Schuman on Online Education - Slate article

[writingprof]

1) Brain drain is a big problem in some regions of the US.  Having "all" the bright students from, say, Vermont go to Maine for college and then never return to Vermont means Vermont loses the very people it most needs to have a good shot at survival. [. . .]

2) Residents in many states are not at all happy about out-of-staters who definitely didn't pay into the system and may not stay when Boston/New York/Chicago/LA beckon. 

I feel confident that Vermont will survive, as there is almost certain to be a landmass between New York and New Hampshire in the future, and that landmass is entirely likely to be organized into a political entity called "Vermont."

Also, are Boston, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles still beckoning?  I thought all the new thinking was that urban density was so 2019.

[whynotbc]

I think those cities will be fine.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/urban-density-not-problem/611752/

[polly_mer]

1) Brain drain is a big problem in some regions of the US.  Having "all" the bright students from, say, Vermont go to Maine for college and then never return to Vermont means Vermont loses the very people it most needs to have a good shot at survival. [. . .]

2) Residents in many states are not at all happy about out-of-staters who definitely didn't pay into the system and may not stay when Boston/New York/Chicago/LA beckon. 

I feel confident that Vermont will survive, as there is almost certain to be a landmass between New York and New Hampshire in the future, and that landmass is entirely likely to be organized into a political entity called "Vermont."

Go read about higher ed on https://vtdigger.org/ and then go read about the Navajo nation with true poverty that results from having a political organization with rural people who have nothing and no one wants to live there.

Continuing to not be disbanded is not the same as surviving.

[Stockmann]

1) Brain drain is a big problem in some regions of the US.  Having "all" the bright students from, say, Vermont go to Maine for college and then never return to Vermont means Vermont loses the very people it most needs to have a good shot at survival. [. . .]

2) Residents in many states are not at all happy about out-of-staters who definitely didn't pay into the system and may not stay when Boston/New York/Chicago/LA beckon. 

I feel confident that Vermont will survive, as there is almost certain to be a landmass between New York and New Hampshire in the future, and that landmass is entirely likely to be organized into a political entity called "Vermont."

Go read about higher ed on https://vtdigger.org/ and then go read about the Navajo nation with true poverty that results from having a political organization with rural people who have nothing and no one wants to live there.

Yeah, but that's not U. of Maine's fault, nor is it Maine's reponsibility to solve Vermont's problems. Also, Vermont's more academically capable students have every right to go elsewhere if they're offered something better than in their home state, and every right not to return to their home state if they don't want to.

[polly_mer]

You might want to check with the taxpayers in Maine regarding their money subsidizing college educations for out-of-staters who will then take their shiny new college degrees to a different state that has jobs.

[Stockmann]

You might want to check with the taxpayers in Maine regarding their money subsidizing college educations for out-of-staters who will then take their shiny new college degrees to a different state that has jobs.

I didn't say that Maine's taxpayers don't have reason to complain. I don't know how much of U. of Maine's budget actually comes from Maine's taxpayers, but depending on how much it is they might be getting what they paid for. Complaining about public universities' "dirty" tactics when some of them have been essentially thrown to the wolves by the taxpayers is a bit like pushing someone into shark-infested waters and then criticizing them for wielding a harpoon or for not helping others because they're too busy trying to fight off a shark.

[marshwiggle]

You might want to check with the taxpayers in Maine regarding their money subsidizing college educations for out-of-staters who will then take their shiny new college degrees to a different state that has jobs.

There are a few interesting wrinkles. For instance, if the "imports" keep the enrollment high enough for an institution to be viable, then it may be a better option than letting it close so that all of their own students have to go elsewhere for their education. (On a smaller scale, individual programs may be close enough to the edge for this to be the case, even if the entire institution isn't.)

Also, I live in a place where lots of people came here for their education and wound up staying. It's not a "destination" location like big cities, places on the ocean or in the mountains, etc., but people who have lived here as students come to see lots of good things about it. So if subsidizing someone's education resulted in them staying and paying taxes for decades, it would be a great trade-off economically.

[writingprof]

Why anyone would flee Maine or Vermont for Los Angeles or (God help us) Chicago is beyond me.

[dismalist]

Why anyone would flee Maine or Vermont for Los Angeles or (God help us) Chicago is beyond me.

We could build walls, just to make sure no one does! :-)

[writingprof]

Why anyone would flee Maine or Vermont for Los Angeles or (God help us) Chicago is beyond me.

We could build walls, just to make sure no one does! :-)

Well, that would be in-character, politically speaking.  The Rights builds walls to keep people out.  The Left builds walls to keep people in.

[mamselle]

Hunh?

Who on the left builds (or has built) walls?

M.

[dismalist]

Hunh?

Who on the left builds (or has built) walls?

M.

Hoid o' this one?

https://www.chron.com/local/article/The-Wall-is-Gone-Iconic-photos-from-the-night-14817204.php#photo-18573454

[mamselle]

I had that particularly in mind (I was present at the Brandenberger Tor on NYEve, Y2K....oouf! The noise and the jam-packed crowds, with the Reichstag nearby, were something...)

But I consider Soviet Communists to be exponents of the far right, not the left....they migrated so far away from Marx they crossed over the line at the top of the circle, as far as I'm concerned....

So....imagery and its interpretations are multivalent.

M.

[BlueberryBagel]

I know that the Navajo Nation has increased visibility right now, so it's important for people to remember that yes, people do want to live there. It's their homeland, which they returned to after being held as prisoners of war in Oklahoma. Look up the Long Walk.

Any discussion of poverty and politics on reservations that does not center the United States's genocide against Native Americans and their continuing status as colonized people is ignorant and unhelpful. You also have to understand the continued racism they suffer in border communities.

A lack of enterprise on the reservation largely apart from mining is by design. Native American reservation land is not owned by them, so they have to ask the Bureau of Indian Affairs for permission to do things. The US has violated every single treaty it ever made, and you can see this in action with the Trump administration's recent legal war on the Mashpee Wampanoag.

If Navajos aren't doing well on the reservation, it's the systematic result of govt policy. So much of what has been discussed about Navajos is poverty porn written by journalists who want a great story but don't actually have any desire to deal with the hundreds of years of history that result in what you see now.

It is an illegitimate comparison to try to talk about "rural" areas as thought they are of a type, anyway. There are lots of Navajo and Native American academics who have published on these things. You can read Jennifer Nez Denetdale, a Navajo historian, or Audra Simpson on Mohawk, for example.

[apl68]

I had that particularly in mind (I was present at the Brandenberger Tor on NYEve, Y2K....oouf! The noise and the jam-packed crowds, with the Reichstag nearby, were something...)

But I consider Soviet Communists to be exponents of the far right, not the left....they migrated so far away from Marx they crossed over the line at the top of the circle, as far as I'm concerned....

So....imagery and its interpretations are multivalent.

M.

Far Right and Far Left don't seem that different to me.  The Nazis were socialists, after all, and Marxists are invariably guilty of the sort of demonization of the Other that tends to be associated with the Far Right.  They're both convinced that a government that doesn't have to worry about accountability to the general public or humanitarian concerns can manage the world better than the general public can. 

But this has strayed an awfully long way from the original topic....