Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeanfromfillmore
... People holding the purse strings are getting exactly what they want. ...
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Exactly. And the people who hold the purse strings are those who pay for college, or to be more precise, the parents of students who can afford to send their children to university. Without people who choose a university and pay for it, there is no university. Universities cannot exist on patronage alone.
Universities exist that will teach students of particular religious persuasions and place everything they teach in the context of those beliefs. But the most respected universities are those with the most universal point of view. This means especially science. Science pays and the best universities will provide the best education in science and technology, else they will not get students from parents who are willing to pay for the best.
Somewhere this need for intellectual respectability is being shortchanged, but blaming some elitest intellectual cabal in the universities is a little like blaming the victim. Except there isn't enough intellectual life left in many universities to support any intellectual elite.