Student Union
- By Bruce Alpert
Older Republicans Say College Has Negative Impact on US
But a majority of younger Republicans and Republican-leaners aged 18 to 29 say colleges have a positive effect on the country.
Over the past two years, Pew Research Center found that the share of Republicans and Republican leaners who view the impact of colleges and universities positively has declined 18 percentage points, from 54 percent to 36 percent.
Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents view the value of colleges and universities very differently. Pew said 72 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaners say colleges have a positive effect on the United States -- little changed from recent years.
David Andersen, who teaches political science at Iowa State University, said he is not surprised Republicans and Republican-leaning adults have a negative opinion of American higher-education.
“One of the things going on is that there is an anti-elitism and intellectualism among some in the Republican Party,” Andersen said.
Violent demonstrations at some colleges such as the University of California-Berkeley and Middlebury College in Vermont against conservative speakers could have an impact, too. Andersen said the demonstrations drew wide coverage and criticism by news media favored by conservatives.
Andersen said he sees distrust in his own classroom among students from largely Republican and conservative communities in Iowa.
“Students are very willing to push back as we discuss issues,” he said. “But that’s the whole point of being at a university. Let’s talk about what you believe and see how it matches up with the facts."
On some issues, such as climate change, Andersen offers information about the big majority of scientists who say climate change is real and caused by man-made activities.
About taxes, Andersen said he has discussed with students the “trickle down” theory espoused by Republican president Ronald Reagan with students who are in favor of it. That theory suggests tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy will result in more spending and generate economic growth for the country.
Some economists like Jared Bernstein, senior fellow at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, disagree. Bernstein says reducing taxes for the wealthy reduces government revenue and adds to income disparity between rich and poor.
When they get home, some students talk with their parents about classroom discussions that conflict with the ones at home.
Andersen said some students face accusations of disloyalty.
“One student said ‘My uncle yelled at me for two hours because he thought I had become a godless liberal,’” Andersen said.
Andersen said he believes that most Americans without a college education want their children to go to college, hoping they will gain better job opportunities.
William Eveland Jr., a professor at the School of Communication and the Department of Political Science at Ohio State University, said there may be other reasons Republicans do not favor colleges and universities.
“As tuition rises due in part due to reductions in state funding, the risk of students going into debt and not getting their money's worth increases,” Eveland said.
The Pew Research Center survey found Republicans have an even worse opinion of the news media than they do of American colleges. Pew found that 85 percent of Republicans and people who lean Republican say the news media has a negative effect on the United States.
Democrats and Democratic-leaning adults are divided -- with 44 percent saying the news media has a positive effect and 46 percent saying it has a negative effect.
Pew said it interviewed 2,504 adults in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia on both land-line telephones and cell phones. Interviews were conducted June 8-18 in English and Spanish, Pew said.
Pew Research Center describes itself as “nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. It does not take policy positions. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, content analysis and other data-driven social science research.”
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US advisory council ends Nigeria visit, signs student exchange deal
Members of a U.S. presidential advisory council have approved a student exchange deal between an American college and a Nigerian university as part of the council's effort to strengthen collaboration on education, health, entrepreneurship and development between Africa and Africans living abroad.
The council also visited a health facility supported by the United States Agency for International Development in the capital.
Nigerian authorities and visitors chatted with members of the U.S President's Advisory Council on African Diaspora Engagement as they toured a healthcare facility in Karu, a suburb of Abuja, on the last day of the council's three-day visit to Abuja and Lagos.
The facility is one of many supported by the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, to improve the management of childhood illnesses, family planning, immunization and delivery.
The tour was part of the council's effort to promote African diaspora-led investments in technology entrepreneurship, education and healthcare delivery.
"They're doing a phenomenal job there, it really gave us a sense of what the healthcare system is in Nigeria," said Deniece Laurent-Mantey, executive director of the advisory council. "This is our first trip as a council to the continent and we chose Nigeria for a reason — the diaspora in Nigeria is very active, very influential, and they're really a source of strength when it comes to our U.S.-Africa policy. And so for us coming to Nigeria was very intentional."
The council was created by President Joe Biden in September to improve collaboration between Africa and its diaspora in terms of economic and social development.
Akila Udoji, manager of the Primary Healthcare Centre of Karu, said officials in Nigeria were pleased that the council members were able to visit.
"We're happy that they have seen what the money they have given to us to work with has been used to do, because they have been able to assist us in capacity-building, trainings, equipment supply and the makeover of the facility," Udoji said.
Earlier, the council signed a deal for a student exchange program between Spelman College in the southern U.S. city of Atlanta and Nigeria's University of Lagos.
Laurent-Mantey said education exchanges are one of the council's top priorities.
"In Lagos, we had the president of Spelman College — she's also a member of our council — she signed an agreement with the University of Lagos to further education exchange programs in STEM and creative industries between those two universities," Laurent-Mantey said. "And I think for us it's very important, because Spelman College is a historically Black university, and so here we are promoting the importance of collaboration between African Americans and Africans."
In March, the advisory council adopted its first set of recommendations for the U.S. president, including the student exchange initiative, advocating for more U.S. government support for Africa, climate-focused initiatives, and improving U.S. visa access for Africans.
The council met with Nigerian health and foreign affairs officials during the visit before leaving the country on Wednesday.
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The American Academy of Art College in Chicago announced it would be closing after 101 years of preparing students for careers in art and illustration.
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5 killed, dozens injured in clashes over Bangladesh jobs quota system
At least 5 people were killed and dozens injured in two separate incidents in Bangladesh as violence continued Tuesday on university campuses in the nation's capital and elsewhere over a government jobs quota system, local media reports said quoting officials.
At least three of the dead were students and one was a pedestrian, the media reports said. Another man who died in Dhaka remained unidentified.
The deaths were reported Tuesday after overnight violence at a public university near Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka. The violence involved members of a pro-government student body and other students, when police fired tear gas and charged the protesters with batons during the clashes, which spread at Jahangir Nagar University in Savar, outside Dhaka, according to students and authorities.
Protesters have been demanding an end to a quota reserved for family members of veterans who fought in Bangladesh's war of independence in 1971, which allows them to take up 30% of governmental jobs.
They argue that quota appointments are discriminatory and should be merit-based. Some said the current system benefits groups supporting Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Some Cabinet ministers criticized the protesters, saying they played on students' emotions.
The Bengali-language Prothom Alo daily newspaper reported that one person died in Dhaka and three others, including a pedestrian, were killed after they suffered injuries during violence in Chattogram, a southeastern district, on Tuesday.
Prothom Alo and other media reports also said that a 22-year-old protester died in the northern district of Rangpur.
Details of the casualties could not be confirmed immediately.
While job opportunities have expanded in Bangladesh's private sector, many find government jobs stable and lucrative. Each year, some 3,000 such jobs open up to nearly 400,000 graduates.
Hasina said Tuesday that war veterans — commonly known as "freedom fighters" — should receive the highest respect for their sacrifice in 1971 regardless of their current political ideologies.
"Abandoning the dream of their own life, leaving behind their families, parents and everything, they joined the war with whatever they had," she said during an event at her office in Dhaka.
Protesters gathered in front of the university's official residence of the vice chancellor early Tuesday when violence broke out. Demonstrators accused the Bangladesh Chhatra League, a student wing of Hasina's ruling Awami League party, of attacking their "peaceful protests." According to local media reports, police and the ruling party-backed student wing attacked the protesters.
But Abdullahil Kafi, a senior police official, told the country's leading English-language newspaper Daily Star that they fired tear gas and "blank rounds" as protesters attacked the police. He said up to 15 police officers were injured.
More than 50 people were treated at Enam Medical College Hospital near Jahangir Nagar University as the violence continued for hours, said Ali Bin Solaiman, a medical officer of the hospital. He said at least 30 of them suffered pellet wounds.
On Monday, violence also spread at Dhaka University, the country's leading public university, as clashes gripped the campus in the capital. More than 100 students were injured in the clashes, police said.
On Tuesday, protesters blocked railways and some highways across the country, and in Dhaka, they halted traffic in many areas as they vowed to continue demonstrating until the demands were met.
Local media said police forces were spread across the capital to safeguard the peace.
Swapon, a protester and student at Dhaka University who gave only his first name, said they want the "rational reformation of the quota scheme." He said that after studying for six years, if he can't find a job, "it will cause me and my family to suffer."
Protesters say they are apolitical, but leaders of the ruling parties accused the opposition of using the demonstrations for political gains.
A ruling party-backed student activist, who refused to give his name, told The Associated Press that the protesters with the help of "goons" of the opposition's Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jamaat-e-Islami party vandalized their rooms at the student dormitories near the Curzon Hall of Dhaka University.
The family-of-the-veterans quota system was halted following a court order after mass student protests in 2018. But last month, Bangladesh's High Court nulled the decision to reinstate the system once more, angering scores of students and triggering protests.
Last week, the Supreme Court suspended the High Court's order for four weeks and the chief justice asked protesting students to return to their classes, saying the court would issue a decision in four weeks.
However, the protests have continued daily, halting traffic in Dhaka.
The quota system also reserves government jobs for women, disabled people and ethnic minority groups, but students have protested against only the veterans system.
Hasina maintained power in an election in January that was again boycotted by the country's main opposition party and its allies due to Hasina's refusal to step down and hand over power to a caretaker government to oversee the election.
Her party favors keeping the quota for the families of the 1971 war heroes after her Awami League party, under the leadership of her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, led the independence war with the help of India. Rahman was assassinated along with most of his family members in a military coup in 1975.
