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It’s an appealing sentiment. I’d like to see academia operate more as the proverbial marketplace of ideas; compare Scott’s observations on colleges looking for one-sided trade-offs. Do DeSantis and Rufo actually have a chance to bring this about?
Institutions who don’t overlook the niche of vaguely principled young conservatives should get competent students for cheap. All else equal, students should accept less of a scholarship to go somewhere that doesn’t hate their guts. But as usual, all else is not equal.
Political theater is not conducive to maintaining an institution’s reputation. As long as conservative wins are framed as “owning the libs,” the spoils can’t retain their prestige. Not when they’ve been owned.
The long march through the institutions was insulated from that sort of feedback. Vastly increased college attendance limited employers’ ability to devalue schools. The overall level of information available was much lower. And there was no standout political figure crowing about his hand in each takeover.
Every press release by DeSantis is an excuse for supporters to rally. To exult in his theatrics, to cheer for “based Chris Rufo.” It’s great for the lib-owning narrative and, most likely, his presidential campaign. New College may even benefit. But it only hurts the link between New College and elite jobs that conservatives would need to exploit. DeSantis cannot, will not, cash in his popularity for a lasting conservative presence in academia. Not by “owning” a school or three.
Anything that can be dismissed as political grandstanding will be. His influence over the state curriculum is much more promising; employers cannot dismiss the entire state of Florida. Even so, every gain made by his personal campaign comes at some risk to the broader goal.
You cannot make New College (or any college) more friendly to or even tolerant of conservatives without harming the link between the college and those elite jobs which right now exclude conservatives. Making a college more tolerant of conservatives ipso facto makes it less suitable for recruiting into those jobs.
True.
But advertising your takeover for political points has to be the fastest (legal) way to destroy that reputation. DeSantis is attaching his high-profile, intentionally controversial face to the subject. I believe that a more subtle approach would deal much less damage to the link, because the marginal elite job is going to be less closed.
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Do hillsdale university graduates have any difficulty finding employment?
BYU is Mormon AF and soft-republican. It has some of the best employment outcomes in the US.
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I don’t actually know. None of its notable graduates seem familiar, but that’s not saying much.
There’s also the question of supply. I grew up relatively close to Bob Jones University. It’s best known for exporting theologians and evangelists, who aren’t exactly competing in the same markets as secular schools.
I tried to compare salaries as a proxy for ease of employment. BJU business: $31K, nursing $59K. U of Charleston, one of the best private schools in West Virginia: business $43K, nursing $59K. There aren’t a lot of public schools at this size; I grabbed Minot State in North Dakota. Business $38K, nursing $63K. Larger public schools like Clemson looked similar ($41K, $57K); elite schools didn’t post nearly as much info. I couldn’t find numbers for Hillsdale.
I’d conclude that the demand for a BJU-trained business degree is slightly lower, while nursing is apparently the same everywhere. Overall employment results are going to be heavily influenced by the kind of jobs sought, which are going to be different between religious schools and secular ones. But this is not great evidence either way.
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