U.S. Presidential debate

[kandrathe]

Seriously, horrible kinds of wrong?? To me this just shows that the republican mud slinging campaign has worked perfectly: many people honestly believe that electing Hillary would have been more or less the same as election Trump.

Not being on the Trump side, but I think due to her indebtedness to special interests she would have been much worse than what we have in Barack Obama. Choosing Trump wasn't the same as, or even the lesser of the same type of evils. Choosing Trump was wholly the opposite of choosing Hillary.

According to lefty journalist Neal Gabler, "From the perspective of Bernie Sanders’ forces, she gave speeches to fat cats, is a military hawk who voted for the Iraq War, grovels for money, gets counsel from squirrely Wall Street bankers and rigged the delegate selection."

Then, there is left wonk David Brooks of the NYT, "At least in her public persona, Clinton gives off an exclusively professional vibe: industrious, calculated, goal-oriented, distrustful. It’s hard from the outside to have a sense of her as a person; she is a role."

Or, as I think of her, a noble lefty warrior playing perfectly the role of a noble lefty warrior. On the self interest side, Trump's win is less bad for me (I think), but we shall see.

I work for a private non-profit university. I feel Hillary would have continued the Obama administrations growing burden on higher education. Since the 2009 recession, due to normal trends in baby boom ripples, and economic forces, enrollment in post-secondary education is down. The hardest hit areas are the arts and humanities. At my university, STEM programs are growing in double digits, but those liberal arts are truly suffering. I'm opposed to the notion that higher education should be focused upon purely vocational attainment. Yet, the federal ratings of educational attainment are linked directly to getting a high paying job tying it strongly to a return on investment. It means, the government is driving students into business, and STEM professions, and away from teaching, social work, and other lower paying "service" jobs. Forget entirely any degree, like Art, or Philosophy, that is non-vocational and purely self actualizing. Greed is good, in the federal DOE eyes it seems. Higher pay = more taxes.

The federal department of education, through rule making, are very actively going after for-profit education, and the side effect is it hurts all of higher education with the regulatory burden. It is true, though, that there are "bad actors", especially in for-profit education, who enroll lots of students, provide mediocre education, graduate < 30% and their drop outs end up with huge debts they cannot repay. The feds remedy to the few bad actors is to make every institution hop though increasingly onerous regulatory hoops. I know. I've been the hoop hopper for my school for a decade now.

Public schools can appeal to their state's tax payers to fund their increased costs, or raise tuition prices. Wealthy private schools have deep endowments. But, there are thousands of private, non-profit institutions that are in deep pain due to trends in lower enrollment, and the need to implement costly federal regulation changes.

Then also, such as the recent, almost passed California Senate Bill 1154, there are some seeking to de-legitimize, and eradicate religion in higher education entirely. I know you, and many on the Lounge are not religious, or are maybe even opposed to it. But hopefully you'd understand the need to defend the right of free expression ( a guarantee provided by our US Constitution's Bill of Rights) for everyone. We may not like, or agree with what some people say, or believe, but we'd uphold the UNHCR right of free conscience and religious expression.

“Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”

Currently, students in the US are awarded financial aid, or are allowed to take out direct student loans (only from the federal government). The student then has the freedom to spend this aid at the school, and in the program of their desire. The way some legislators seek to take control is to instead award the aid to the institution, which precludes the government from funding many institutions due to the establishment clause. It would put government, rather than student choice, in direct control of choosing which schools, and degree programs succeed, or shut down.