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Australia Plans University Fees Hike to Deter Humanities Students

posted by Fnord666 on Sunday June 21 2020, @11:53PM   Printer-friendly

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.

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  • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday June 22 2020, @01:25PM (2 children)

    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Monday June 22 2020, @01:25PM (#1011075) Journal

    I'm not sure where that last sentence comes from, as I am left (by US standards; by civilized world standards I am a boring old centrist...you know, like that Sanders guy?) and definitely in favor of fixing the underlying issues. More than once I've compared affirmative action to a bandage for a tumor, with the rider that while a bandage is better than nothing, it doesn't cure the cancer, and any doctor who thinks a bandage is a cancer cure is a quack. AA has become pseudo-liberal white-guilt bullshit.

    MLK Jr. warned about this, in a more general form, when he stated that the "white moderate" was in some ways a worse enemy than a direct racist, that the "negative peace" they were looking for was inherently selfish and had nothing to do with actual racial justice.

    --
    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  
    Total Score:   2  

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2020, @05:18PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2020, @05:18PM (#1011169)

    It wasn't MLK... it was Malcolm X

    • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2020, @11:49PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 22 2020, @11:49PM (#1011309)

      I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

      I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.

      MLK, Letter from a Birmingham Jail