Posted on 12/21/2012 5:46:00 AM PST by SeekAndFind
A few years ago, the country became aware of a “bubble” building in higher education, as it had in housing.
Excessive demand – based largely on easy credit, government subsidies and the overselling of a college education – caused academia to expand unsustainably.
Then came the economic downturn. With underemployed graduates and dropouts increasingly unable to repay loans, state legislatures cutting appropriations, and innovative competition making inroads, the bubble appeared ready to burst, or at least deflate.
That could mean – so the theory goes – devastation for traditional academia: declining enrollments, with some colleges forced to close, perhaps; a shift in emphasis from academic to vocational courses; more online education; an end to faculty tenure, and other drastic changes.
Now, however, it might be time to rethink that scenario. President Obama’s re-election could postpone any such bubble deflation. Given his penchant for rewarding big supporters, he is likely to make sure academia is taken care of.
University employees gave overwhelmingly to the president’s reelection campaign. Indeed, four of the 10 largest donors to his campaign, according to Federal Election Commission records reported on the CampusReform.org web site, were the collective employees of the University of California, Harvard, Columbia and Stanford.
Cash might be the least of academia’s contribution to the president’s reelection. Universities also provide Democratic votes. Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by three or four to one among faculty, according to survey data; in some departments avowed communists outnumber registered Republicans.
Not surprisingly, studies show that students’ political beliefs often move to the left during their college years. It shows in their voting: according to USA Today’s post-election analysis, the president won 59.8 percent of the 18-29-year-old vote.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Remember those ads? They appeared immediately following his immaculation and were all over the web . . . or so it seemed.
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