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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
[quote]In July, a Pew Research Center study found that 58 percent of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents believe colleges and universities have a negative effect “on the way things are going in the country"[/quote]

The GOP is really frightening. They are beginning to lose faith in higher education. This is terrible! The economy is becoming higher tech and higher skilled. This will just further perpetuate a blue state/red state or city/rural divide.[/quote]

I think there's more to the story. Unfortunately Pew research article on this didn't ask why the respondents felt this way. Count me as one of the many republicans who has grown weary of colleges and universities in the US - and I say this as someone who has multiple undergrad degrees and an advanced degree. My beef is not with the concept of colleges and universities, but how US colleges and universities are CURRENTLY behaving. First is the hard lean towards progressive activism, creating thought bubbles that are antithetical to the idea of free exchange and learning. Second is the schools' focus not on core academic performance, but the construction of fancy facilities, resulting in escalating tuition that in turn saddle students with crushing debt. Thirdly, colleges and universities are not doing enough to guide students into productive fields like engineering, but are instead all to happy to indulge in the whims of immature children who study meaningless majors that have no hope for good employment upon graduation.

If you dig a little bit into the PEW research, Republicans and Democrats are largely aligned on most of the sub measures except one: Republicans indicate that colleges and universities should mostly be about getting educated and less so about personal growth. Meanwhile Democrats are split half and half on getting educated versus personal growth. The lack of any other correlation prompts me to hypothesize that Republicans are indeed largely weary of colleges and universities because they are not doing a good job of preparing kids in terms of personal growth. [/quote]
And yet, you will still send your kids to college, right?

So, do conservative leaning college do a better job at preparing kids for college, universities like BYU?

Throughout history, progressive activism has come from universities where students are encouraged to think for themselves.  It encouraged activism like Tianamen square and the revolt against military rule in South Korea in the 70s/80s. Those are just examples.  What you are saying is that universities shouldn't encourage people to reach for liberty or individual thought and instead just become a cog in the wheel.[/quote]

Yes of course, I would try to get my kids into schools that are more focused on academic excellence and try to be closely engaged in the "personal development" aspect. My feeling of weariness is towards colleges and universities in general, which is a very broad brush. However, there are islands of excellence within this sea of mediocrity.

I am not sure that conservative leaning colleges do a better job, I see plenty of evidence that many liberal leaning universities also do exceptionally well. It's a spectrum and not a clear cut choice of one or the other. There are also guides on how conservatives can survive in a liberal university - going with the flow to tell professors what they want to hear in order to earn the grade. This is far more nuanced than the summary that colleges and universities have a negative effect.

Progressive activism in modern day US colleges and universities are far more about group-think than independent thought - just look at how they inverted the meaning of the phrase "safe space". When college and universities start limiting free speech to specific "zones", then you know progressive activism has gone too far down the path of fascism. I don't feel that this is the same as Tiananmen square or South Korea, which had legitimate grievances against an oppressive government. What are modern day progressives complaining about in the US? They want to be called the gender that they choose. Also, having first hand experience dealing with the leaders of Tiananmen square, I can tell you that those people fail to impress me - they are charismatic, but mostly operate within a framework that is similar to gangs, a circle jerk of personalities whose main talking points are about the glories of each other's deeds in the past. They are devoid of any real useful talent other than to charm the pants off of idealistic and impressionable youth who has not yet matured enough to have their own independent thought and are therefore all too easily swooned by exaggerated stories of conquest. [/quote]
I agree that some of the progressive things in universities are too lefty (like not having gender identification), but by and large, universities are still about independent thought process and pursuing higher critical thinking skills.

It is this kind of thinking that will and does help push for more individual liberties, things like being more accepting of transgender people, etc..  Higher ed isn't just about getting a job, though I certainly hope my children pursue a degree that is marketable.  There is value in developing the whole person. Otherwise why bother reading Shakespeare or Whitman or other great literary classics. Generally, people who are not exposed to higher ed won't bother with reading classics or philosophy, which IMO, does lead to enlightened thinking, which yes, leads to more liberal leaning ideas.

Independent thought is mostly cultivated through higher ed and reading philosophy and about world religions.  It certainly isn't cultivated in very conservative circles like churches, and I say this as someone who grew up in the church.

It's ironic to me that you talk about "safe space" in universities because we have a POTUS and his cult followers who don't like free speech when it comes to criticizing Trump or Rs.[/quote]

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