COVID-19 as an excuse to slash humanities and screw up college in general

If I had a chance to do it over again, I'd major in philosophy, not engineering. But, no point in wallowing in regret. What matters is the here and now.

Although fiscal concerns are undeniably real, the proposed austerity measures — opposed by faculty unions and education activists who cite bloated administrative budgets and excessive spending on sports arenas and new construction — fit into a larger right-wing playbook that has long pressed for the restructuring of higher education.

Richard Kent Vedder, an adjunct scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute and a senior fellow at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), lists these goals in his 2019 book, Restoring the Promise: Higher Education in America. Among them: dismiss “old rules” such as tenure and summer breaks; increase teaching loads; end affirmative action and related diversity programs; end or revise the federal student financial aid program; and give departments and professors a share of revenue based on student enrollment in their classes...

The result is the elevation of accounting, business, computer science, culinary and engineering programs over the liberal arts and humanities. - Truthout