Santorum: Obama 'A Snob' For Wanting Everyone To Go To College

[anvi]

A little bit elitist of Rick Santorum (BA MBA JD) to argue that it's wrong to encourage other people to go to college, no?

Rick basically insinuated, consistent with the bit posted above, on Beck the other day that universities are liberal indoctrination mills.  Listen to the following at around 33:50.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzGPfwBm22M#t=33m51s

If that's the case, how did he manage to emerge from college and law school the "arch-conservative" he is?  Lots of blue avatars on this forum went through college--did you all bribe someone not to make you attend the required "Torture Till You Confess that Marx was Right" class?  As I recall, when Obama headed the Harvard Law Review, he actively recruited conservative colleagues to help him run and edit it and encouraged conservatives to contribute to it.  He was an Indoctrination Fail, or did he make all the real liberals there pretend, or something?

And where, from Obama's policy agenda, did Rick get the idea that he will make "all" kids to go to college?  And, besides, has Rick been talking to employers who complain that they need more skilled and better educated workers lately?

Just goes to show you how mere spitballing can make you a serious contender for a nomination these days.

[anvi]

The thing is, nobody ever said everyone has to go to college.  No one.  And no one ever said that labor jobs, and careers, that required no college are not important for everyone in society.  They are, and the people who work at such jobs have, as far as I'm concerned, just as much dignity, and are worthy of just as much respect, as everyone else.

The problem here is that Rick is claiming that Obama believes everyone should go to college, which isn't true to begin with.  He believes everyone who wants to go, and who can qualify, should have a chance to go.  Secondly, Rick constantly insinuates that universities and colleges are liberal indoctrination mills.   I've taught in colleges and universities full-time for twelve years, and for five years part-time before that, and I've had just as many conservative and/or Republican colleagues as I've had colleagues of other political persuasions.  The "liberal indoctrination" charge is bs, and Rick, who has been through as much college as he has, knows it's bs.    

[anvi]

In all fairness, most professors of a conservative persuasion are less likely to openly voice their opinions compared to their liberal brethren, especially outside of economics/business. At least at most colleges, anyway. I cannot imagine disputing that.

I dispute it.  I know plenty of conservative faculty in departments of history, sociology, psychology, philosophy, religious studies, certainly law, and many other fields outside of econ and business who have no difficulty expressing their views openly, inside and outside the classroom.  There are surely places where liberals are more vocal, but there are others where either conservatives are more vocal or there is a rough balance between them.