We won with the poorly educated. I love the poorly educated.
Americans are used to the intense partisan divisions over many political issues—abortion, gun control, health care, economic policy, and so forth. However, education has largely escaped from partisan debate. Although Democrats and Republicans may squabble about how much money to spend on education, and how education is to be delivered, it has always been part of the conventional wisdom that education itself is valuable to the individual and the society. Thus it was surprising to read this headline from a new poll from the Pew Research Center: “Republicans increasingly say colleges have negative impact in U. S.”
The data come from a national survey of 2504 adults conducted June 8-18, 2017. Respondents were asked whether they thought each of five institutions—churches, banks, labor unions, the news media, and college and universities—have “a positive or negative effect on the way things are going in the country.” Here are the results comparing Republicans and Republican-leaners vs. Democrats and Democratic-leaners.
Although partisan differences of opinion on the value of labor unions and the news media were anticipated, differences in approval of colleges and universities were just as large. Moreover, partisan differences over the effects of colleges have increased sharply in the last two years. Here are the time trends.
The change is almost entirely attributable to Republicans. Although Democratic attitudes toward colleges have remained stable, Republican attitudes have shifted dramatically in the negative direction. As recently as 2015, 54% of Republicans said colleges had a positive impact on society and 37% said their impact was negative.
Furthermore, this negative shift among Republicans cannot be attributed exclusively to those who have not gone to college. Unlike their Democratic counterparts, Republican college graduates are slightly less likely to give colleges and universities positive ratings. This would seem to suggest that negative personal experiences may have played a role in their dissatisfaction.
The Pew survey is silent about the reasons for this change in opinion, so I guess I’m free to speculate. First of all, we should remember that there has been considerable partisan realignment in the last decade. Therefore, this result could be due as much to the migration of people who dislike colleges into the Republican Party as to attitude change toward colleges among people who were Republicans all along.
A second explanation may be the negative publicity colleges and universities have received due to excessive drinking (sometimes leading to deaths), increases in reported sexual assault, and attempts to censor campus speakers (although the public should be aware that most of the censorship takes place silently during the preparation of the guest list, rather than afterwards). However, much of the pushback against campus disciplinary action against accused rapists is coming from Republicans, and it is wealthy alumni that consistently oppose crackdowns on fraternities that encourage underage drinking. Therefore, some of the objections may be to the punishment of offenders rather than to the offenses themselves.
A third possibility is that Republicans are objecting to the knowledge produced by college and university faculty rather than campus social policies. Although Stephen Colbert may claim he was joking when he said that “Reality has a well-known liberal bias,” it is almost certainly true that more of the scholarship coming out of both the natural and social sciences contradicts Republican policies than supports them. This has generated well-organized and financed resistance from business interests, especially fossil fuel corporations whose future profitability is threatened by climate change. Although Shawn Otto gave his book,The War on Science, a nonpartisan title, the text makes it clear that the war is being waged by churches, business groups and Republican party operatives. Chris Mooney gave his similar book a more candid title: The Republican War on Science.
Regardless of the reasons for this attitude change among Republicans, it poses a threat to the continued funding of public colleges and universities. The university system in which I taught has seen a sharp drop in state funding over the past 30 years.
The middle and lower class young people for whom the State System of Higher Education (SSHE) was intended have largely been priced out of the market. Enrollment is dropping (for this and other reasons). A private consulting firm hired by the state of Pennsylvania—without student or faculty input—has recommended reorganization that will almost certainly involve cutbacks in programs and downsizing of the system. Meanwhile, SSHE has announced a 3.5% tuition increase for next year, as the system continues to circle the drain.
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