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Speaking at the Tea Party group Americans For Prosperity’s Michigan branch in Troy, Michigan, GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum attacked President Barack Obama for wanting students to go to college (video below).

Santorum said: "President Obama wants everybody in America to go to college, what a snob. There are good, decent men and women who work hard every day and put their skills to the test that aren’t taught by some liberal college professor. And trying to indoctrinate them.”

However, In 2006, while he was a senator, Santorum pushed to make college more affordable for all Pennsylvanians on his web site. http://www.opposingviews.com/i/politics/2012-election/video-rick-santo
rum-calls-pres-obama-snob-advocating-college-education, Santorum told Beck that “62 percent of kids who go into college with a faith commitment leave without it,” but failed to say where he found that figure.

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“You know the statistic that at least I was familiar with from a few years ago, I don't know if it still holds true but I suspect it may even be worse, that 62 percent of kids who enter college with some sort of faith commitment leave without it.”

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"statistic that I was familiar with"...uh, huh...

How about some FACTS regarding all that?

The omission: PBS tracked down a study Santorum might have been referring to

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but it actually suggests that people who have not enrolled in college are even less religious. “64 percent of those currently enrolled in a traditional four-year institution have curbed their attendance habits,” said the study, published in the journal Social Forces. “Yet, 76 percent of those who never enrolled in college report a decline in religious service attendance.”

Another study, published last year in the Review of Religious Research, found that for each year of education after 7th grade, seemingly contradictory trends emerge: people become more likely to attend religious services and to believe in a “higher power” but at the same time they are less likely to say the Bible is the “actual word of God” and become more open to believing there is truth in more than one religion.

The researcher, sociologist Philip Schwadel, concluded after analyzing data from a large national survey:

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“The above results suggest that religion plays an important role in the lives of highly educated Americans. While education has a positive effect on switching religious af?liations, particularly to mainline denominations and ‘other’ religious traditions, it is unrelated to religious disaf?liation. Education also has a positive effect on religious participation, emphasizing the importance of religion, and supporting the rights of religious authorities to in?uence people’s votes.”

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The flat-out lie? Obama never said everyone has to, or even should, go to college.

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“And so tonight, I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training. This can be community college or a four-year school; vocational training or an apprenticeship. But whatever the training may be, every American will need to get more than a high school diploma. And dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It’s not just quitting on yourself, it’s quitting on your country — and this country needs and values the talents of every American.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/santorums-misfir
e-on-obama-colleges-and-religion/2012/02/27/gIQAl5KWeR_blog.html COURSE it's red meat to lie about what Obama said, and call him a "snob" for saying what he didn't, we all know that.

It's also quite a flip-flop for Santorum, who made a campaign pledge in 2006:

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“ensuring the [sic] every Pennsylvanian has access to higher education,” including providing “loans, grants, and tax incentives to make higher education more accessible and affordable.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/santorums-misfir
e-on-obama-colleges-and-religion/2012/02/27/gIQAl5KWeR_blog.html

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In other words, more reach for something his base can applaud, by lying and making it something other than it really is. I notice Santorum felt college was a good thing for HIM, by the way, given he has more degrees than Obama himself...

Obama has repeated his earlier statement, apparently in response to Santorum's lie.

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“When I speak about higher education we’re not just talking about a four-year degree,” Obama said. “We’re talking about somebody going to a community college and getting trained for that manufacturing job that now is requiring somebody walking through the door, handling a million-dollar piece of equipment. And they can’t go in there unless they’ve got some basic training beyond what they received in high school.”

The president added: “We all want Americans to get those jobs of the future. We need to make sure they get the education they need.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/44/post/obama-hits-back-against-sa
ntorum-snob-criticism-by-defending-college-education-stance/2012/02/27/gIQAmnt5dR_blog.html?tid=pm_politics_pop] It's a shame he felt the need to, but I understand why. Doesn't matter, actually, as Santorum's audience will continue to believe the lie he told them:

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“Not all folks are gifted in the same way,” Santorum told a crowd of more than 1,000 activists at the Americans for Prosperity forum in Troy, Mich. “Some people have incredible gifts with their hands. Some people have incredible gifts and ... want to work out there making things. President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob.”

Santorum is targeting working-class voters in his bid for the White House. Though he holds more college degrees than Obama {there's the hypocrisy}, Santorum added: “There are good decent men and women who go out and work hard every day and put their skills to test that aren’t taught by some liberal college professor trying to indoctrinate them. Oh, I understand why he wants you to go to college. He wants to remake you in his image. I want to create jobs so people can remake their children into their image, not his.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/44/post/obama-hits-back-against-sa
ntorum-snob-criticism-by-defending-college-education-stance/2012/02/27/gIQAmnt5dR_blog.html?tid=pm_politics_pop all get it; buzz words like "snob", "liberal college professor", "not (his) image" work great on the campaign trail, and the lie is quite convenient, but what an asinine thing to say, and again, there are no limits to the lies these guys feel quite free to tell!

Even Republicans disagree with Santorum's propaganda:

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Several of the Republican governors who were present for Obama’s remarks distanced themselves from Santorum and said they agreed with the president on encouraging more young people to attend college.

“I wish he’d said it differently,” Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R), who has endorsed Mitt Romney in the GOP presidential nomination fight, said of Santorum. “I’m pushing in Virginia this year 100,000 new degrees over the next 15 years. I want more college graduates..?.?. There’s no question, when you look at what’s going on in other countries, China, India, the premium they put on higher education, we’ve got to do better if we still want to be the global leader we are.”

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R), who also is backing Romney, said Obama "has a good strong message on education. In Arizona, we’re trying to implement the things that he talked about. It’s one area in which we agree on. We all know how important education is to our state and our country.”
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Obama said that more than 40 states have cut higher education funding over the past year, “part of a long-term trend of reduced state support for higher education.”

“Too many states are making cuts to education that I think are too big,” Obama said. “Today, I’m calling on all of you to invest more in education. Invest more in our children and our future.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/44/post/obama-hits-back-against-sa
ntorum-snob-criticism-by-defending-college-education-stance/2012/02/27/gIQAmnt5dR_blog.html?tid=pm_politics_pop

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Those cuts in education are very real and are damaging our country, but of course Santorum doesn't give a shit about that!

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In my opinion, Niki's posts are to begin a discussion, maybe not all of them, but in general.

Your posting attitude is that you are teaching people about things they dont know, which is arrogant, and typically absurd. You reach as hard as u can to correlate some quote by someone on "The Left" and then make generalizations and conclusion about it.

Niki posts things on current events. Using this thread as an example, Santorum said something outrageous, that even he had to back away from immediately (check his fox interview the next day).

How is that not topical, during an election campaign?

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This trajectory is clear: in 1973, twenty-five million jobs required applicants to have at least some college education. By 2007, that number had nearly quadrupled to ninety-one million jobs. During that time, the percentage of jobs available to high school dropouts fell from 32 percent to 11 percent, while the percentage of jobs requiring some education after high school grew from 28 percent to 59 percent (Carnevale, Smith and Strohl, 2010).

Just as importantly, the changing labor market will continue to push demand. The National Bureau of Economic Research states that there is a, “growing mismatch between the jobs that will be created over the next decade and the education training of our adult workers.” Those jobs that rely on workers with only a high school education or less are quickly receding in numbers and importance (Heckman, Humphries and Maden, 2010). Another recent analysis funded by a number of foundations looking to promote higher education attainment levels in the US, and worried over the progress of economic competitors, notes that, “Postsecondary education has become the threshold requirement for a middle-class family income,” and that the Great Recession is accelerating the shift in jobs that require a college degree. Yet the educational attainment level of both lower income families and the middle class is dropping (Carnevale, Smith and Strohl, 2010).

The Great Recession has accelerated these financial troubles for public colleges and universities, where currently some 80 percent of all students in the US are enrolled. In the mega-state of California, for example, it has led to estimates that in the 2010-11 academic year approximately 250,000 eligible students were denied access to the state’s public higher education system. Over 200,000 would have enrolled normally in one of California’s 110 community colleges; but the lack of funding and an extremely low tuition and fee policy resulted in large-scale decreases in the teaching staff and the number of courses that could be offered (Douglass, 2010b).

President Obama announced in 2009 the goal that by 2020, “America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.” He also asked that every American commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training. “This can be Community College or a four year school; vocational training or an apprenticeship. But whatever the training may be, every American will need to get more than a high school diploma” (White House, 2009).

The inability of the public sector to meet current let alone future demand, means that California and other states are experiencing the “Brazilian Effect”: namely, and as noted previously, when public higher education cannot keep pace with growing public demand for access and programs, FPs rush to fill that gap. This is the pattern in many developing economies including Brazil. Unlike the American experience, there is only a small presence of large corporate FPs – although many US companies are attempting to change that. To be fair, Brazil has recently made significant strides to regulate its non-public providers through a new accreditation process to weed out or force improvement in the sector, and has pushed the development of three-year colleges oriented toward vocational degree programs. There is recognized value in the for-profit sector but a sense that it has taken up too much of the market share of higher education.

California is on the opposite side of the curve. There is currently a steep rise in enrollment in FPs in California precisely because of budget and enrollment cuts, as well as failure to expand degree programs within the state’s tripartite public higher education system and that includes the ten campus University of California, the twenty three campus California State University, CSU, and a network of 112 Community Colleges. Like in other parts of the US, and the world, FPs serve a large proportion of California students who come from “underserved communities,” and are on average from low-income minority groups. In 2008, 29 percent of students in California for-profits were from low-income backgrounds, and 31 percent were African-American, Latino, or Native American. And like the national averages, attrition rates in California at these institutions are very high and degree production rates low, and students end up with large debts (Carey and Dillon, 2011). http://cshe.berkeley.edu/publications/docs/ROPS.JAD.ForProfitsUS.2.15.
2012.pdf

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On August 4, 2010, Senator Tom Harkin gaveled into session what was to be the first of six hearings on the For-Profit higher education sector. Armed with the findings of the Government Accountability Office that reported predatory recruiting practices by 15 FP campuses that violated federal laws, Harkin’s views marked a strong contrast to the open market leanings of Republicans and the past Bush administration. It was about consumer protection and federal spending. “Education is too important for the future of this country,” he said. “Facing the budget problems we have in the next 10 years, we just can't permit more and more of the taxpayers' dollars that are supposed to go for education and quality education … to be going to pay shareholders or private investors” (Harkin, 2010).

The GAO report accused both the University of Phoenix and Kaplan College of paying recruiters bonuses for enticing and enrolling students, almost all of whom needed substantial taxpayer funded financial aid – a violation of federal law. There was also evidence that these and other FPs targeted veterans with benefits under the Post-9/11 GI Bill; they charged extremely high tuition rates for programs that, in Harkin’s words, “may bring little benefit to future employment opportunities, low graduation rates and high default rates” (Harkin, 2010). Same

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