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‘I’m not wanted’: Florida universities hit by brain drain as academics flee
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2023
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Absolutely no shortage of right-wing academics and ideologues who would be happy to take an $80k/year stipend to tell their RAs to play PraegerU videos for an auditorium-sized classroom while they clumsily flirt with freshman co-eds in the back office.
Once you abandon the idea of education as a real thing that colleges are actually supposed to do, its basically just a no-show job that functions as a kick-back to your cronies.
But won't that mean that everyone will just go to universities in other States? Isn't the point here about a brain drain, not the complete loss of all population.
The people with no brains to drain will stay in Florida presumably.
That depends on how you value your college degrees. If degrees represent real useful career knowledge, then sure. But if they're just tokens handed out to a social network, then why would I leave Florida U if I know an FU degree will land me a good job in a high-paying Florida business? If I'm just working the sales desk of a construction company or doing entry level accounting on my way to completing my CPA license or Real Estate License, who cares whether U. Miami or Florida State is a diploma mill?
There are plenty of very good doctors that come out of Baylor and Brigham Young University, despite both campuses being notoriously far-right. You don't need a liberal education to learn to code. You don't need it to update actuarial tables at a big insurance company. You don't need it to help run a multi-billion dollar media empire.
There is no shortage of good money in cultivating a large loyal contingent of right-wing academics, either. Certainly Milton Friedman and Karl Ichan and Charlie Munger did very well for themselves.
And where will the drained brains even go? It isn't as though Silicon Valley or Wall Street are lacking for far-right ideological leaders. In the end, you're still going to end up working at Exxon or Apple or FOX Media or Goldman Sachs, no matter how liberal your politics. Moving to California won't save you from Peter Thiel or Ben Shapiro.
It's not that having a right leaning political viewpoint will prevent you from learning higher skills it's just that if businesses consider Florida to not be of high education quality then they won't accept their diplomas.
Sure if I can just pay some money and then lie around doing nothing and get a degree that's great, but only if the degree is actually valid outside of Florida. Otherwise I wanted a qualification that gives me options.
The education that's being targeted isn't business school training or software development. DeSantis isn't defunding the petroleum engineering department. This is all revolving around the liberal arts schools, effectively forcing out anyone with a history or english lit degree that doesn't spend the weekends in white hoods.