Rick Santorum is playing the old anti-elitist mantra, that college is for snobs and effete elitists. This is spite of the fact that he has a bachelor’s degree, and a law degree, and making upwards of one million dollars a year, could be considered an elitist.
“President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college,” Santorum sniped. “What a snob!”
He’s also playing the “colleges are indoctrinating more liberals” card.
He said that at many colleges, conservative students tend to be called out and ridiculed more. He also made a religious connection, saying that many students of faith who go to college graduate without it.
Yeah, poor conservatives are being bullied by liberals. I have no idea what the hell he’s talking about.
Yes, increased knowledge tends to generate a more liberal world view. But it’s not a wild cabal-driven conspiracy. It’s just reality. When you learn more about important things you tend to realize that the world is more complex and diverse than a GOP bumper sticker. College students are taught to think critically and independently by default due to the difficulty of the material — not through some kind of mandate. And this kind of critical thinking tends to produce a more liberal perspective rather than a lockstep conformist perspective.
Maybe if everybody spent at least some time in college we could eventually attain the kind of forward-looking society that we all deserve, and that many of us envision.
