We’ve been hearing a lot about the war on women, which is real enough. But there’s also a war on the young, which is just as real even if it’s better disguised. And it’s doing immense harm, not just to the young, but to the nation’s future.

Let’s start with some advice Mitt Romney gave to college students during an appearance last week. After denouncing President Obama’s “divisiveness,” the candidate told his audience, “Take a shot, go for it, take a risk, get the education, borrow money if you have to from your parents, start a business.”

The first thing you notice here is, of course, the Romney touch — the distinctive lack of empathy for those who weren’t born into affluent families, who can’t rely on the Bank of Mom and Dad to finance their ambitions. But the rest of the remark is just as bad in its own way.

I mean, “get the education”? And pay for it how? Tuition at public colleges and universities has soared, in part thanks to sharp reductions in state aid. Mr. Romney isn’t proposing anything that would fix that; he is, however, a strong supporter of the Ryan budget plan, which would drastically cut federal student aid, causing roughly a million students to lose their Pell grants.

So how, exactly, are young people from cash-strapped families supposed to “get the education”? Back in March Mr. Romney had the answer: Find the college “that has a little lower price where you can get a good education.” Good luck with that. But I guess it’s divisive to point out that Mr. Romney’s prescriptions are useless for Americans who weren’t born with his advantages.

… What should we do to help America’s young? Basically, the opposite of what Mr. Romney and his friends want. We should be expanding student aid, not slashing it. And we should reverse the de facto austerity policies that are holding back the U.S. economy — the unprecedented cutbacks at the state and local level, which have been hitting education especially hard.

Yes, such a policy reversal would cost money. But refusing to spend that money is foolish and shortsighted even in purely fiscal terms. Remember, the young aren’t just America’s future; they’re the future of the tax base, too.

A mind is a terrible thing to waste; wasting the minds of a whole generation is even more terrible. Let’s stop doing it.

Paul Krugman, The New York Times, “Wasting Our Minds.”

Go read the whole damned thing.

(via inothernews)

(via stfuconservatives)

Source: inothernews

The United States of America on college education

  • Student: I'm not going to go to college because I don't want to go into debt.
  • USA: YOU USELESS PIECE OF SHIT. YOU'RE GOING TO AMOUNT TO NOTHING YOU FUCKING SCUMBAG. YOU'RE THE REASON WHY MY TAXES ARE SO HIGH.
  • Student: I'm just going to attend a small community college instead.
  • USA: HAHAHA YOU WERE TOO STUPID TO GET INTO A GOOD UNIVERSITY. ENJOY YOUR MCDONALD'S DIPLOMA.
  • Student: I attended a four year university and received a diploma in a field I am interested in. Now I am $50,000+ in debt.
  • USA: YOU DUMBASS. WHY THE FUCK DID YOU GO TO COLLEGE WHEN YOU KNOW YOU COULDN'T AFFORD IT? YOU DIDN'T EVEN CHOOSE A USEFUL MAJOR EITHER. GOD PEOPLE LIKE YOU MAKE ME SICK.

Rick Santorum: Left uses college for "indoctrination"

somepolitics:

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum said Wednesday that “the left” uses universities to indoctrinate young people for the purpose of “holding and maintaining power.”

After saying “we’ve lost, unfortunately, our entertainment industry,” Santorum told a Naples, Florida, audience that “we’ve lost our higher education, that was the first to go a long time ago.”

“It’s no wonder President Obama wants every kid to go to college,” said the former Pennsylvania senator. “The indoctrination that occurs in American universities is one of the keys to the left holding and maintaining power in America. And it is indoctrination. If it was the other way around, the ACLU would be out there making sure that there wasn’t one penny of government dollars going to colleges and universities, right?”

He continued: “If they taught Judeo-Christian principles in those colleges and universities, they would be stripped of every dollar. If they teach radical secular ideology, they get all the government support that they can possibly give them. Because you know 62 percent of children who enter college with a faith conviction leave without it.”

Santorum went on to encourage his audience not to “give money” to colleges and universities that he said are causing harm to the country.

“I’ll bet you there are people in this room who give money to colleges and universities who are undermining the very principles of our country every single day by indoctrinating kids with left-wing ideology,” he said. “And you continue to give to these colleges and universities. Let me have a suggestion: Stop it.”

Santorum said at the same event that he is leaving the Florida campaign trail this weekend - ahead of the state’s January 31 primary - to go home and retrieve his tax returns, so he can release them. 

A new CNN/Time/ORC International poll showed Santorum at 11 percent in the Sunshine State, far behind rivals Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. 

The bold part is my doing.

Yes, Santorum. Because that’s all that is taught at college: Secular ideology. Because I’m definitely not taking physics, calculus, economics, and other courses that have nothing to do with religion or government at all. 

See, this is what I hate about people like him. Those guys who think that if things aren’t being taught one way, it’s being refocused the other way. Theology classes exist for a reason. The fact that I don’t learn about religion in every single one of my classes is not a big conspiracy to eliminate religion from existing, it’s simply because it has nothing to do with a lot of subjects. Not to mention there are colleges out there who put a focus on religion along with studies like Baylor University and Brigham Young University. 

I see this as nothing more than an attempt to demonize college and higher education because it teaches people to think critically. If you can turn people against higher education, it’s only a matter of time before they destroy themselves. The grade school system has already been destroyed with the use of standardized testing. College is a pretty life-changing step for a lot of people; turning them against the idea is only going to hurt them. But it will do exactly what a lot of politicians want: Making everyone a dispensable, mindless cog in the machine.

(via reagan-was-a-horrible-president)

My new favorite Meme, College Conservative

sageoflogic:

mia-the-wonder-slut:

goforthandagitate:

College ConservativeCollege ConservativeCollege ConservativeCollege ConservativeCollege Conservative

UGHH, I hate these kids. I always get 1 or 2 in every history or politics class, and they just think they can shout their opinions and expect an A in their class, and when they don’t get it, they blame the professor for being liberal. Such shit. And it’s like, they don’t realize that everyone just wants them to shut up, but they think that they’re doing society a favor by dominating and destroying any chance at intelligent, political dialogue in the class and simply regurgitating what they heard Rush Limbagh or Glenn Beck say the night before. It’s not even because of their political beliefs, because I know people who are conservative, but are reasonable people who will debate a point without being a complete douche-biscuit. It’s because they feel entitled, and think everyone should bend over and kiss their asses for being white, middle class, and cis male. They literally feel like they are being endangered by anyone who isn’t exactly like them or who doesn’t live the way they do, and don’t have the capability of using empathy or logic to see things from any view point other than their own. BAH.

^That exactly. The one or two conservatives at my school always scream “you’re ganging up on me and being intolerant! FREE SPEECH! FREE SPEECH!” 
Uggh it’s like “STFU!” 

(via millennialsentinel)

Source: goforthandagitate

This made me feel a lot better about kids my age. Especially because this guy isn't even conservative.

I usually think it’s not that colleges have a liberal bias, but, simply, the more educated one is the more likely he or she is to develop liberal ideologies. Why? Liberals are nuanced, complex, rational, and thoughtful. We consider the impact of actions we take. We doubt ourselves, reconsider and analyze what we believe. We grow. We keep abreast the latest developments and judge our political views based on real world applications, unlike conservatives who judge real world developments only after checking it against their stated political beliefs. Conservatives are defensive, it’s in the very name. They stick to their guns, believe in American exceptionalism and tradition and the status quo. They’ve bought into something.

It doesn’t take an intelligent person to be a conservative, it only takes a stubborn person. Not to say that no conservatives are intelligent. On the contrary, just about every conservative politician and writer and TV goofball has pulled off this incredible stunt of appealing to the blue-collar, tough-guy who values providing for his family above all else, yet they funnel all the money they can to big corporations and lobbyists who help them get elected. Many of these conservatives even achieve this while labeling themselves Democrats.

But the educated bunch, we’re liberals. I know you’ve been told that liberals are ivory tower snobs who think they know better than everyone else and you’re free to believe that and work really hard on making it all the way from Wal-Mart door-greeter to Wal-Mart cashier all the while clucking your tongues and what a terrible lot of liberal snobs those academic types are and that’s fine, I’m not making fun. I’m just saying, those of us who value education and intelligence end up liberal because it’s the intelligent choice.

(via goodreasonnews)

Source: awweb