ACADEMIA: Rebuttal and critique

While Mr. Gramer is accurate that Idaho needs a skilled workforce, he ignores a myriad of important points:

1. Trade Schools often prove more valuable than the college experience.

2. Creating race-based programs is an improper role of any publicly funded institution, as they:

A. Elevate some races above others (literally racism)

B. Condition students into toxic group identity mentality

C. Are a reflection of the soft bigotry of low expectations, held by leftists, that non-white people cannot achieve greatness without help.

4. College cost inflation is due primarily to public subsidies. With “free government money” there is no incentive to lower tuition, budget wisely, or cut the administrative fat.

5. Subsidies for college come from the taxpayers. Many do not hold college degrees. Ergo, the “have-nots” subsidize the “haves.”

6. The “$1 million more lifetime earnings” stat is heavily skewed by STEM field degrees. Non-STEM degrees are far less lucrative.

7. Academia is a bastion of leftist indoctrination. Authoritarianism, collectivism, utopianism, virtue signaling, sanctimony and intolerance are the coins of the realm. BSU has demonstrated itself to be no different.

By all objective real-world measures, academia is a failure, and it’s not for lack of money. Academia, in its arrogance, thinks it is untouchable. But churning out mostly useless degrees does not grant BSU (or any college) carte blanche to treat legislators and taxpayers with disdain, repudiation and contempt. Quite the opposite, indeed. Academia should be constantly critiqued by those forced to fund it.

PAUL BANDUCCI

Post Falls