Gallup: Country leans Republican after election

[Master of Ossus]

Many private schools are ludicrously expensive. I mean $40,000 a year, and then probably at least a year or two of grad school...I can't imagine taking on that kind of debt at my age.

What do you think I did? With inflation, private schools were actually more expensive 15 years ago than they are today, and while the debt that they create is substantial it isn't exactly crippling, especially since Pomona had (has?) great financial aid.

[Master of Ossus]

The reason is because university education has an extremely low price elasticity of demand,

Obviously.

due to the fact that if you want a decent career nowadays, you have to have a degree.

Wrong. Studies since the 1700's (when people were only beginning to describe price elasticity of demand) have consistently found that the price of college education has virtually no impact on the number of students who attend provided that it is consistent. Back then, the aristocracy formed virtually the entire student populace, but as the educational system shifted to focus mainly on the middle class, the elasticity of demand didn't change significantly.

That means universities can force students to take it in the ass and students will still come, because there isn't much of an alternative.

In the California system there is: community college for the first two years, which costs a fraction of even a Cal State or UC school and usually allows students to work a part-time job simultaneously. Despite lumping a whole slew of other benefits together to try and discourage attendance (as a cost-cutting technique), the UCs and Cal State schools are still having serious over-crowding issues despite that financially sound alternative.

After all, people would rather be up to their eyeballs in loans for the next 20 years and attend uni than not attend uni at all.

Obviously, but the reason does not appear to be entirely monetary.

However, universities have been getting more expensive compared to income and it's only becoming more expensive. This was an example that our teacher gave us in macroeconomics when discussing real value of money; he compared a ratio of tuition to average household income at Harvard from the year he was born (in the fifties) to today and in real terms, tuition to universities have skyrocketed. Just like textbook sellers, universities and colleges know they have students over a barrel so they can continually raise tuition and not worry about students ceasing attendance.

That's quite misleading, since the costs of providing education have similarly skyrocketed since the 50's. You're right in that the universities don't particularly have to worry about their tuitition costs, but do you know that every student on Pomona College's campus right now is costing the school well over $60,000 annually? Colleges charge nowhere near what they would ordinarily have to charge for the services that they render. And, incidentally, "less expensive" European-style tertiary education systems have been an unmitigated disaster for several Western European countries, and thus far no one has seriously proposed an alternative system that would be superior.

This is a major problem, since going to university is increasingly approaching the point where it's unaffordable to the average student even with major student loans.

If someone seriously can't afford college training then they won't get college training, but the economic reasons for college training are compelling. The difference between the average college-trained lifetime salary and the average high-school grad's lifetime salary is approaching the $1.5 million mark. Even with inflation and lost wages from attending school, colleges will have to become dramatically more expensive to qualify as being a poor investment.

[Joe]

I think the Republican party has a serious, fundamental weakness in that its formula for success requires its Christian base to largely vote against its own economic interests. As I said in another thread recently, there's absolutely no reason for the Christian wing to support the pro-business or neocon wings of the party save that the Christians need them to win elections. Take away the Democrats, and now suddenly you have millions of lower middle class, working class, and poor Christian voters who are going to wonder why their party is passing laws that favor the people who are fleecing them. I can actually see the party breaking along the old Progressive lines--the Christian wing becomes a party with conservative social values but liberal economic ones. You can, after all, make a much stronger Christian argument against tax breaks for the rich than you can against gay marriage.

Republicans vote against their economic interests? That may be true with some of the lower income folks, but tax breaks have historically been a winning issue for Republicans. People want to pay less taxes - you cannot run on a platform of higher taxes; even if you single the rich for tax hikes it's not going to help you much - and when voters want to pay less taxes, it's the Republicans they've gone to. Whether it's true or not, the Republicans are perceived by many Americans, and not just upper-middle class ones, as the party that will benefit your pocketbook the most, and that undoubtedly has affected the vote (though much less so in 2004, when taxes were a much more low-profile issue) and will continue to do so in the future.

[RedImperator]

I think the Republican party has a serious, fundamental weakness in that its formula for success requires its Christian base to largely vote against its own economic interests. As I said in another thread recently, there's absolutely no reason for the Christian wing to support the pro-business or neocon wings of the party save that the Christians need them to win elections. Take away the Democrats, and now suddenly you have millions of lower middle class, working class, and poor Christian voters who are going to wonder why their party is passing laws that favor the people who are fleecing them. I can actually see the party breaking along the old Progressive lines--the Christian wing becomes a party with conservative social values but liberal economic ones. You can, after all, make a much stronger Christian argument against tax breaks for the rich than you can against gay marriage.

Republicans vote against their economic interests? That may be true with some of the lower income folks, but tax breaks have historically been a winning issue for Republicans. People want to pay less taxes - you cannot run on a platform of higher taxes; even if you single the rich for tax hikes it's not going to help you much - and when voters want to pay less taxes, it's the Republicans they've gone to. Whether it's true or not, the Republicans are perceived by many Americans, and not just upper-middle class ones, as the party that will benefit your pocketbook the most, and that undoubtedly has affected the vote (though much less so in 2004, when taxes were a much more low-profile issue) and will continue to do so in the future.

Republicans are also the party firmly set against universal health care and stronger social programs for the poor. The same people who are voting for them on moral values issues are going home and praying the plant doesn't close and that ittle Timmy doesn't need to get his tonsils taken out. I never suggested that a faction in favor of tax increases will arise within the Republicans, but with the Democrats out of the way, what's to stop a "Christian morals, Christian charity" movement within the party that appeals to the moral and economic interests of the working class?

[Illuminatus Primus]

False Cause Fallacy —as well as a horribly inaccurate reading of extant fact. The college graduates who came out the GI Bill programme in the late 40s, 50s, and 60s were the very people who pushed forward the industrial and technological advancements which were the basis for the post-WWII boom. The problems with American education are a relatively recent phenomenon and are not traceable to the GI Bill or its effects.

Conceded.

Humanities curricula are not heavily religious in makeup, at least none that I've ever seen in a semester syllabus.

Wasn't my point. My point was that if Mike wanted more people to be less ignorant and more critically thinking, I doubt they are going to take the classes and majors most conducive to that.

Nevermind the studies which show a far greater earning potential for college graduates as opposed to those sporting nothing but a high-school diploma or GED —or not even that. As for the other part of the issue, this is a problem with curriculum structuring.

Yes, but we're taking about social engineering here. In of itself, higher earning potential is not going to make you more secular in thought and principle.

Right now, it needs more than anything to be insulated from efforts to dumb it down any further than it already has been —particularly in science— and a better plan than rote-drilling to arbitrary tests.

Agreed.

[SirNitram]

Republicans are also the party firmly set against universal health care and stronger social programs for the poor. The same people who are voting for them on moral values issues are going home and praying the plant doesn't close and that ittle Timmy doesn't need to get his tonsils taken out. I never suggested that a faction in favor of tax increases will arise within the Republicans, but with the Democrats out of the way, what's to stop a "Christian morals, Christian charity" movement within the party that appeals to the moral and economic interests of the working class?

Very, very little. The livelihood of alot of people depend on either the Democrats growing a functional frontal lobe or the Republican voter base growing one; without either of these events, well, empires fall. They tend to fall when the line between those in power and the general populace widens too much.