SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Australia's conservative government announced plans Friday to double university fees for humanities students, in a bid to push people into more useful, "job-relevant" courses like maths and science.
Under the proposal—which critics panned as an "ideological assault"—the cost of degrees like history or cultural studies will rise up to 113 percent to around US$29,000, while other courses such as nursing and information technology will become cheaper.
Education Minister Dan Tehan—an arts graduate with two advanced degrees in international relations—said the government wanted to corral young people towards "jobs of the future" to boost the country's economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
"If you are wanting to do philosophy, which will be great for your critical thinking, also think about doing IT," Tehan said.
The plan would help pay for an additional 39,000 university places by 2023 and for cost cuts for courses like science, agriculture, maths and languages.
[...] "I'm an arts graduate and so is the minister for education so I'm not sure you can draw the conclusion that we're completely unemployable," said opposition lawmaker Tanya Plibersek.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2020, @12:22AM (7 children)
Erm, free thinking has been verboten in humanities departments for at least a decade. Have at this... [areomagazine.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by driverless on Monday June 22 2020, @02:01AM
Also, note how they give the new cost of a humanities degree while carefully avoiding giving the cost of the degrees they're comparing it to:
The cost of a nursing degree is around $30,000, I don't know what "cheaper" is but it looks like the cost of getting a degree in the History of Ethiopian Pottery in 4000BC will be adjusted to equal the cost of a degree in Saving People's Lives.
Doesn't make as much of a headline when you put it like that though.
(Score: 2, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2020, @02:12AM (5 children)
Oh, cum now! Free thinking is not the same thing as the right to be a stupid conservative right-wing nut-job, because that is the opposite of thinking, and you are confusing having an opinion with the the process of forming a rational, reality based, scientifically sound and progressive opinion. Sucks to be you, and I am sorry you see this as discrimination, but you remain stupid, while your peers surpass you in an criteria of success. Most of the Humanities majors are able to walk down fairly steep ramps.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2020, @04:07AM (1 child)
And slippery slopes.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday June 22 2020, @01:52PM
Global warming. Melting. Slopes become less slippery.
What doesn't kill me makes me weaker for next time.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2020, @02:52PM
If you think because someone is $(ideology) they are automatically a nut-job, you've become exactly what you claim not to be - a non-thinker. You are confusing the process of forming a rational reality based, scientifically sound opinion. (Progressive opinions are the ONLY opinions that are rational, reality based, and Scientifically Sound?).
Suck to be you Anonymous Coward above me, and I'm sorry you don't see the FREAKING HUGE LOG in your own eye while you point out the spec in others, but you remain stupid while your peers surpass you in what you consider to be a criteria of success. (You don't walk down steep ramps, you tripped off the cliff you built for others)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2020, @10:33PM (1 child)
It is a false dichotomy you create. First off, there are entire branches of college education devoted entirely to whining about things, reinstituting segregation, and suppressing freedom of speech and thought. 40 years ago it was the right wing authoritarians engaging in such behavior. Now it is the regressive left which has taken up the banner of authoritarianism and $race supremacy.
Evergreen is not an anomaly, it was a hint.
CHAZ is not an anomaly, it is a warning, although Jaiden Grayson disagrees -- she says she's just explaining what comes next.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpW_QLWrubE&feature=youtu.be&t=140 [youtube.com]
These things are the end result of decades of critical.*.studies, subsidized by America, aimed at destroying America.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 23 2020, @07:13AM
Not giving crazy people a platform is not suppressing speach, it is saving them from public embarrassment. Too bad when you have an organization with money to rent 19,000 seat arenas, and none of your family or friends can talk you out of embarrassing yourself. Again, and how many times must we explain this, conservativism is just ignorance and prejudice dressed up as if it were an intellectual position. It is not, it is stupidity, insanity, and just plain no-good lack of thinking. So, come back when you have something non-crazy to say, and even centers of higher-learning may want to hear what you have to say. But if it is the same old racist crap, repackaged as "edgy" and "alt-right", we are not going to legitimize your insanity by giving you a platform. Sorry, Ben. And Milo. And David. And TMB. And VLM. And Sulla. And Runaway1955.