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A university president makes a case against cowardice

(www.newyorker.com)
450 points pseudolus | 10 comments | 03 Apr 25 12:29 UTC | HN request time: 0.901s | source | bottom
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sequoia ◴[03 Apr 25 13:52 UTC] No.43569673[source]▶
A lot of Americans support these attacks on universities. Why do people harbour this much animosity towards these institutions? Is there anything they could have done differently in the past decade or two to have broader sympathy now, or is people's ambivalence towards elite universities 100% irrational?
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1. _bohm ◴[03 Apr 25 14:24 UTC] No.43570155[source]▶
While not about resentment towards universities specifically, I thought this article in The Baffler [1] did a good job of framing a dynamic that, I think, contributes to this phenomenon.

My interpretation: As the country has entered the post-industrial era, holding a college degree has increasingly become a table-stakes credential for entering the white collar labor force. The higher education system has struggled or failed to grow to meet increased demand for these credentials, which both drives up the cost and increases selectivity of higher-ed institutions. A lot of people get burned by this and become locked out of and, crucially, geographically separated from labor markets that now constitute the majority of US GDP. This split causes non degree holders to view degree holders as their class enemies, and the universities as the class gateway that divides them.

[1] https://thebaffler.com/latest/one-elite-two-elites-red-elite...

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2. keybored ◴[03 Apr 25 20:49 UTC] No.43575205[source]▶
Remember all those people who are resentful (of course that word) towards degree-holders because they wish they had one themselves? Me neither. That’s a they-hate-me-cause’-they-ain’t-me kind of logic.[1]

True othering comes from people living in different worlds and hating the other person’s world.

[1] I did not read the the article but I’ve read this argument in a Graeber article.

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3. bobthepanda ◴[03 Apr 25 23:06 UTC] No.43576541[source]▶
> because they wish they had one themselves

I don't think the OP actually said this specifically. But the economy truly had, for a while, bifurcated in outcomes for people with degrees vs. everybody else. You shouldn't need a degree to live a decent life, but now we are in a timeline where you can put DoorDash on Klarna installments.

4. Izikiel43 ◴[03 Apr 25 23:58 UTC] No.43576895[source]▶
> Remember all those people who are resentful (of course that word) towards degree-holders because they wish they had one themselves?

I think the fair comparison isn't they have a degree and I don't, it's they have a better life/savings/house/car than me, which is enabled in general by getting a degree, which becomes the common contention point.

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5. hackable_sand ◴[04 Apr 25 03:47 UTC] No.43578134{3}[source]▶
Or more directly: many people with degrees are given management positions unjustifiably.

It's bizarre to see it all playing out in the open.

6. ◴[04 Apr 25 06:13 UTC] No.43578858{3}[source]▶
7. kelnos ◴[04 Apr 25 06:18 UTC] No.43578877[source]▶
I don't think you're necessarily drawing the right conclusion from what the GP said. It seems more likely to me that non-degree-holders aren't resentful about not having a degree, but are resentful that white collar work more or less requires a degree these days. It wasn't always that way; degree holders used to be a minority in white collar work.

Why has that shifted? Can we blame the university system and their "marketing" that has pushed a degree as the One True Way of leaving the working class? If so, that's an understandable reason to be anti-university.

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8. ◴[04 Apr 25 06:29 UTC] No.43578940{3}[source]▶
9. 9rx ◴[04 Apr 25 06:32 UTC] No.43578957{3}[source]▶
> degree holders used to be a minority in white collar work.

That's still nearly true, if not true. 60% of jobs are white collar. 40% of the workforce has a degree. Data quality starts to decline somewhat here, but it is expected that 20% of degree holders work in trades or manual labour jobs. So, degree holders only just barely make up a majority on that basis. And maybe not even that as blue collar is usually considered to be more than just trades and manual labour, not to mention that we haven't even delved into other collars (e.g. pink collar) that further take from the degree holding population.

10. p_j_w ◴[04 Apr 25 15:01 UTC] No.43583449{3}[source]▶
> Can we blame the university system and their "marketing" that has pushed a degree as the One True Way of leaving the working class?

I’m not sure Universities are to blame for this so much as lazy ass HR departments looking for an easy filter.