N.C. governor attacks higher ed, proposes funding colleges by graduates’ jobs

Posted by Valerie Strauss on February 7, 2013 at 8:00 am

There’s a new voice in the continued and rather tired trashing of higher education and the liberal arts by conservatives: North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory.

Just a few weeks after he took office, more than 12,000 people have already signed a petition blasting his attack on higher education, in which he referred to college students as “butts” and said he wants to fund public community colleges and universities based on the number of students who get jobs after graduation.

McCrory, speaking recently on former education secretary Bill Bennett’s talk show, said that higher education had been taken over by the “educational elite,” and that too many college courses did not help students get jobs, according to the Progressive Pulse. After Bennett mentioned the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s gender studies program — a subject that is a common target for conservatives — McGrory said that students who take those classes should “go to a private school and take it, but I don’t want to subsidize that if it’s not going to get someone a job” ...

On the K-12 level and even in higher education, many reformers want to apply a corporate model to the public education system, which is a civic institution. It just doesn’t work. Most businesses can’t survive their own business models. Why does anybody think public schools will?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/02/07/n-c-governor-attacks-higher-ed-proposes-funding-colleges-by-graduates-jobs/