Why are colleges so liberal? | Page 3 | Barking Hard

Why are colleges so liberal?

I think that's very honorable of somebody to want to be a teacher of children. It's always nice to help people and or watch the lightbulb go off when you try to explain things to them. However, I do somewhat laugh at the notion when some teachers say they are underpaid. At least here in New Jersey. Now some teachers yes don't get the compensation they deserve. Non tenured adjunct teachers at community college may only make $2500 for a three credit class per semester. That might not seem bad but consider a probably significant part of that job is marking tests/papers. That is probably harder than lecturing. Also TA's at public universities I don't believe make that much when in fact they do most of the grading of papers/actual teaching. Professors bread and butter tend to be doing research.

The average teacher salary in the state I live in NJ is $68650. Which isn't an astronomical amount but to me doesn't seem bad at all. Couple that in mind with having summers off and only working 6-7 hours a day? That amount I do not believe takes into account health benefits and a set pension as well. I mean I don't walk in educators shoes but I would think if you're doing it long enough it'd become something of a cushy job.

https://nj1015.com/how-much-do-nj-teachers-earn-and-is-it-enough-comparing-district-salaries/

The former governor here Chris Christie became pretty famous for his trying to take down teachers unions and cut pensions. Imo he was a jerk for other reasons but I can understand where he was coming from cutting pensions. Working in public industry I can invest in 401 k's but will most likely never see get a job with private pensions.

 
hammertime said:
The more prestigious the school its seems the drama queens seem to be less a factor because most students are focused on their studies in general. Your going to always have an opposing view wherever you attend.
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I would actually tend to think the more prestigious universities would have more liberal pulls in general. For example this article has the number of Yale University professors who identify themselves as conservative as 8%.

https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2017/09/14/yale-faculty-skews-liberal-survey-shows/

Now lol I could have never gotten into an Ivy League school so I can't speak from experience if that's the vibes that resonate there.

It's interesting though going to a community college at night I feel instructors here just present the material as is versus a university. I've taken intro to business at night where the professor said first day we don't discuss politics here. In an intro to computer applications class the professor talked a little about hacking into computers for elections but stopped it at that's a whole other can of worms not opening.

I've gone to a 4 year school Rutgers and the local community college. I found there was far less political influence at the community college or "less prestigious school". When I finished high school there was a little bit of a stigma against community colleges in that it was possibly a place you go if you can't get accepted into a 4 year college. However, as said I think it's better school for the real world.
 
The cost of living is an important factor to consider
when talking teacher compensation ,for instance
New Jersey at $68.5 thousand a year is dirt but if
you say Cleveland, you own a home in the burbs
and making out ok.
New Jersey has the highest car insurance rates
in the country, real estate taxes are insane there’s
tolls everywhere it’s not a cost effective state to
live in.
Not ranking on Jersey it’s a good state just expensive.
 
Uggh yeah co workers who feel entitled because of their degrees as well or what they learned from Rodney Dangerfield’s professor. Feel no remorse to throw people under the bus either.

Another rant for another thread lol
 
Danamal said:
Toasted Pagel,
You posted about a degree isn’t relevant to the job you take.
I agree with you one hundred percent,I think the true spirit
of an education is that your committed and completed your
studies.
That shows your hard working and you can complete the job
your applying for.
The military isn’t much different in that regard both are equally
challenging but you accomplished good things and hold an
honorable discharge that shows employers the same thing but
I’m sure college would tend to be more white collar.
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I'd largely agree. My problem is that while I think the idea that everyone should have access to a college education is great and certainly comes from a good place, it has also devalued college education toward the point of a B.S. or B.A. being the new equivalent of a high school diploma. College was easy for me, and in my mind it proved less about showing commitment than graduating from my high school did (I'm a US grad, if you're a Cleveland native you might be familiar with it; if you're not, it's an elite all-boys high school, and boasts a 100% college acceptance rate since its founding in 1890. I found it far more challenging and educational than 90% of what I did in college. High school proved that I can't make it on brains alone without putting in a major effort on top of it, but my college experience told me that I could-- that should not be the case!). I likely would have done something more challenging with a M.S. or Ph.D., but the expense of it just isn't worth it.

Having a four-or-more-year degree gives flexibility: I can get certified to be a school teacher full-time shockingly easily here in Texas, and I could substitute teach in most states. And in my case, it was more than I needed to get my current job as a photo editor for a sports card company: at least one of the two people in my department who have been here longer than me doesn't have a college degree. My dad has a M.S. in electrical engineering; when he got burned out on that, he was able to make a relatively easy transition to accounting and then to working at (and quickly becoming assistant manager of) an E-Check station before retiring a few years ago.

But having a degree in a field that you actually A. enjoy and B. can make money in is certainly the best option; unfortunately you often have to choose one or the other. A person with a B.S. in engineering will make more money than my B.S. in journalism which will make more than a B.A. in musical theatre. The enjoyment factor likely is in the opposite direction. I got the journalism degree in order to get into being a play-by-play announcer. I did it for eight seasons and grew to hate it very quickly AND made no money at it.

More than anything, a degree regardless of what it's in helps to open the door. The journalism degree got me into doing play by play, and that job resulted in me wearing a lot of different hats: I had to handle things related to not just broadcasting, but also print journalism, video production, photography and photo editing, designing various things from ads to posters to trading cards, web content, marketing, PR, community relations, IT, even scouting and equipment manager duties. Those experiences ultimately are what open further doors as it did for my current photo editor position, but that degree is certainly what's needed to open the initial door.

That flexibility isn't there as often with associates' degrees, certificates, trade schools, etc. if you get burned out on whatever your choice of study was.
 
hammertime said:
That’s the job of parents. Those skills should taught long before college.
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Agree and my father drilled that home to me to say the least.

Yet usually in college you have to prove you can do math up to Algebra 2 to fulfill basic requirements. I think something like that isn’t a bad thing for colleges to implement for managing finances

My high school didn’t have sex education. Was a catholic school but I know it’s offered in other high schools. In college however Human Sexuality was offered as a for credit elective. There’s nothing of the like for managing self finances. I mean you can argue as well though kids should get the birds and the bees talks from their parents not educators
 
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hammertime said:
That’s the job of parents. Those skills should taught long before college.
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Both of my parents filed for bankruptcy at points after their divorce, and there have been plenty of times where I've barely been able to stay afloat. Looking back as I've researched my own ancestry, it can be almost hereditary from generation to generation. My mom, her parents, and two brothers all lived in a house that might be smaller than my one-bedroom apartment even though my grandfather worked a decent job. When you live like that but dump all your money into alcohol, cigarettes, gambling, and bail money, you're probably valuing the wrong things. My mom looked around after a while and said "I don't want to live like this," and had to claw her way out of it. She sure as hell didn't learn how to do that from the family around her. And judging from what I know of my relatives from that side of my family, most of them didn't learn it either-- I've been able to fill in parts of my family tree from the Michigan Department of Corrections Offender Tracking Information System website.

There are plenty of parents out there who don't know how to teach it because they can't do it themselves because they were never taught. It shouldn't be required for colleges to teach it either, but having it as a single-credit elective course would be a smart idea and I bet a lot of people would take it. It's probably more useful than bowling or square-dancing electives.

Combine that with the whole idea that you have to "keep up with the Joneses" and the idea that not having a house, a car, and 3 kids makes you a failure therefore you must achieve these things by any means necessary and we stretch past the point of affordability to do so, and it should be clear how we have such a debt problem in this country.

Economics is more than money: it's the study of choice (the Guns vs. Butter dilemma of Econ 101). Some people are willing to make choices and make sacrifices and adjustments along the way, and some aren't until they're forced to. Some put value in the wrong things. Some are just victims of circumstance and piss-poor luck. I have a one-bedroom apartment and no kids. And I'm beyond okay with that. I also have a job that doesn't make me contemplate drinking battery acid on a day-to-day basis, and I'd rather have that and a modest living space than a high-stress job and a so-called "perfect" life.
 
Wow,
That was pretty bold and honest Pagel,
kinda made speechless,I feel for you.
My upbringing wasn’t any better and I
was sort of like your mother in the sense
that I couldn’t take my parents and how
badly I wanted something better and that’s
when I split for the army and never looked
back.
I had three brothers,lost one and the other
to never really left home and just accepted
being poor and no outlook other than day to
day life, zero credit,bank accts nada and so
on.
It’s been a hard ride trying to convince my
brothers to aspire to greater things but one
finally got it and my other just thinks I look down
on him but it doesn’t stop him from borrowing
money from me?
Just do the best you can and follow your gut.
 
young people are liberal
old people are conservative
Its just the way it goes
thats why family ties worked
you had the young conservative with the old dems
a "fish out of water" sitcom

thats why colleges are so liberal
 
thebeast0449 said:
young people are liberal
old people are conservative
Its just the way it goes
thats why family ties worked
you had the young conservative with the old dems
a "fish out of water" sitcom

thats why colleges are so liberal
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You're probably right and can find a good amount of statistics to back up that claim.

However, in colleges I would imagine most professors are "old people". Take a look at a survey I found on Harvard considered one of the best universities in the world

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/5/2/faculty-survey-part-2/

So the research in that article says last election a whopping 2% of Harvard professors voted for Trump. 73% voted for Hillary. The other 25% voted third party or didn't bother.

I'm certainly not a right winger/conservative/republican/part of the religious right but seriously question the ideologies taught at these places. Don't seem too balanced
 
I think UNI lecturers like musicians or artists are part of a "exception to the rule" group
like young people from military,political or religious backgrounds are probably conservative young
Its a very loose generalisation but it is mostly true
I know, Im getting old and becoming more conservative myself!
 
C-town

If being conservative is
Gov can't fix much, so I'm for less Gov smaller Gov. then I am one.

But that would include allowing adults make decisions on their own. about what they do with their own bodies. be it drugs or any relatively safe medical procedure(abortion). I will push back only in the first 12 weeks. that is More than enough time to make a decision.

Having grown up IN C-town it was strongly Dem. they were claimed to be standing up for Blue collar workers, that lived in C-town (and the whole rust belt area). but a strange thing happened, as the jobs moved out they did less than nothing. in the 60s the Kennedy brothers all but destroyed the back bone of the unions(the Mob). in the 70s what was left of the unions worked against one another as the longshoremen unloaded their brothers jobs from incoming ships. never forget. those decades were like the Japanese were bombing that whole area.

[video=youtube;BHnJp0oyOxs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=BHnJp0oyOxs[/video]

So the past 3 years when I hear a talking head say the words "Trade War" I bark back at them WTF ASSHOLE this has been going on for decades. and you fucks missed it. as long as We the Americans were losing. so shut up. :dickhead:
 
madmadworld said:
Having grown up IN C-town it was strongly Dem. they were claimed to be standing up for Blue collar workers, that lived in C-town (and the whole rust belt area). but a strange thing happened, as the jobs moved out they did less than nothing. in the 60s the Kennedy brothers all but destroyed the back bone of the unions(the Mob). in the 70s what was left of the unions worked against one another as the longshoremen unloaded their brothers jobs from incoming ships. never forget. those decades were like the Japanese were bombing that whole area.
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I would take issue with the above in the sense that the unions never seemed to care about jobs anyway. All they ever seemed to care about was wages. It wasn't lower wages that emptied your factories. It was high corporate taxes and unfair trade practices. In a real sense, the unions were part of the establishment that promoted high corporate taxes and acquiesce to unfair trade practices

I was an observer from afar. But it always amazed me that the unions never seemed to care about layoffs as long as wages increased. And so they did nothing when establishment politicians, especially from the Midwest, bragged about soaking the wealthy with high corporate tax rates while at the same time allowing the corporations to seek bigger profits with exported jobs under the guise of free trade.

In my opinion, the unions are as much to blame as anybody.
 
$$$$

Brownsfan said:
I would take issue with the above in the sense that the unions never seemed to care about jobs anyway. All they ever seemed to care about was wages. It wasn't lower wages that emptied your factories. It was high corporate taxes and unfair trade practices. In a real sense, the unions were part of the establishment that promoted high corporate taxes and acquiesce to unfair trade practices

I was an observer from afar. But it always amazed me that the unions never seemed to care about layoffs as long as wages increased. And so they did nothing when establishment politicians, especially from the Midwest, bragged about soaking the wealthy with high corporate tax rates while at the same time allowing the corporations to seek bigger profits with exported jobs under the guise of free trade.

In my opinion, the unions are as much to blame as anybody.
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You sound a bit anti-union. unless you are from OLD money that position makes no Cents. as the unions helped all workers(wages) union & nonunion in the 20th century. that in turn built for the first time in history a large middle class. eliminated the northern slaves (child labor)

There was a time when many U.S. children toiled in factories for 70 hours a week, until child labor laws went into effect in the 1900s

By 1810, about 2,000,000 school-age children were working 50- to 70-hour weeks. Most of them came from poor families. When parents could not support their children, they sometimes turned them over to a mill or factory owner. One glass factory in Massachusetts was fenced with barbed wire "to keep the young imps inside." The "young imps" were boys under 12 who carried loads of hot glass all night for a wage of 40 cents to $1.10 per night.

Many efforts were made to pass a national child labor law. The U.S. Congress passed two laws, in 1918 and 1922, but the Supreme Court declared both unconstitutional. In 1924, Congress proposed a constitutional amendment prohibiting child labor, but the states did not ratify it. Then, in 1938, Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act. It fixed minimum ages of 16 for work during school hours, 14 for certain jobs after school, and 18 for dangerous work.
http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/history-child-labor dead
https://web.archive.org/web/2012030...stic.com/teachers/article/history-child-labor

note the dates above

1810 was the third Census conducted in the United States. It was conducted on August 6, 1810. It showed that 7,239,881 people were living in the United States, of which 1,191,362 were slaves.
 
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madmadworld said:
You sound a bit anti-union. unless you are from OLD money that position makes no Cents. as the unions helped all workers(wages) union & nonunion in the 20th century. that in turn built for the first time in history a large middle class. eliminated the northern slaves (child labor)
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I made no statement in support of the child labor that existed in the 19th and early 20th centuries. There were a number of factors and players that contributed to the elimination of child labor in the urban factories in the 19th and early 20th centuries. For example, the Communists were deeply involved with the organization of labor and the fight for labor justice. I think it is appropriate that they be given credit for their contributions. But just because we acknowledge their contribution to shorter working hours, higher wages and the elimination of child labor in urban factories does not necessarily mean that we are beholden to adopt their creed.

BTW, child labor persisted into the mid 20th century in rural communities such as the one in which I grew up. I remember pulling bolls in the cotton fields as a child of 10.

There were other factors that contributed to the elimination of child labor in urban factories, however, such as immigration and the growing availability of adult labor and later the addition of women into the labor force. As the adult population grew there was less pressure on the factories to make children part of the labor force.

I am not anti-unions. I worked for a company that was non-union, but I have bought products manufactured by both union workers and non-union workers. My car and truck were both manufactured by General Motors. I could have bought a car and truck manufactured in Kentucky or Tennessee by non-union workers, but I didn't.

However, I tend to dispute the statement that unions help keep the wages of non-union workers up. Perhaps there was something to that in the early 20th century and earlier. But I don't think it applies today. Today, it appears to me that the main driver for wage increases is competition. With a mobile work force, companies have to compete for the most dependable and skilled workers available. Companies like the one I worked for do surveys to discover the pay scales of the local machine shops to discover what they have to pay in order to remain competitive.
 
Unions were a huge deal in the thirties and greatly supported by blue
collar workers everywhere,FDR was on board as well,
but like everything that man touches ultimately becomes corrupt.
Unions today have become obsolete in that they really don’t have
power the way they once did, to much aggravation and they close
the plant and move it out of country destroying not only jobs but
entire cities like Detroit, or Lordstown/Youngstown,are completely
devastated into poverty.
Mind you this isn’t all on unions,a lot of the blame falls squarely on
the bottom line in this corporate era we live in.
 
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