This month, Mitt Romney continued the disturbing and growing trend of attacking higher education when he said that President Barack Obama “spent too much time at Harvard.”
A lot of media attention has been focused on the fact that Romney seems to have forgotten that he spent four years at Harvard. That would give him one more year at the big liberal-elitist-producing factory than Obama.
However, there’s a much bigger problem with what Romney said than his hypocrisy. Why is higher education being attacked? This isn’t just Romney being a politician, nor is it an isolated incident. The attack on higher education has been a growing trend in the Republican Party.
The trend of attacking higher education started during Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, when the Republican National Committee portrayed Obama as a liberally educated elitist. Since then, members of the GOP have gone as far as to associate all forms of higher education with liberal elitism.
During this election season, Rick Santorum described Obama as a “snob” for his own (incorrect) belief that Obama wanted everybody in America to go to college. Santorum said, “There are good, decent men and women who go out and work hard everyday and put their skills to test that aren’t taught by some liberal college professor that (tries) to indoctrinate them.”
What was the audience’s response to Santorum’s rant? Roaring applause.
Indeed, there is actually a significant amount of Americans who imagine a university education to be akin to indoctrination by liberal elitists — that is, professors.
Perhaps the politicians who attack higher education feel they have to do so to win supporters. Or maybe they think they need to keep their supporters as uneducated as possible to ensure future victories for their parties. Either way, the highly educated should not brush aside these delusions about higher education.
The benefits of an education are so self-evident that these attacks feel more bizarre than anything. However, we must remember that a significant amount of Americans agree with the attacks Santorum and other Republican politicians make on education, and thus they should not be disregarded.
The harsh truth is that it will be difficult to change the anti-intellectualism of Americans who antagonize higher education. That is why all Americans should aspire for their children to receive some form of higher education — to help them learn how to think critically and for themselves, and to prevent the next generation of Americans from becoming unthinking people who accept whatever their preferred politician says through the television.
I know an education does not ensure wisdom, and I know a person can become well-learned without a university education. I also know that having everyone receive higher education is an unrealistic goal because social, economic and personal circumstances will inevitably prevent many people from attending college.
However, no one should be criticized for being highly educated, and other politicians should not let criticism on higher education slide. This is anti-intellectualism and antagonism taken one step too far. We can’t rely on the world to educate Americans because the world today consists of television and deceitful politicians.
Obama and other politicians have to fight the attacks on higher education and ensure that this is something all Americans regard highly.
Abdul Zalikha is a biology and English junior at UF. His column appears on Wednesdays.
