I don’t think we should allow the market to decide how to invest in education.
Agreed. This argument is one of the more dystopian aspects of late stage capitalism. Not content with controlling basically every aspect of our lives, the mega-wealthy want to shape our education, our knowledge as well. Anything that they cannot profit from is considered worthless.
Yeah, and as someone with a degree they value I’m mad as fuck at it. Yeah of course us engineers need education funding, but we need to be taught the humanities too. I went to school with a woman double majoring in biomedical engineering and women’s studies and in addition to her being the sort of badass that wears blue lipstick to stem classes, she was also one of the most well rounded people in our college.
My English prof taught me to recognize propaganda. My lit classes mattered. My fundamentals of stand up comedy class taught me public speaking. My friend’s philosophy classes got me thinking deeper. Intro to archaeology was mind opening. I didn’t take gender studies but I did feel comfortable reading feminist theory and discussing it with my peers. Hell even my classics class made me a more well rounded person by reinforcing that rome wasn’t some glorious bastion of goodness, but a long standing society that’s overglorified but fascinating for what it actually was.
I am not an economic unit. I am a human being. Just as humanities students need math and science I need humanities.
allow the market to decide
Yeah. After all, when “the market” decides something, that usually means the public interest wasn’t profitable enough to the people making decisions in it
You say that but then people flip the fuck out the second art and liberal degrees like this go away. Frankly it’s what this guy is doing buddy with a nice racist veneer.
TLDR:
“Urban Studies, Anthropology, Sociology, German Literature, African American Studies, Gender Studies and Women’s Studies”. I’m sensing a bias here.
Also that state funding should match workforce demands for the state - this part makes sense.
state funding should match workforce demands for the state
Here’s a better idea: companies should actually train their workers. Lots of times a degree isn’t even needed at all. They’re just being cheap by not paying for a 2 week training program.
My old job at a large corporation didn’t want to pay Nortel to fly out from Dallas to host a proper two week telecommunications class to train their new support personnel. Instead they made this 65 year old “Ma Bell” tech to cobble together and teach a one and a half day crash course. I left with a notebook full of unfinished CLI commands, shorthand notes and just enough information to probably not bring down the entire enterprise PBX system. Good times.
Also that state funding should match workforce demands for the state - this part makes sense.
Should it?
First off, is the point of college to fill job slots or to educate the population? It’s not a trade school.
Second, if you change funding now it impacts programs a few years down the line then prior take 4/5 years to graduate. If you overspecify your funding on the current economic situation you’re always 6 years behind when the grads hit the market.
Republicans treat it as a trade school.
Yes it should. It isn’t a discussion (well, it is heavily implied though) that they shouldn’t exist, only that the state shouldn’t fund it. States job is to get a return on their investment, and funding what is needed is a good way to start - especially in the context of a brain drain from the state.
For the record, im only arguing against the facts at face value. Well aware this has a much deeper motive im not going to defend.
The state’s “job” is to provide services for its people. Not everything the government does needs to turn a profit.
I’ve said in other comments- investment isn’t just financial return. Im not talking about making money, im talking about education in things the state needs and will lead to employment. The state doesn’t have unlimited money- put it into things its people need.
Has the state been funding schools though? Because state funding has been falling across the board and if the state has an interest in being lean then they should focus on out of prop salaries of administration and sports spending. After all what interest does the state have in sports? By this line of reasons colleges should have to fund that themselves.
This is of course setting aside that humanities does help society and is in the vested interest of the state. I’m saying this as someone who was a STEM major. Giving context to the world and giving people a greater understanding is useful for every major. It allows them to understand their world and make better decisions from their station in life.
To take the stance that the state has an interest in funding “useful” degrees then no one should be allowed to do anything outside their education, which is aburd. People with different points of view and knowledge enhance professions, not destroy them. That’s what happens when a profession only has one allowable perspective to deal with infinite possibilities of the world.
Yes it should. It isn’t a discussion (well, it is heavily implied though) that they shouldn’t exist, only that the state shouldn’t fund it. States job is to get a return on their investment, and funding what is needed is a good way to start - especially in the context of a brain drain from the state.
Educated people still benefit the state, even they are educated in things that wealthy people don’t think they can monetise.
I think the key thing people are misunderstanding (or im not being clear with) is that investment isn’t just financial return - education in things the state needs is an investment, even if they don’t make money from it
Your previous comment said that education funding should match workforce demands. That is what I responded to and disagree with. Education has value beyond just placing people into the workforce.
Let me lmao at you and at your view of how a state should actually function. A state is not at the service of its enterprises, it should only be concerned with the well-being of its inhabitants and citizens: should a state work according to your view then we shouldn’t have any public transport, public school or public health. Basically nothing should be founded by the state given that all of these investments do not bear direct returns after they are placed.
Why don’t workplaces arrange training courses to ease the entrance of their workforce in their ranks? Is it maybe to save on costs while maximising profits? And why should the state be responsible to form the companies workforces if it doesn’t receive anything back from the same companies asking for trade schools instead of colleges?
Late stage capitalism must fall and this moment will never arrive soon enough
I find it hard to believe that the wealthiest humans who have ever walked the earth can’t afford to have a few people to study subjects that don’t have immediate dollar value. I also find it hard to believe that a random appointed accountant in Mississippi knows that studying German literature will never ever be an investment that pays dividends.
Right now the living author with the most books on the NYT best seller list is a professor of Bible studies who made most of his career comparing ancient Greek manuscripts.
The state’s job is to improve life for those in the state. And given your username I think you may not understand exactly what’s going on in that state so let me add some perspective about Mississippi. It’s a state notorious for its massive racial divides in everything from economics to education to political power to clean water access. The state has brain drain because in order to live in Mississippi you have to live in Mississippi and those who can avoid it tend to. This is their capital.
So how do we fix Mississippi? Honestly probably through massive public works projects, massive infusions of education that we know will get brain drained, and active focus on remedying the racial divide in political power. Cutting funding the liberal arts for more financially desirable fields won’t do shit.
The moment the headline said “indoctrinate”, we all knew what this list was going to include.
I see Christian studies isn’t on the list…
Funny that…
Aren’t christian schools all private?
You left out the context that makes it all way worse:
In numerous statements on social media leading up to the report’s publication, White said there should be no taxpayer funding for “useless degrees" in “garbage fields” like Urban Studies, Anthropology, Sociology, German Literature, African American Studies, Gender Studies and Women’s Studies.
Man, I remember back when it was women’s studies getting bullied, then they added gender studies, now we’ve got African Americans, Germans (I assume because of Marx?), the study of the development of society, and the study of society. They’re becoming so inclusive in their discrimination 🤗
The German Literature one made me LOL, at least he’s being transparent about it.
Although they’re not well advertised in the South, trade schools do exist in the US. The reason trades are seen as a bad job down there is the fact these states are all hot and humid, so working outside can be miserable. A lower paying job in the south is ranked by how much air conditioning you get, which can explain why people slave in Walmart instead of doing trades down there.
Not the economics department, though. That’s definitely real science and is not an indoctrination program.
I feel targeted
That can’t be true. If targeting you was a rational decision someone else would have targeted you a long time ago.
Maybe I just went below the indifference curve and was worth the cost to target.
Maybe you were just collateral damage
Probably targeting got cheaper. I think this is a left shift in the targeting curve.
I did just wake up - wouldn’t this be a right shift in targeting curve? Lower cost of targeting me is a supply side change.
At any specific cost to target there is an increased quantity willing to accept that cost?
Now you know how everyone making under half a million a year in 2007, anyone making minimum wage, and everyone with student loan debt feels like. Economics isn’t a science, anymore than marketing or the law is. It is the art of using the givens about human nature and convincing people that your employer is correct. A lawyer is to be a zealous advocate for their client, an economist is to be a zealous advocate for their client.
There is a reason why economists agree that the Wall Street bailouts were a great idea while student loan amnesty is a bad idea and minimum wage increases create unemployment. No one is paying them to say the opposite.
No I am not bitter. You people are doing the job you are paid to do. Just like any influencer, lobbyist, marketers, or oil company climate researcher.
I am curious if you have ever studied economics, or just parroting what your social circle repeats. There is a very good reason you don’t discuss politics, economics, abortion and religion in polite company - people can’t remove what they were raised with and emotive response from logic. Economics isn’t just money either, it’s just the easiest way to introduce it to students - Economics is about efficient allocation of resources.
You are correct, economics isn’t a science anymore than finance or psychology. But there are well established theories, laws and cause/effect relationships that can be relied on and its an entire model where changing one has flow on effects to soo much else we can’t pin it down exactly.
Screw wall street investors, but keeping financial markets alive and reliable is a key pillar of our society - as an example how many of those students who had loans would never go to uni if they couldn’t access credit? How many would never buy a house, or become homeless if they lost their job?
To go into deeper theory, look into your basic and complex multiplier and how they work in a recession. Forgiving a student loan doesn’t increase consumption, just reallocate it. It looks bullshit because the rich get a payout and the middle class suffer, but there is reason and theory behind it.
Paragraph 1: argument from authority and questioning my competency.
Paragraph 2: conceding part of the argument to reframe it
Paragraph 3: an appeal to emotion and rewriting history
Paragraph 4: attempt to distract with jargon
Yeah I am not buying what you are selling. Economists consistently support the views of the people who are paying them, consistently make predictions that do not happen, and consistently ignore real world data that goes against what they laughably call theories.
All attempts to reframe, reorient, distract, gatekeep, and every sorta rhetoric tricks will not remove the facts that I have stated. But hey go ahead and prove me wrong, go find me someone employed at Goldman Sachs with an econ degree who for years has stated that the bailouts were a bad idea. Go ahead and find me a government economist who supports student loan amnesty. I will lend you my lantern to find the one honest economists.
We made god in our image, the economist god is homo economis. A being whose integrity is bought for pennies. That says all you really need to know.
Paragraph 1: argument from authority and questioning my competency.
- no, asking if you have a basic knowledge of what you are arguing and what we can actually discuss. Appears not.
Paragraph 2: conceding part of the argument to reframe it
- finding common ground to discuss a way forward and being aware of limitations.
Paragraph 3: an appeal to emotion and rewriting history
- logical explanation of what was done and why, using known theory. See point 1
Paragraph 4: attempt to distract with jargon
- this is first three weeks of first year economics. See point 1.
Yeah I am not buying what you are selling. Economists consistently support the views of the people who are paying them, consistently make predictions that do not happen, and consistently ignore real world data that goes against what they laughably call theories.
- you have literally seen the change in inflation rates being implemented in order to starve of recession and keep people employed. First 3 weeks of economics.
All attempts to reframe, reorient, distract, gatekeep, and every sorta rhetoric tricks will not remove the facts that I have stated. But hey go ahead and prove me wrong, go find me someone employed at Goldman Sachs with an econ degree who for years has stated that the bailouts were a bad idea. Go ahead and find me a government economist who supports student loan amnesty. I will lend you my lantern to find the one honest economists.
- you’ve discussed multiple inconsistencies and distractions in mine, yet through out your have thrown out personal beliefs and unrealistic possibilities with no evidence behind you.
We made god in our image, the economist god is homo economis. A being whose integrity is bought for pennies. That says all you really need to know.
- see point above. For the record, im not a paid economists so throw what I’m paid to do out of the equation.
This guy is a moron. Somebody should audit the auditor.
First off? A lot of these degrees would be useful in the majority of the Econ sectors that are actually growing. But if you notice his junk list of degrees… it’s things like African American studies, gender studies… you know. Things that are “woke”.
So. Whose trying to indoctrinate whom?
In any case this moron is probably a symptom of why Mississippi has a lower than average economic growth; why the state is loosing educated workers; and why it ranks 37th in gdp and is on pace to collapse even further. If you want to stop the brain drain (people leaving…) might want to develop economic opportunities instead of bejng an asshole.
37th is honestly 12 or 13 places higher than you’d suspect from Mississippi, though…
There’s a few other states that are fighting them for the bottom,
One thing I hadn’t foreseen was the degree of brain drain at the state-level. Being born in certain states has become an immediate handicap that many will never overcome because they’ll never be given the tools.
Great country.
it’s things like African American studies, gender studies
More importantly, those are not things that anyone gets convinced or tricked into studying. People study those things because they are already invested in the subject.
“People who study how society oppresses certain groups, and how those groups adapt and remain resilient in the face of that oppression, are brainwashing your kids!” - Dudes in the Oppressor’s Seat
why the state is loosing educated workers
Your are totally right, but this made me chuckle.
Too many college graduates are leaving Mississippi, and aligning degree programs with labor market demand might stem the tide, White said.
It doesn’t even take a full brain cell to figure this one out. Tying budgets to the job market in mississippi isn’t going to help if they aren’t creating reasonable jobs there.
There has been an explosion of growth in the past 30 years or so just south of Memphis, TN; mostly due to the lower Mississippi taxes. It’s a decent area. Jackson, MS is about three hours south and it’s a straight up shit hole. To be fair, Memphis isn’t far behind with their gangs wielding shoulder fired rocket propelled grenades.
Um… do you happen to know a fella selling any of those shoulder fired objects of value? I’m asking for a friend.
Well, I guess not any more!
Ninja edit to add source
Mississippi state auditor? Yeah right! Nobody’s ever audited THAT mess!
My engineering program contributed to me becoming a communist, does it need defunded too?
Seriously, being taught to explain to bosses the financial cost of employee suffering and that they won’t listen otherwise was a radicalizing experience.
Edit: read it and holy fuck German literature and anthropology are on the list wow.
Also, Mississippi, idk how to break it to you, you don’t need to fund education less, that’s the exact opposite of what literally every other state thinks you need to do. You’re not the liberal indoctrination in college state, you’re the “barely has an education system” state
I don’t think uni shaped my political/economic views that much, at least at the time. However, my school has a bit of a rep for not being big on politics. The real world made me much more leftwing.
During college, I was a free market
advocateapologist. Since graduating, I’ve been getting more and more leftwing and haven’t looked backOn a related note, I have no idea how one could live through the covid era and not become more left as a result
Me too, I don’t think I’d blame college, but maybe an open mindedness that cones from a better education. I was pretty right wing in high school, the beginning of me paying attention to politics. In college, I was friends it’s socialists and even a communist or two, and certainly lived a communal life, but I was still leaning to the right.
Currently I’m much farther left but it’s hard to say why or when. Part of it is taking conservatives literally. You want family values, ok, I value my kids, their education, and investing toward a better society for their future. You worship the putative self-made man, the successful businessman - clearly we need that solid base of children’s health, childcare, and education, so all those potential millionaires per have a chance to succeed. You like the risk takers and innovators? Sure, I like that, but it means we need a solid safety net so people can feel freer to take those risks knowing that while they may lose, they’ll still land safely and may one day try again.you say you need skilled workers, I say amen, and free college for all. You say the free market dips the most efficient way forward, I say for sure, for sure, and the government shapes the market for the benefit of society.
Maybe the biggest single event for me becoming solid left wing was my kid getting sick. He’s fine now, but it was very serious. I had a well paying tech job, with excellent insurance, and we live in one of the top medical areas. Despite all the benefits, it was tough, it was expensive, and our jobs made it difficult. How do people handle it without that income, without that insurance, without all that first class medical care, without an understanding employer? That’s just wrong
Reality is woke. Defund reality.
- some GOP chode, probably
This reads like an Onion article.
I mean, they want to fix “brain drain” in America’s second-least educated state by restricting educational programs?
Fucking yikes, man.
Who would have guessed a dude named Shad White could be such an worthless asshole?
Damn. Got 'im!
Is this the same Shadrack Tucker White that studied practical, non-indoctrinary, apoliticial fields such as… checks notes… “Economics” and “Politicial Science” from a public university?
Well, time to replace that auditor.
Who-hoo! I guessed right! Republican and Mindless Bean Counter. Exactly the type of people who should not advise about things University
Republican Mississippi State Auditor says some lines to scare the base and make sure they keep voting against their own interests
Being educated indoctrinates people to not be conservative. It’s not college’s fault directly, they’re at fault for educating students, and making them smarter to realize how dumb as shit conservatism is.
