not have the benefit of a college degree are sick of hearing "highly educated" people whine about their student loans and how haaarrrdd it is to make it in life. The sense of entitlement is unreal.

All of those who paid off our loans would agree.

[elyn02]

Originally Posted by ohio_peasant

Yes, language drifts, and preferences are subjective. But one aspect of formal education is the cultivation of a certain kind of preference, or at least awareness that such preference is classical and formal. Historically, an important aspect of education was to preserve and to convey the cultural pillars of a society. That included grammar and rhetoric - literally, two of the seven canonical liberal arts.

Similarly, an educated person would be fluent or at least conversant in several languages. To be monolingual was a sign of lack of higher education. For a native English-speaker, the presumptive second language was French, or in some cases German. Earlier, it would have been Latin, or even Greek. America's skepticism of formal education bears much relation to its disdain for learning foreign languages.

Hello, Ohio_peasant. Thank you for your response. Just a bit of personal information so that what I say after makes sense: when my daughter struggled with reading, I dove into the "interventions" the school used. I found that phonics practice had no bearing on comprehension. The graphic organizers that were suggested were too open-ended when she needed a more focused explanation. Then I stumbled upon the study of phonology. This led to the concept that word meaning drives English spelling, not always sound. What I have found is that English words require more than just a definition in order to be understood and needed to be analyzed by their parts, not individual sounds. This is probably true of other languages. However, when I handed my GRE practice book to my husband and asked him if he recognized the vocabulary which I didn't, he did. He said that their base words were very similar to his language (one of the Romance languages) and that these words were not just used in academic settings, but rather, in normal conversation.

Let's take the word derision. My daughter was studying that word recently and couldn't remember it on Vocabulary.com, a program her teacher uses. Therefore, I found a relative in another language, Spanish, which was reír - to laugh. She is taking Spanish at school right now and immediately saw the connection. I grew up in a Spanish-speaking environment, yet, I didn't learn it. People blamed it on my attitude toward the language (I am an American after all), but now after learning Spanish with a tutor, I see that I need to be in an area where nobody will speak English to me. That was exactly how my husband said it needed to be done and Americans don't have many opportunities for this.

Your first paragraph is accurate. Conventions are about preference and that is how they should be approached, not as something right or wrong, which people are very sensitive to.

[ILTXwhatnext]

Originally Posted by Cuero

Not at all. The antipathy is toward people that don't want to pay for the services they purchased. It comes from all responsible citizens whether college educated or not. It's a matter a law going back thousands of years that if you enter into a contract you can't break that contract without serious negative consequences.

We've certainly bailed out others...

https://www.propublica.org/article/government-bailouts

My nephew went to a private art school. It's a long story but he ran up a debt that there's no way he can pay back, even if he did complete the degree. I got a vibe along the lines of the subprime lending scandal...schools are jacking up tuition, signing up students for loans, etc.

https://clinics.law.harvard.edu/blog...-organization/

Since its inception, the Project on Predatory Student Lending’s legal team has grown to become the leading legal voice for borrowers defrauded by predatory for-profit colleges, with over one million clients and over $10 billion dollars in canceled fraudulent student loan debt.

[Rocko20]

Originally Posted by redguard57

Biggest career mistake I ever made was taking away a college degree requirement for a job class. My thinking was, "any decently smart high school grad can be trained to do this." No. No they couldn't. I almost got fired because it was my initiative and those people crashed and burned. Put it back to bachelors required and suddenly most candidates were able to do the tasks again.

A high school grad can easily do my job but will never get the job without a college degree. A college degree is largely just a "checkbox" for job seekers and employers, because as you mentioned, without the checkbox you don't know who the hell is going to try to apply for the job. I work with people who have degrees from any number of majors and schools.

Ironically, I've only been asked to submit my degree by an employer once (to be able to work in Germany), the other employers just didn't care.

[GSPNative]

Originally Posted by Solere

This is not a political post.

Recent media reports of government proposed student loan debt forgiveness in my opinion seem to have unleashed a lot of antipathy toward college educated people collectively.

When I have written persuasive letters in the past quoting professors and subject matter experts with higher education degrees, those with no college education would sometimes respond with a "What do they know?" attitude" or "I don't need a professor" to tell me what to think" remark.

Has there for many years been an underlying antipathy toward the college educated from the non-college educated that was aggravated by the recently announced debt forgiveness plan?

I think that the anti-intellectual movement has grown since Trump appeared on the scene, exclaiming that he loves the poorly-educated or whatever, and since the GOP has become overtly hostile to institutions viewed as "leftist", such as Ivy League schools.

[jtab4994]

Originally Posted by GSPNative

I think that the anti-intellectual movement has grown since Trump appeared on the scene, exclaiming that he loves the poorly-educated or whatever, and since the GOP has become overtly hostile to institutions viewed as "leftist", such as Ivy League schools.

The fact that most of the GOP leadership, including Ron DeSantis and the Orange Lord himself, have degrees from Ivy schools should tell you that they know what they're talking about, regarding the Ivy's being Leftist.

That being said, there is a longstanding tradition of house workers being resented by field workers. That did not start with the MAGA movement, and it won't end after the MAGA movement gives way to the next movement.