Rick Santorum Proposes Conservative Indoctrination Studies in College. That's the Ticket.

This is about Rich Santorum's attack on college education. Eugene Robinson rightfully asked what parent is going to buy into Santorum's message that their kids don't need to go to college like they did. No parent would want less for their kids than what they achieved in life. This attack is nothing new. It's just a continuation.

David Horowitz has all but crawled back under his rock after failing to convince people there was a need for the "academic bill of rights." His attacks on liberals, college professors and higher education were the rantings of a lunatic. His entourage of body guards kept the latte sippers away, but also provided him the opportunity to claim to be a targeted victim of the radical left.

Now we have Rick Santorum following in Horowitz's footsteps. Here's Santorum trying to convince viewers that "conservative studies," or indoctrination, should be introduced to add balance. Does he think we're stupid?



Rachel Maddow explains:

When Rick Santorum argued recently against public education … higher ed insisting the other day that President Obama only wants to help young people go to college so they can undergo "indoctrination." In 2008, the former senator argued that Satan had succeeded in his attacks on academia.

As Kevin Drum put it, "It's commonplace for movement conservatives to believe that universities are dens of depravity and radical left indoctrination. But as far as I know, most of them don't believe that efforts to get more kids into college are motivated by a desire to destroy their faith. That's a step beyond even normal wingnut land."

My larger concern is the trajectory of Santorum's rhetoric: if access to college degrees is itself a culture-war issue, and Republicans start arguing en masse that policymakers need not prioritize higher ed as a national value, the consequences for the country and the economy could prove to be significant.

Matt Yglesias explained this morning, "[T]he fact is that America has historically been the richest country on the planet because we've invested in being the best-educated country on the planet. In recent decades, we've seen the pace slow down markedly … the emergence of a block of people so driven by resentment of college professors that they want to abandon the goal of improving American education is a disturbing trend."

Incidentally, if Santorum believes publicly-funded universities may need to start requiring "intellectual diversity" on campus, how in the world would that work? And what about students whose ideologies change during their academic careers?

Or this from CNN's LZ Granderson:

But the rest of us look at "Slick Rick's" college degree, law degree and MBA, the fact that he's sending his kids to college and owns at least six properties, and has earned millions, and wonder -- What is he talking about? Virtually every socioeconomic study looking at the intersection of income and education shows a direct correlation between the two. For Santorum to vilify higher education for political gain -- while obviously benefiting from attending universities -- is embarrassing.