this is a crucial point: if the right gets their way, the humanities will persist only at ultra-elite private schools for the enjoyment of the children of the very rich, while everyone else will get vocational training.

Whence the "liberal" of "liberal arts." It'd be nice to think it was just the right, but there's a more widespread strain of philistinism that passes itself off as "preparing people for the workforce" and is incapable of perceiving intrinsic value in anything.

That's the plan. Along with kicking most of the DEI content out of the humanities syllabus, of course, but the the most important is kicking the pleasure out of public school..

i have been saying this has been visible on "influencer" media to who was able to woodshed their art during the pandemic and everyone who wanted to but had to go into work, get sick and struggle. it's like the Star Trek "Cloud Minders" episode.

This was the 1980’s under Reagan.

Part 29 in "Let's Return Things to the Good Ol' Days of the Early 19th Century."

"impractical" elite strata -- no one learns the practice of law in law school, or how to develop real software in computer science programs -- with a huge military and medical research complex. Oh, and endless administrators...

Universities also became essentially profit-oriented research centers with the Bayh-Dole Act which allowed them to retain earnings from publicly sponsored research (this has had mixed practical results but thorough distorts faculty incentives). So you've got this odd situation of a thoroughly "

The German "Humbolt model" of a university oriented towards science and technology existed, but was only rarely followed, and most scientific innovation occurs outside universities. This changes with first WWII and then the Cold War with massive investments in universities for military development