Evan Maloney: What Are College Administrators Afraid Of?

Evan Coyne Maloney, film-maker extraordinaire, penned a good column for the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy. He, of course, nails the crux of the problem quite eloquently:

Unfortunately, academia is not only becoming less open, but also more political. A recent study of campaign contributions found that academics put more money toward political candidates than the oil and gas industry, electric utilities, computer and Internet businesses, and pharmaceuticals. Considering how rapidly the cost of a college education is rising, I'm surprised that someone in Congress hasn't denounced higher education’s "obscene price increases" and "heartless gouging of the consumer."

What we do know is that the political donations of academics leans heavily toward one side of the ideological spectrum -- more than three-quarters of it goes to one political party. Perhaps not coincidentally, that political party tends to support higher taxes and more money for the academic industry. In other words, taxpayer money is paying the salaries of academics who use some of their salaries to fund politicians who support sending even more taxpayer money to those very academics. That's a nice setup.

Some might call it a culture of corruption. A culture of buying influence. An imbalance of perspective and opinion. A monopoly of thought.

Indoctrination factories. Interesting how the Democrats, always whining about "fairness," see no problems or conflicts of interest with the ongoing self-perpetuating and incestuous political and financial relationships between themselves and academia.

Posted by: Good Lt. at 11:05 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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