College students: the latest target for right wing demonization

by David Safier

When the right wing wants to fundamentally destroy some part of the government, it launches a campaign of demonization. It's not enough to say there are problems with, say, traditional public school systems or Social Security or Medicare or public workers' unions, because it's possible to take reasonable measures to fix problems. The idea is to demonize these institutions, portray them as beyond all redemption, so the only solution is to blow them up and start over.

The latest right wing target for demonization is college students.The conservative agenda is to cut government spending on higher education and shrink college enrollment so children from families who can afford it will be the last ones standing on college campuses. Oh sure, they'll sprinkle in some of the truly gifted from the lower economic strata by offering scholarships to exceptional students — and of course college athletic programs will flourish. But what's the point of educating the great unwashed when it's costing us so much money, and if they get educations, they'll only take scarce jobs away from those who are to the manor born?

For a few years now, the Goldwater Institute has been attacking our public colleges and universities regularly and relentlessly. Recently, the rest of the right wing has climbed on the bandwagon. But really, they're attacking the students more than the institutions. Too many students need remedial classes. Too many students take five years or more to finish their university educations and don't earn degrees from community colleges. Too many students are taking impractical courses like philosophy and art. College students are playing more and studying less than they used to.

The targets of these attacks are the students, at least those who are wasting our money by going to college when, according to conservatives, they don't belong there or don't take it seriously enough. The cure is to cut way back on the number of college students — get rid of all those Pell Grants and the rest of the taxpayer funded programs that help these freeloaders stay in school when they should be out working — and limit majors to "practical" areas like science, math, business, economics and a few other majors that prepare students for employment.

In my day, the dirty hippies and radical protesters in colleges were demonized, but the rest of the students on campus were mainly viewed as serious and hard working. Today, conservatives are going after college students wholesale.