Higher education insanity seems to be having an impact on public perception. A new poll from Public Agenda finds more Americans have begun to believe that college is not essential for work.
Inside HigherEd reports:
Today, 42 percent of Americans say college is necessary for workforce success, a 13 percentage point drop from 2009. At the same time, when asked if college is a "good investment" or a "questionable investment," 52 percent pick the former and 46 percent the latter.
To understand why, look no further than this week’s campus headlines. The University of Iowa announced it will now offer a degree in social justice; students at Colorado College are complaining it’s “body shaming” and “body privilege” to teach students about healthy lifestyle choices; and 140 University of Chicago profs rushed to vow that, no matter what administrators say, they’re eager to shelter students by offering safe spaces and trigger warnings. That’s just a sampling.
In the words of Brooke Rogers, who wrote in the New York Post last semester about why she’s avoided college: “If I wanted to be insulated from hurtful words or challenging ideas, I could wrap myself in packing foam and spend four years watching MSNBC in my bedroom for next to nothing. I certainly wouldn’t pay upwards of $50,000 a year to have someone else do it for me.”