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The Political Causes of the College Enrollment Crisis

themissingdatadepot.substack.com

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Re: The Political Causes of the College Enrollment Crisis

#21

There's a 500 pound gorilla in the room: Young men have collectively checked out of a society that has nothing but contempt for them. When the supermajority in academia have nothing good to say about you, opine about how "toxic" your existence is, and openly deride your struggles... who would want to spend four years and tens of thousands of dollars to be "lectured" by those people? When men are suffering from record…

Oh please, let's lose the persecution complex. If there is any discrimination against men happening in academia it's in the clown show departments that no one cares about anyway.

As for "struggles", study history. The minor struggles that modern men in developed countries deal with are nothing compared to what our ancestors faced. I was never drafted and sent to assault the beach at Normandy.

Re: The Political Causes of the College Enrollment Crisis

#22

There's a 500 pound gorilla in the room: Young men have collectively checked out of a society that has nothing but contempt for them. When the supermajority in academia have nothing good to say about you, opine about how "toxic" your existence is, and openly deride your struggles... who would want to spend four years and tens of thousands of dollars to be "lectured" by those people? When men are suffering from record…

When I was in graduate school in the late 90s I took a flight home for the summer break. I was reading a math research paper during the flight. An elderly lady that sat next to me and asked if was reading a mathematics paper. I said yes. She said that she wanted to study math in college but in those days she wasn’t allowed to. She ended up in accounting. She was still upset over that injustice.

That men can’t handle the present circumstance is pathetic. That white men in particular have a hard time dealing with a more level playing field is pathetic. Stop playing the victim. Stop being a snowflake. Stop being pathetic.

Re: The Political Causes of the College Enrollment Crisis

#23
post #21

There's a 500 pound gorilla in the room: Young men have collectively checked out of a society that has nothing but contempt for them. When the supermajority in academia have nothing good to say about you, opine about how "toxic" your existence is, and openly deride your struggles... who would want to spend four years and tens of thousands of dollars to be "lectured" by those people? When men are suffering from record…

Oh please, let's lose the persecution complex. If there is any discrimination against men happening in academia it's in the clown show departments that no one cares about anyway. As for "struggles", study history. The minor struggles that modern men in developed countries deal with are nothing compared to what our ancestors faced. I was never drafted and sent to assault the beach at Normandy.

I mean, the Chronicle of Higher Education put out an explainer a year or two titled "The Male Enrollment Crisis." Not "Is there a male enrollment crisis?" because this is a fact that is not in dispute. Males are walking away from college in droves, they are 40% of new enrollments and dropping.

https://connect.chronicle.com/rs/931-EKA-218/images/MaleEnro...

In case your main way of assessing information is its tribal affiliation (it shouldn't be for gods sake): this publication was written by a woman, it devotes substantial time to black male enrollment where the problem is extra bad, and the CHE leans center-left according to Media Bias/Fact Check.

But hey if you weren't at Normandy you don't have problems right? Good lord, what a non sequitur

Re: The Political Causes of the College Enrollment Crisis

#24

There's a 500 pound gorilla in the room: Young men have collectively checked out of a society that has nothing but contempt for them. When the supermajority in academia have nothing good to say about you, opine about how "toxic" your existence is, and openly deride your struggles... who would want to spend four years and tens of thousands of dollars to be "lectured" by those people? When men are suffering from record…

When I was in graduate school in the late 90s I took a flight home for the summer break. I was reading a math research paper during the flight. An elderly lady that sat next to me and asked if was reading a mathematics paper. I said yes. She said that she wanted to study math in college but in those days she wasn’t allowed to. She ended up in accounting. She was still upset over that injustice. That men can’t handle…

This comment is absolutely dripping with bigotry and absolutely not reflective of the attitude that exists in the higher education industry itself, where many people are highly concerned that male enrollment has plummeted. If you want to be a bigot, be it somewhere else please.

The vast majority of Americans want _everyone_ to be represented in higher education, we don't need to split people up by identity and then tell them to take turns.

Re: The Political Causes of the College Enrollment Crisis

#25

There's a 500 pound gorilla in the room: Young men have collectively checked out of a society that has nothing but contempt for them. When the supermajority in academia have nothing good to say about you, opine about how "toxic" your existence is, and openly deride your struggles... who would want to spend four years and tens of thousands of dollars to be "lectured" by those people? When men are suffering from record…

When I was in graduate school in the late 90s I took a flight home for the summer break. I was reading a math research paper during the flight. An elderly lady that sat next to me and asked if was reading a mathematics paper. I said yes. She said that she wanted to study math in college but in those days she wasn’t allowed to. She ended up in accounting. She was still upset over that injustice. That men can’t handle…

> That white men in particular have a hard time dealing with a more level playing field is pathetic.

All men want is a level playing field. Colleges have been discriminating against white and Asian men for decades. SCOTUS finally slapped them down, and colleges immediately started scheming to find ways to be covertly racist through proxies for race. Many colleges stopped using SAT scores, making admissions more subjective, and easier to influence with racial bias. Workplaces are doing the same thing, with DEI hiring goals that in effect mean "no white or Asian men".

Have you considered that your experience as a boomer is not representative of conditions for millennials and zoomers today?

Re: The Political Causes of the College Enrollment Crisis

#26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it's what you intended, but this sounds like you might be saying that a perfectly acceptable future would be to have an elite class of educated, left-leaning liberals who go to college, while their conservative, right-leaning peers go to trade schools. Not all that different than today, just codified, concretized into an actual, literal class system. This feels dystopian to me, and probably would have a…

>> I'm not sure it's what you intended, but this sounds like you might be saying that a perfectly acceptable future would be to have an elite class of educated, The meat of this article is that right leaning kids are the ones not going to college. IM not suggesting it, its what thee article says, there's literal data for it. The folks I know who are hard core republicans all have jobs that puts dirt under their nails…

Tradies can do well financially, but they're not the ones who are going to end up setting policy for the next generation.

We have a lot of data that shows us it's specifically Ivy Leaguers who will do that, actually - they are massively overrepresented in public and private leadership positions.

Are you going to tell me that if the shoe was on the other foot and the Ivy League was like 90% conservatives, you wouldn't be concerned about the direction this is going to send things?

I think that's the point the person who responded to you was trying to make, the elite class which leads the country, makes the laws etc. should be reflective of the people it governs (that has been a core liberal tenet of the civil rights movement for many years).

I don't want a one party system regardless of which party it ends up being.

Universities train our future leaders and they need to be politically inclusive.

Re: The Political Causes of the College Enrollment Crisis

#27
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was in graduate school in the late 90s I took a flight home for the summer break. I was reading a math research paper during the flight. An elderly lady that sat next to me and asked if was reading a mathematics paper. I said yes. She said that she wanted to study math in college but in those days she wasn’t allowed to. She ended up in accounting. She was still upset over that injustice. That men can’t handle…

> That white men in particular have a hard time dealing with a more level playing field is pathetic. All men want is a level playing field. Colleges have been discriminating against white and Asian men for decades. SCOTUS finally slapped them down, and colleges immediately started scheming to find ways to be covertly racist through proxies for race. Many colleges stopped using SAT scores, making admissions more subje…

All men want is a level playing field, a few steps higher than the level playing field women play on. (Which they had up until not very long ago, and still have to a large extent).

Re: The Political Causes of the College Enrollment Crisis

#28
post #2

Look I lean pretty far left. But some times I feel like my fellow lefties are blind to their right leaning peers. Someone needs to clue the author in to middle skill jobs. Plumbers, electricians, machinists, elevator repair... There are a lot of people going into industry's because of parents or extended family gave them a foot in the door. Because many of them started young and by 18 are already "middle skilled". Yo…

[deleted]

Re: The Political Causes of the College Enrollment Crisis

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In short, the crisis isn't enrollment - left or right. The "crisis" is that an investment in a college degree pays inferior returns. The solution for any given higher edu institution is simple: 1) provide the knowledge and skills that make a degteed student more valuable in the market (i.e., to get a better job, higher salary, etc.) 2) Lower the cost of tuition. Demand is down so price should follow, obviously. Unfor…

I think you're onto something. My take away is that you talking about elite overproduction ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_overproduction ). FTA: Elite overproduction is a concept developed by Peter Turchin that describes the condition of a society that is producing too many potential elite members relative to its ability to absorb them into the power structure.[1][2][3] This, he hypothesizes, is a cause for so…

for some reason in this culture, people think that working in an office, having a degree, living in a big metro area, etc makes them "elite". nobody ever called these people "elite" except themselves

Re: The Political Causes of the College Enrollment Crisis

#30
post #2

Look I lean pretty far left. But some times I feel like my fellow lefties are blind to their right leaning peers. Someone needs to clue the author in to middle skill jobs. Plumbers, electricians, machinists, elevator repair... There are a lot of people going into industry's because of parents or extended family gave them a foot in the door. Because many of them started young and by 18 are already "middle skilled". Yo…

> Candidly I would grant for many of them skipping school makes more sense than getting a degree that amounts to under water basket weaving when it comes to job prospects.

If you have a degree and give people this advice then you're probably not a good person

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