I'm a dumb, Southern, gun loving, public educated PhD student that believes in gay rights and a strong defense. What demographic does that put me in?

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

I used to think this applied perfectly to our current president.  But now, with Sarah Palin, I see that it can indeed be taken a step further.  "If the Palin choice indicates any sense of direction, the Republicans may soon nominate a candidate who never attended college at all."  GOP: Joe the truck driver / Susie the waitress 2012!!!

This underlines one fact.  Universities don't so much educate as indoctrinate.  In fact, that indoctrination begins at K.

All polls show that academia from K through grad school is preponderantly Left.  It's no surprise that after 17 or 19 years of such exposure, college grads would lean Left as well.

MPH, that puts you under an umbrella between two billowing big tents in a rainstorm.

"...Will Democrats resolve their own tension between elitism and populism by insisting that, to govern a world as complex as the one we inhabit, a little knowledge is not a dangerous thing?" And we see where a little knowledge and a lot of ignorance have gotten us these last 8 years under GOP guidance.

First, Wolfe needs to stop pushing the false meme that if you're a Democrat by default you've attended an Ivy League school and you're elitist. Secondly, ONLY in America would you be having the debate that being educated or getting a higher education is a bad thing AND that having a college degree makes you elitist. If so...then I can fully understand why America is back sliding on so many fronts when the GOP encourages ignorance in all matters.

So because the GOP will do anything and everything to maintain power and enact discriminatory policies that benefit only the GOP and their monied benefactors, they discourage Federal dollars for higher education and thus we effectively have a brain drain in the US. Foreign students stop coming here to be educated by one of the greatest gifts the US has given the world. American students are subtly discouraged from the sciences because they realize that our government leaders would edit and scrub scientific findings to suit ideological positions, that this GOP administration and previous GOP admins have continually underfunded and undercut Federal dollars for sciences in all sectors except for those that might directly benefit their precious interests versus funding for the betterment of the US and world as a whole.

I don't apologize for my education because I've worked hard to get it and I'm still paying it off. I don't apologize for being a registered Democrat nor for being liberal nor for supporting populist policies nor for pointing out stupidity when I see it, including my own. And I certainly don't think Democrats as a party should lay down on the issue of more Federal support for higher education. Regardless of whether or not higher education benefits one party or another, at least Democrats see the forest for the trees and realize that a rising tide of highly educated citizens lifts the boat of the country.

Would Wolfe prefer Democrats accept the falsity of GOP slander that being educated makes one elite?

Would Wolfe would prefer the US turn into a 'Confederacy of Dunces'?

Wow. TNR's hitting new lows for partisan spin. Where to begin? How about with this whopper: "The education gap is likely to exacerbate the tendency of Democrats to speak in policy terms while Republicans appeal to guts, instinct, and emotion."

Wolfe is kidding, right? Does he mean to tell us that the man whose entire national political career has been built on soaring rhetoric and emotional appeals, the manipulator who's reversed himself again and again on the very policies that holp'd him to the Democratic crown, favors "policy terms" over "instinct and emotion"? Has Wolfe read any of Obama's speeches?

Wolfe's also clueless re. the policy dimensions of the extraordinary cash hoards and escalating tuitions of many private college endowments (also public ones) over the last 20 years. Not just Yale's fund but also Notre Dame's, and Michigan's, and those of Texas and Virginia, have racked up annual returns at double-digit or near double-digit rates for decades now, which means that a fund like U-T's with ca. $8b in assets will generate close to * * * a billion dollars * * * each year in earnings. During this same period tuitions have soared at private and public colleges alike, far in excess of inflation.

So could Wolfe please tell us why a policy change that any even mildly progressive pol would have demanded YEARS ago-- ie to force the unversities whose endowments generate hundreds of millions each year to stop hoarding this money and put back a decent % of it to needy students in the form of financial aid-- is somehow a devious GOP plot?

TNR's partisan screeds are making it more and more ridiculous by the day. We have a massive problem with financial allocations in this country. More partisanship will not solve this problem. Could we please have some intelligent, financially literate, non-hyperpartisan analysis in TNR.

This is one of occasional times I agree with Chan wholeheartedly, except I would append that the right had similarly believed that schools should indoctrinate and instruct, encouraging independent thinking so far as thinking should reinforce their doctrine. But, in the end, it was the left-liberal template that was adopted. We're only beginning to wake up to what a disadvantage teaching predominantly one or other doctrine has burdened our young people. It's a shame and an utter disgrace, and I think unconscionable.

ChanRobt,

There's of course some truth to your argument about the political bias of the academy, but as a former teacher, who taught at both the college and high school level, I think you may overstate it a bit. Many colleges these days are being run like businesses, with the bottom line influencing the climate of the academy as much as anything else. I also wonder about the causes of that lefty bias you describe.

Specifically, I wonder if its less a matter of institutionalized doctrine than it is a result of self-selection. What sort of person, in a culture and economy that places so much value on celebrity and wealth, would be willing to pursue a low-paid career in the classroom. Read the history of teaching in America and you see that primary and second school teachers were in the 19th century among the lowliest of the low. Teaching was women's work, poor women's work, approximately analogous to being a governess. Of course, the lot of teachers has improved, but for a profession that requires a master's degree, it still offers little glory and comparatively little remuneration. Adjuncts at colleges and universities are basically scholarly temp workers.

So teaching, I would argue, tends to attract the sort of people motivated either by a sense of service or by intellectual curiosity. Sure there are those lazy K-12 teachers who enter the profession because it isn't that hard to get certified to teach and because the job has, in most school districts, promised an unusual degree of job security. (Reasons why I like Obama's educational policy, which calls for merit pay and other measures to increase the professionalism of teaching.)

But good teachers, of which this country has many, why do they get into it? I'd argue that the values that motivate most teachers--love of learning, altruism--are for the time being more strongly espoused by the left.

Tep,

Maybe Wolfe hasn't read any of Obama's speeches. Or maybe he's read them all, whereas you seem only to have read some. They're not all the sort of thing you could make a music video out of. Obama's new book, a collection of speeches, contains many, many policy specifics, and lots of stuff for the puppies not the yuppies. And if you haven't, and I'm guessing you haven't, you really should read the man's first book, given the frequency with which you deride him.

I don't particularly care about the domination of the liberal arts faculties by left-libs; I share many of their views, especially those on religion, and more importantly, I think this nation has benefited hugely from parking the Chomsky's and Wade Churchills of our society far outside the national discourse, in their ivy-lined reservation where they have utterly no influence over policy.

Ingenious, when you think about it: offer them cushy tenured positions in country-club settings where the real estate appreciates far faster than the national average, and you get thousands of leftists to VOLUNTARILY remove themselves from the arena.

My take on higher education isn't lib vs conservative but hard vs soft: we need vastly increased numbers of engineers, scientists, and (primary care) physicians and should be doing everything in our power to steer smart young people into these fields. See my comments above about forcing Yale Princeton U-T Virginia et al to devote maybe the first 2 percentage points of their annual endowment returns into scholarships for students who choose the hard subjects. Given that the top 60 college endowments now total  >$150b in assets under management, this proposal could fund about $3b in annual scholarship funds, ie a 4-year free ride for an annual total of maybe 60,000 public school and another 20,000 private school engineers and scientists and MDs-to-be. Entering class sizes should be expanded accordingly so that this is "lift", not "shift."

Probably a better investment in our economy than any sum thrown at Wall Street.

I'm sorry but this doesn't even make sense "All polls show that academia from K through grad school is preponderantly Left." What polls? Are we polling kindergarteners now and asking them how they feel about abortion and stem cell research? Are !st graders giving their opinions on how much of a social safety net do we as a society choose to put in place?

Maybe you meant research, but again, educational research doe not focus on left or right ideology. It focuses on such things as high school drop rates, how well do students perform on math questions and science questions, can they read and write, things like that.

In fact, I would argue that our education is dropping the ball on things like civics, teaching students to understand how our democracy works, that as citizens they need to vote, what the Constitution says and what it means. Maybe then we'd have more than a pittance actually participating in our elections, legislation and governance.  

"All polls show that academia from K through grad school is preponderantly Left."

This is true.  I'm surprised so few people have noticed how more and more third-graders are coming home from school with little red flags and practicing for the class recitation of the song praising the Leader's five-year-plan for increasing the national production of door hinges.

I've also been worried about the way that adolescents are increasingly looking to Putin and Kim Jong-Il as role models.

And as for the planned renaming of Jefferson High as Collective Re-Education Camp #460 -- well, that's just the final straw!

You do realize, Tep, that the humanities are already by and large the neglected stepchildren of the academy when it comes to funding. You do realize, too, that undergraduate education is already growing ever more vocational? Call me idealistic, or anachronistic, but I rue the decline of the liberal arts education, that noble, non-vocational training of the mind and spirit in all subjects, "hard" and "soft" alike.

Chan: "All polls show that academia from K through grad school is preponderantly Left.  It's no surprise that after 17 or 19 years of such exposure, college grads would lean Left as well."

Colbert: "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."

Discuss.

I'm sorry I didn't mean to be snarky. I only will add that our education system should be teaching our children independent thought, along with the standards of learning as proposed by such things as the No Child Left Behind legislation. There is nothing wrong with honest independent thought from any ideological perspective. The unfortunate situation the right wing is in right now is that they are beholden to a fundamentalist religious community that abhors independent thought and chooses to the take the Bible literally, chooses to force their beliefs and ideology on the rest of us, not the least of which by forcing the teaching of creationism is schools as if it is scientifically proven and as intellectually rigorous as evolution.

It is neither liberal nor conservative - or shouldn't be anyway - to fight that medieval thinking at every turn.  

Nippers, I agree that self-selection has something to do with academia leaning Left.  But, there is also a lot of self-replication at work.  

Left leaning department heads have a tendency to hire Left leaning profs.  Although this may always have been thus, in both directions, the takeover of academia by very doctrinaire Left Boomers in the 60s, accelerated that effect.

Meanwhile, I've had excellent teachers whom I happen to like propagandize my kids quite overtly in the 6th grade.  

I'm confident in my ability to offset this at home.  And, of course I don't want to embarrass my child by raising a fuss over it.  But, it's rather outrageous.

tep writes, "...See my comments above about forcing Yale Princeton U-T Virginia et al to devote maybe the first 2 percentage points of their annual endowment returns into scholarships for students who choose the hard subjects."

I believe I read that Harvard is planning to waive tuition for any kid from a middle class home (defined I think at 200k down), in addition to the assistance they already give the disadvantaged.

they aren't weighting this help towards the "hard" disciplines, though.

irony, "nd as for the planned renaming of Jefferson High as Collective Re-Education Camp #460 -- well, that's just the final straw!"

prnoonan, "Colbert: "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."

Very droll.  But an excellent quip doesn't mitigate the facts.

McGumbleton, "...What polls? Are we polling kindergarteners now and asking them how they feel about abortion and stem cell research? "

The polls ask the teachers, not the students.  Yet.  

tep, I concur that this country needs to produce more engineers, scientists and physicians or we'll be in big trouble.

It would probably be good for our economy and efficiency if we produce a lot few lawyers as well.

However, I would hate to see Humanities, as taught in the classic vein, be lost.  Although I'm not sure how classically it is any longer taught, seeing as we've chucked Western Civ and all.

I would not want to see our universities dedicated entirely to producing technocrats.  I suspect a good genralist with a broad education and a wide view of the world makes a better president or senator or even CEO.

ChanRobt,

Regarding Western Civ, I taught at UM-Ann Arbor which has a superlative Great Books program that most honors students take. I also taught at a high school, albeit a private one, where the curriculum included Latin (language and literature), the Bible, surveys of English Lit. heavy on Shakespeare, surveys of American Lit heavy on the classics thereof, and 12th grade seminars that taught Hamlet, Moby-Dick, Dante, Sophocles, Homer, among others. It also included works by the likes of Baldwin, Ellison, Jean Rhys, Athel Fugard, Derek Wolcott,  Albee, Edward P. Jones, Elizabeth Bishop, among other meritorious newcomers to the venerable canon. You want the tradition to be a living one, after all, don't you? Granted the curricula I experienced may not be representative, but my impression is that the pendulum has swung a good ways back since the heyday of political correctness in the late-80s/early90's.

Nice to find something on which you and I strongly agree.

"Very droll.  But an excellent quip doesn't mitigate the facts."

Thanks!  But I'm still challenging the factuality of the purported "facts."

I agree wholeheartedly with mcgumbleton. I am an adjunct history professor at a small liberal arts college, I make it my goal of any class to try and increase intellectual discussion and try to improve a student's ability to carry on a supported debate, but I also find my self agreeing with the Republican Murray in the post who feels there should be fewer college students. Many students just don't measure up and they've been passed along and encouraged to carry on their education merely because college graduates earn more money. Sadly many colleges merely take students money and fail to really educate them in a real sense, especially in the traditional rhetorically-based fields. Colleges with large numbers of students who shouldn't be in college, see the academic output of those who have what it takes to excel as a scholar suffer as a result. I'd risk having more republicans, if it meant having some higher standards when it comes to academic rigor. I'd also like to point out there are far fewer Noam Chomsky-like professors out there than many people would have you think.

Nippers, your account of the curriculum you have been teaching is very heartening, indeed.  You bet we're in full accord.

gflibCDL, I've often thought the post WW2 enchantment with college for everyone has made no sense at all.  

And I've interviewed enough kids with degrees to know that for many the degree was a joke.  At least if judged in terms of their diction, deportment, ability to express themselves verbally, etc.

There are plenty of people with a lot to offer upon which traditional college education and curriculum are wasted.  Our university system is, after all, the descendant of a system designed for the education of gentlemen and scholars.

There needs to be invented some parallel path of post-high school education designed to train people not of an academic bent for the many practical, post industrial, high tech and other pursuits.

A trade school, of sorts, I suppose, but a rigorous one designed for what industry and many kinds of businesses today need more than someone with a ticket stamped quasi traditional education.