I agree woth your premise that making (affordable) student loans only really available if you're going into a STEM field is a bad idea, I also dream of getting rid of the Department of Education (and a bunch of other Departments, too, but let's focus on just that one for now).
There are two issues here: First is college becoming stupid ex…
I agree woth your premise that making (affordable) student loans only really available if you're going into a STEM field is a bad idea, I also dream of getting rid of the Department of Education (and a bunch of other Departments, too, but let's focus on just that one for now).
There are two issues here: First is college becoming stupid expensive, and the second is the humanities' complete self-immolation, leading to large swaths of people decrying the concept of a liberal arts education.
For the first, I agree with conservatives that the federal government needs to get out of student loans. Their guaranteed loans are by far the largest contributor to rising tuition, because if you're a university and are guaranteed to all of the money no matter what happens, of course you're going to charging more so you get more money. While that's obviously not an easy fix, because it would require the government to actually do its job and pass a law, it's easier than the second issue.
For the second, it would require a complete change of guard of professors at universities and a cultural shift in univserities to not allow what happened to the humanities to happen again. I think that is close to impossible, unfortunately.
A citizenry well educated via a liberal arts education is one of those "it would be incredibly beneficial for everyone, both individually and nationally" things, but it's benefit wouldn't be apparent until decades down the line, which completely flies in the face of our current, "money is the only important thing and if you value something else, you're stupid" collective national mindset.
I agree woth your premise that making (affordable) student loans only really available if you're going into a STEM field is a bad idea, I also dream of getting rid of the Department of Education (and a bunch of other Departments, too, but let's focus on just that one for now).
There are two issues here: First is college becoming stupid expensive, and the second is the humanities' complete self-immolation, leading to large swaths of people decrying the concept of a liberal arts education.
For the first, I agree with conservatives that the federal government needs to get out of student loans. Their guaranteed loans are by far the largest contributor to rising tuition, because if you're a university and are guaranteed to all of the money no matter what happens, of course you're going to charging more so you get more money. While that's obviously not an easy fix, because it would require the government to actually do its job and pass a law, it's easier than the second issue.
For the second, it would require a complete change of guard of professors at universities and a cultural shift in univserities to not allow what happened to the humanities to happen again. I think that is close to impossible, unfortunately.
A citizenry well educated via a liberal arts education is one of those "it would be incredibly beneficial for everyone, both individually and nationally" things, but it's benefit wouldn't be apparent until decades down the line, which completely flies in the face of our current, "money is the only important thing and if you value something else, you're stupid" collective national mindset.
You'd really have to start up new universities - and that is being done. America is a big place.