There is a lot of anti-intellectualism in this country. Negative attention is heaped on “liberal bubble” college campuses along with, according to The New York Times, federal crackdowns on activism and international students. Many within the United States get their news and politics from misinformation silos, while more qualified minds are dismissed. Some, when confronted about consuming fake news, will double down on their source and take it as a sign that the experts are the ones lying. It is easy to look at these trends and the damage they are doing as a terrifying new phenomenon of the Trump era. However, I believe it is more complicated than that. I think that this attitude is a consequence of long-term problems with the role of expert institutions in American society.
Today, a college degree is often seen as the bare minimum for a well-paying job. Many jobs in the service industry do not pay well, while factory and trade work is undervalued and carries physical risk. College students often move to cities when they graduate, perpetuating their robust job markets and wealth. According to Industry Week, smaller towns do not attract as much investment, and many are left with hollowed-out industries like manufacturing. Some say that the United States is past its manufacturing days, and that services, software and other degree-related jobs are its future. That is all well and good, but if an American cannot afford college, they will be stuck in low-paying jobs, vulnerable to inflation and other market forces. In 2022, 39 percent of the college-age population was enrolled in college. Granted, there are many reasons why some people do not go to college, but the largest is affordability, according to the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.
Colleges are perceived as elitist, not only financially but also in their aims and mission. Progressivism, a blanket term for social reform and equality-oriented politics, has become associated with this perceived elitism. According to Pitt News, colleges are more progressive because social norms are looser and students learn more about societal injustices. Conservatives have, for a long time, recognized this. They have taken concepts and words from college like woke, DEI and Critical Race Theory and infused them with negative connotations. As Vassar College students, we are both taught and—more importantly—shown in daily life that diversity is a great strength and that critiquing systems is important. But at the same time, many elite colleges tend to be closed off from the surrounding community. There is an assumption that the breakthroughs of progressivism made on campuses will somehow trickle down to the rest of society. Those who do not go to college do not benefit from them as college students do. It is a good thing that colleges are progressive, but they have not always been able to display the tangible worth of their ideals outside of their bubbles.
Another reason that progressivism has not trickled down is, of course, repression. A college like Vassar can teach Critical Race Theory with relative ease, but when a public high school even mentions the phrase, funding is suddenly in jeopardy. In 2022, according to NBC, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, launched a crusade against LGBTQ+ content in public classrooms and forced curricula to claim that Black people benefited from slavery. He did this under the pretense that children were being indoctrinated. Now, even colleges are not safe from these accusations, with the Trump administration making an effort to crack down on colleges for their “woke ideology.” These crackdowns come in the form of publicized legal battles with Harvard University and Columbia University, yes, but more striking is Trump’s willingness to freeze federal funds, hurting public colleges the most. It is a twisted irony that the wealthiest colleges are insulated from federal mandates and are therefore the only ones that can freely teach progressivism. Values of equality and diversity become less accessible and concentrated in a smaller population.
It is safe to say that many Americans are wary, not necessarily of expertise, but of the institutions that facilitate it. Colleges are becoming increasingly unaffordable, and their progressivism leads to little public change but draws lots of public scrutiny. Some citizens turn to alternatives to these institutions. Online intellectuals like Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro and the recently-assassinated Charlie Kirk actively position themselves as foils to “liberal bubble colleges,” debating college students just to prove conservative—and sometimes bigoted—points. These commentators do not always produce content with the best intentions. However, the fact remains that they are more accessible than the institutions that Americans are supposed to be able to count on.
How can we move forward? There is debate as to whether liberal education, with the hostility against it, will even be viable in the future. I think it can be, but it cannot go on as is. Left-leaning academics cannot keep cloistering themselves off from society, or they will truly become an elite. Community outreach is a must. Vassar has such programs, including opportunities like teaching at Poughkeepsie Middle School through the Office of Community-Engaged Learning and local Hudson Valley policy organizing like For The Many. Students can provide service to the community while supplementing their education with real-world experiences. And of course, the price of college must come down, too. These things are unlikely to happen under the current administration, so it is difficult to see a concrete path forward to regaining public trust. But if colleges can be there for communities when they are needed, then communities will support colleges and will not stand for their repression.