Thread by @yhazony

Roger Scruton: “Get Rid of Universities Altogether.” humanevents.com/2019/05/13/rog…

At an event on nationalism in London yesterday, Scruton admitted that the universities have been lost.

Scruton suggested that there are only two courses of action available:
1. Start new universities.
2. Cut off government funding for universities (with a carve-out for the physical sciences).

We’re hearing proposals of this kind on a regular basis. This means that some are finally walking up to the fact that the government in Western countries provides massive subsidies to support institutions that are often simply sleep-away camps for indoctrinating the young.

I admire the academic activists who are trying to rally support for “viewpoint diversity.” But I suspect that the system can’t be repaired by appealing to reasonable arguments. Professors and administration are too afraid to stick their necks out.

So the radical options Scruton proposes are fast becoming conventional wisdom among conservatives thinking about the cartel of leftist universities: “Compete or delete.”

Either we compete with the cartel or we pull the financial plug that’s holding it together. I prefer to compete. I think conservatives could produce better universities than what exists. But if the entry costs make it impossible, breaking up the cartel may have to happen first.