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Klobuchar refers to free public higher ed as "stapling free diplomas under people's chairs." An appalling line, and so disrespectful to so many students' uphill struggles to complete their degrees. You earn the diploma by working for it, not by paying for it. #DemDebate
Klobuchar has a habit of using the free college cudgel to beat up on students, and it's gross.
I hadn't realized that "free diplomas under people's chairs" was a standard line of Klobuchar's, going back to the start of her campaign. Even grosser.
And just quickly, if the line had been “stapling tuition checks under people's chairs,” I wouldn’t have objected. It’s the “free tuition means handing out diplomas to everyone” framing specifically that’s so pernicious. And it’s a framing she’s been using for ages.
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Angus Johnston
@studentactivism
While you're dunking on this tweet, note that it's based on a junk marketing survey, and it misrepresents it, to boot—the survey found that 29% of Americans HADN'T been abroad.
The European stats are based on "a survey that included some 7,000 international travelers," not a survey of everyone, whether they'd travelled or not. nydailynews.com/news/national/…
According to the US government, Americans made 93 million international trips in 2018. Some of those people made more than one trip, but still—that's a lot of Americans travelling, in just one year. travel.trade.gov/tinews/archive…
Read 7 tweets
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Angus Johnston
@studentactivism
Responding to this tweet with something you like is interesting, generative, and in some cases brave. Responding to it with something you hate is boring and pointless. And yes, that's my most controversial food opinion.
(My second most controversial food opinion is that a cinnamon raisin bagel with a lot of cream cheese and a thick slice of onion is transcendently delicious.)
(It should go without saying that the onion is a sweet one and the bagel is a late, lamented H&H.)
Read 3 tweets
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Angus Johnston
@studentactivism
Thoughtful, probing, important piece on Biden's stutter and how it's influencing how he's perceived as a candidate this time around. Want to say a couple of things about it. theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
First, yeah, as the piece suggests, some of what's perceived as Biden stumbling cognitively is him stuttering. I called him out in that way in one of the early debates—I didn't know about the stutter, and someone pointed it out to me. I got it wrong.
Beyond that, there's a lot that's powerful and poignant in the piece regarding Biden's ... defensiveness? Bull-headedness? Shame? It's clear he's still reckoning with how to understand this stuff, how to understand himself.
Read 11 tweets

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Kevin Seeber
@kevinseeber
Hello higher education friends! I hope your fall semester is off to a good start. If your campus is anything like mine, you've probably been in meetings with folks talking about enrollment concerns, and maybe you've heard the year 2025 mentioned. Let me walk you through this...
Although a lot of factors contribute to enrollment in higher education, it is possible to predict (roughly) where things will be for the next couple of decades. The reason is that the biggest contributing factor to higher ed enrollment is the birth rate 18 years earlier.
I certainly know that not all first-year college students are 18. It's just that they do make up a large portion of the people who are enrolling in higher ed, so you can get a sense of enrollment rates many years before the students actually arrive.
Read 18 tweets
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Sara Eliza Johnson
@saraelizaj
we live in a red state in which Republicans just dismantled state university education. it takes years to build the infrastructure for viable higher education and all that has been undone in two weeks. thousands will be fired and the rest will leave. this is seriously evil shit.
programs for the vulnerable, seniors, the homeless: all cut. scholarships: cancelled. the worst of #akleg gone off #22strong alone, “obeying” the gov. this is textbook fascism. red states, again, please take note of the rightwing movement in your states bc you could be next.
as I mentioned before, this hurts people of color—indigenous communities in a state with a large native population—the most, in every possible way. it is targeting them. it is not just about anti-intellectualism, though that is a part ofc. textbook fascism.
Read 20 tweets
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Jeremy Littau
@JeremyLittau
I realize we’re in we’re in an era where selfishness is being sold as virtue to us by our leaders, but it’s hard to understate how devastating this is. Public higher ed is a mighty economic engine, and we’ve been defunding it to save a few bucks at the expense of our future.
Public higher ed is honestly one of America’s greatest contributions to the world. We had a crown jewel system that had our economy roaring and was the envy of the world, and we are throwing it all away to own the libs or whatever.
Like many things going on these days, it's short-sighted. I realize tax cuts sell to voters better than subsidizing someone else's education, but this is a good example of how our fates are entwined. We rise or fall together.
Read 4 tweets
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CZEdwards
@CZEdwards
From an instructor perspective (& part of the reason I chewed off a limb to not have to teach) these students are a fucking nightmare. They don’t know how to shut up, pay attention, take notes & hit TA/office hours. They interrupt, ramble & feel entitled to dominate class time.
And that’s before the money issue. Instate undergrads paid $7K a semester to be in those classes. Adult students trying to part time it paid $400 a credit hour (then; it’s up since.) They were basically auditors (no cost) with no academic skin in the game (no tests/participation)
They saw being in that classroom as rejuvenating, a recapture of lost youth, and as social hour.

Which hurts the other students.

A dirty secret: life-long learner program participants get shunted mostly into adjunct-taught classes, and adjuncts have the least ability to object.
Read 12 tweets
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John Warner
@biblioracle
As I think about it, public institutions which are trying to compete their way to prosperity are a lot like the kids who were striving to get into the elite schools, but whose paths were blocked by the rich kids taking the side door via parental bribes.
The public institutions are buying into a system which is inherently rigged against them. There is no winning in trying to join the elite, there is only the increased cost of trying to compete, but the public institution will always fall short.
Public institutions buying into a competitive system pushes the harm further down to community colleges that don't have the resources to "compete" and whose missions are incompatible with that kind of competition anyway. It's trickle (more like flood) down bad.
Read 9 tweets
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John Warner
@biblioracle
There's a quote from the NYTimes write-up of the admissions bribery scandal that is a perfect encapsulation of @tressiemcphd's "LowerEd" thesis that #LowerEd exists in order to make elite higher ed more valuable. nytimes.com/2019/03/12/us/…
Notice the framing: the bribery cheated other hard-working kids out of a "chance at higher education." This language suggests that the only education worth having is one acquired at an elite institution. Otherwise, you've missed your chance.
We know that the quality of education at these elite institutions is no different than that available at thousands of other places, but because of #LowerEd those slots take on enormous value. The solution to the problem isn't to just raise LowerEd, it's to lower elite higher ed.
Read 10 tweets

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