Democrats today worship education, while Republicans today worship the market, neither of which faith has brought us close to a solution.
Extreme leftists cheerlead higher education under the belief that if you give the proles a leadership education, they'll eventually revolt and overthrow the capitalists. After all, the undergraduate experience was designed for aristocrats, and if people go from young aristocrat to prole in one post-graduate summer, they might be pissed off enough to take up arms and overthrow governments, like what almost happened in the 1960s student riots. It doesn't happen that way, however, so they (the extreme leftists) don't get what they want.
Lazy centrists and liberals push for widespread higher education because they believe education to be a magical fairy dust that can be sprinkled on inequality to make it go away. (In fact, tuition and credentialism and admissions-- nonacademic admissions elements being the worst offenders-- do the opposite.) They don't get what they want.
Right-wing, religious nutcases throw their weight behind religious education because they think it will help them in their losing cultural war against modernity. They don't get what they want.
The center-right, increasingly fascist, corporate elite cheerleads widespread education because it gives HR departments a sorting mechanism where the people being sorted do all the work, and pay exorbitant prices for the "privilege" of taking part in the indignity. As for this set of people (center-right), they are the ones who do get what they want.
What do Democrats have to do with "extreme leftists"? There is no remotely viable Communist party in the US, not even a Socialist party. Extreme leftists do not have any power in the US.
People who don't want to go to college have always had the option of not going. The difficulty is when people want to go but it is not feasible for financial reasons. Some people think it is nice to help others do whatever it is they want to do. There is no 'extreme leftist' conspiracy here.
Welcome to the US, where parties that would be villified for being extreme-right in Europe are actually on the left side of the aisle, and the left side as it exists in Europe simply doesn't exist.
Welcome to the country where the major leftist party is actually arguably anti-union. In most areas it's actually quite a bit right-of-center, in economic cases it's extreme right.
If a rightist party in most European states proposed reducing a European national health insurance to the level of the ACA, they'd immediately be cordoned off and laughed out of parliament. They know this, and so it never happens.
Read the whole post. I'm not just trashing the left or "Democrats". I'm critical of all political factions on this issue and point out that the most evil faction (the corporatists) is the only one that got what it wanted.
Extreme leftists cheerlead higher education under the belief that if you give the proles a leadership education, they'll eventually revolt and overthrow the capitalists. After all, the undergraduate experience was designed for aristocrats, and if people go from young aristocrat to prole in one post-graduate summer, they might be pissed off enough to take up arms and overthrow governments, like what almost happened in the 1960s student riots. It doesn't happen that way, however, so they (the extreme leftists) don't get what they want.
Lazy centrists and liberals push for widespread higher education because they believe education to be a magical fairy dust that can be sprinkled on inequality to make it go away. (In fact, tuition and credentialism and admissions-- nonacademic admissions elements being the worst offenders-- do the opposite.) They don't get what they want.
Right-wing, religious nutcases throw their weight behind religious education because they think it will help them in their losing cultural war against modernity. They don't get what they want.
The center-right, increasingly fascist, corporate elite cheerleads widespread education because it gives HR departments a sorting mechanism where the people being sorted do all the work, and pay exorbitant prices for the "privilege" of taking part in the indignity. As for this set of people (center-right), they are the ones who do get what they want.