Monthly Archives: April 2024

Considering the rising cost of tuition at LMU and other universities nationwide coupled with the relatively low wages that students pursuing a degree in the liberal arts receive post-graduation begs the question: is pursuing a degree in the liberal arts "worth it?"

The short answer: its complicated.

The 2023-24 cost of undergraduate on-campus attendance was $84,132, according to previous Loyolan reporting on the estimated cost of attendance. Based on this figure, four years of undergraduate education at LMU without any financial aid or scholarships will be approximately $336,528.

The 2,127 students currently pursuing a degree in the liberal arts at LMU are on track to make less money than that of their peers pursuing a career in STEM fields, according to LMU's page on College Scorecard, a U.S. Department of Education platform that allows people to compare university outcomes.

According to College Scorecard, a student at LMU pursuing a bachelors degree in accounting and related services which is a major in the College of Business Administration (CBA) is estimated to make a median annual income of $91,902 within four years of graduating. On the other hand, students who receive a bachelors degree in political science and government which is a major in the Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts (BCLA) are estimated to make a median annual income of $57,686 within four years of graduating from LMU.

A study done by the Public Policy Institute of California in 2023 found that someone with a bachelors degree earned 62% more than someone with a high school level of education.

We know that if you have a college degree, and if you apply yourself in college and have a few internship experiences, regardless of your major you will substantially have a higher income in life, said incoming BCLA Dean Richard Fox Ph.D., associate chair of political science.

Some advocates of the liberal arts say the beauty of a liberal arts education is that it doesnt prepare you for one specific thing,specified Graham Beattie, Ph.D., associate professor and associate chair of economics. In some ways that can be advantageous. Why do you get a liberal arts degree? It's because you're prepared for anything."

Having a degree in a liberal arts field could offer career flexibility that is not always available to someone pursuing a degree in a specific field despite those people making more money post-graduation.

People from liberal arts degrees work pretty evenly across the economy, said Beattie. I can steer myself over time into wherever is good for what I'm interested in in my geographical area [and at a] particular time. Whereas someone with a very specific qualification-oriented degree wouldn't have that ability.

Arik Greenberg, Ph.D., professor in interreligious dialogue, believes that while an education is highly valuable in todays world, he doubts if the cost of education is justified.

Education is always a good thing, but is the cost justifying the education? asked Greenberg. [If it costs $336,528] for an undergraduate higher education, is that worth what you're going to [make] when you get out of this degree program? I would say it's highly questionable.

Greenberg recalls his time in graduate school and working in construction, maintenance and janitorial services to foot the bill of his education. He says if he had pursued a career in plumbing or electrical he would be making a better living than he is right now, as a non-tenured professor at LMU.

I know I would not be happy doing that because I'm an activist; I'm a public intellectual; I want to have an impact on society and on young minds. That's my life's dream; that's my life's goal. I would not be happy just turning a wrench or swinging a hammer, said Greenberg.

Mia Gutierrez, a sophomore political science major, says she feels like she needs to stay on a career path that will make her money, despite having interest in exploring other areas of political science that may pay less.

I think that the tuition is getting out of hand [given] the workforce, especially because of how difficult it is to get a job, said Gutierrez. I feel like I have to stick to the path where I make the most money I need a job where I can pay off my college loans.

Despite projected low post-graduation wages for students pursuing a liberal arts degree, the demand for college has not decreased dramatically, meaning colleges can continue to raise prices without fear oflower enrollment.

So, why can colleges continue to charge as much as theydo?

College, particularly at a private institution like LMU, is expensive for a number of reasons. College is a labor-intensive production process, according to Beattie. Particularly at a school like LMU where class sizes are small, the amount of faculty that need to be hired in order to offer the education that LMU offers is quite high.

According to previous Loyolan reporting, $261 million of LMUs total expenses was dedicated to salaries, othercompensation [and] employee benefits in the 2022 fiscal year.

A 2023 studydone by the Public Policy Institute of Californiafound that someone with a bachelors degree earned 62% more than someone with a high school level of education.

Beattie also highlights that there is a competition between universities to offer a quality experience to their students, through a nice campus and facilities.

If you think of what you are buying with your tuition, you're buying a bundle of things. You're buying a lot of faculty hours which are expensive staff hours, which are generally not as expensive but still a lot of labor, and then you're buying access to this campus, which is [the] fanciest place in a high real estate cost area, said Beattie.

Both Beattie and Greenberg agree that students pursuing a degree at a liberal arts institution should be aware of the potential economic trade-offs that come with pursuing a liberal arts degree, but it should not deter anyone from that path.

If you want to do a liberal arts degree, go ahead and do a liberal arts degree, as long as you are not going into it misinformed about economics, said Beattie. If you go into it saying, 'Yes, I know this isn't the highest return, but this is still what I want to do,' then who is anyone to tell you that's not something you should do?

When Greenbergs students approach him about going into a career in academia, he wants them to consider if it is the only thing they could possibly be happy doing as a career, due to the low salaries many non-tenured professors receive.

I don't want to dissuade students from going into higher education, but I want them to go into it with their eyes fully open to the risks and the fact that they may take a decade before they ever even get gainful employment, said Greenberg.

Greenberg and Fox believe that education particularly a liberal arts education creates critical thinkers that bring immense value to not only their careers but to the world around them.

We see all these studies increasing saying they are looking for people who can think. I can teach anyone to code, but I need someone who can think creatively and critically, said Fox. I still firmly believe that students should pursue what excites them to do, and if they do that ... it will work out for them.

I think all education is valuable, said Greenberg. I'd do it all over again, because I think education makes a more well-rounded, educated and involved [population].

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Is a $330000 liberal arts education still 'worth it?' - Los Angeles Loyolan

OPINION:

For decades, liberals have dismissed any claim that they collude on their message. But for those same decades, it has been clear that members of the liberal intelligentsia often parrot the same talking points on a given topic across every medium.

So-called journalists with mainstream media outlets have guffawed when critics point out that the lefty talking heads are all on the same page. Some go so far as to mock those who make the claims, saying, What, you think we have weekly meetings?

It turns out that despite all the denials, they actually do have weekly meetings.

Picture this: Every Friday, a Zoom window pops up, and its showtime for the Anti-Trump Avengers, helmed by Norman Eisen, a man who has seen more of the inside of a courtroom (even if just on TV) than most people have seen of their own kitchens.

Mr. Eisen, who cut his teeth in the Obama administration and now moonlights as a legal pundit for CNN, plays host to the merry band of Trump critics. Politico spilled the tea during the weekly gossip sessions, where, rumor has it, participants fine-tuned their disdain for all things Trump with the precision of a Swiss watchmaker.

Whos on the guest list? Imagine a Zoom Brady Bunch grid filled with the likes of political gadflies Bill Kristol and George Conway (whose opposition to Donald Trump could probably power a small city), and sprinkled with academic heft from Harvards very own Laurence Tribe.

Theyre also joined by John Dean, a right-hand man for President Richard Nixon who knows a thing or two about presidential scandals, and cable news legal eagles Andrew Weissmann and Jeffrey Toobin, who are no strangers to stirring the pot (Mr. Toobin is, of course, very hands-on).

Their mission involves dissecting the former presidents latest legal dramas with the zeal of teenagers debating the merits of their favorite pop stars. But instead of BTS vs. One Direction, its constitutional law and courtroom maneuvers. The gatherings apparently fuel their fiery appearances across the media landscape, giving talking points a whole new meaning.

Mr. Conway might write a think piece for The Atlantic one moment and then pop up on MSNBC to discuss the same ideas, while Mr. Weissmann dives even deeper on his podcast, ambitiously titled Prosecuting Donald Trump.

Mr. Toobin, fresh from a Zoom mishap thats too NSFW to recount here, is back on CNN, casting doubt on the success of any case against Mr. Trump led by the DA in Fulton County, Georgia because if youre going to go big, why not aim for presidential controversy?

And as if this superhero team-up werent star-studded enough, cameo appearances by The Washington Posts Jennifer Rubin and CNNs Karen Agnifilo add even more sparkle to the galaxy of legal minds getting their story straight.

The Politico bombshell came a week after a journalist with National Public Radio about as liberal a news outlet as you can find, which also happens to be funded by you, the taxpayer ripped NPR for its endless liberal bent.

In a piece on Bari Weiss online news site, The Free Press, headlined Ive Been at NPR For 25 Years. Heres How We Lost Americas Trust, Mr. Berliner said that among NPRs Washington editorial staff, there are no Republicans.

When I suggested we had a diversity problem with a score of 87 Democrats and zero Republicans, the response wasnt hostile, Mr. Berliner wrote. It was worse. It was met with profound indifference.

I got a few messages from surprised, curious colleagues, he wrote. But the messages were of the oh wow, thats weird variety, as if the lopsided tally was a random anomaly rather than a critical failure of our diversity North Star.

In his piece, Mr. Berliner said that NPR has been plagued by a group think thats really clustered around very selective, progressive views that dont allow enough air, enough spaciousness to consider all kinds of perspectives.

After his piece emerged, the liberal media lost their minds. Mr. Berliner, an award-winning business editor and reporter, was promptly suspended and then resigned amid the furor.

And there you have it: A week later, Politico reported that liberals across the media spectrum really do get together to coordinate their talking points, which they then spout on a host of outlets.

Who knew?

Actually, we did. We all knew. Its pretty obvious.

Joseph Curl covered the White House and politics for a decade for The Washington Times. He can be reached at josephcurl@gmail.com and on X @josephcurl.

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Liberal pundits really do have weekly meetings to 'shape' message on Trump - Washington Times

Hungary is an independent conservative island in the European progressive liberal ocean, it is a constitutional state where everyone can freely express their opinion, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban told attendees of the Conservative Political Action Conference(CPAC), which is taking place in Hungary on April 25-26.

For the third consecutive year, Budapest is hosting a gathering of radical right-wing politiciansand pundits.

The participants include Dutch politician Geert Wilders (PVV), Santiago Abascal, Chairman of the Spanish party VOX, former Slovenian prime minister Janez Jansa anda number of Trumpist Republicans.

The accreditation of many foreign and local media outlets was rejected, and they were encouraged instead to follow the event via a live stream. Organisers informed journalists thatthe conference is a "no woke zone," and that coverage would be possible at "future events when and if your organisation becomes significantly less woke".

The conference was organised by the state-funded organization Center for Fundamental Rights. Its head Miklos Szantho, in his opening address, said the aim of CPAC Hungary is no less than to organise a global coalition of anti-globalist forces.

He said the conference in 2023 had been about deepening cooperation on the right, and this year was about springing into action. We must drain the swamp in Brussels in June and in Washington in November, he added.

An inglorious period of Western civilisation could be brought to an end this year, by replacing the world built on progressive-liberal hegemony with a sovereignist one, Orban said after taking the stage.

According to Hungarys strongman, the progressive-liberal world order had failed as it had only brought about wars and discord, economic collapse and chaos. The leaders emerging from that world order were "unfit for the task, heap error upon error, and end up walking into their doom", he said.

The liberals are already sensing the danger and a change could mean their downfall, which is why they are doing everything to maintain power. As in 2019, Hungarys nationalist leader is hoping for a breakthrough of radical right-wing parties at the EP elections and the victory of Republican candidate Donald Trump in November's US presidential election.

Orban accused liberal progressive" governments of employing tactics many of his critics say he had used himself to silence critics,

Theyuse government agencies against us, or as my American friends would say, "weaponize state institutions".

"This happens to us Hungarians constantly in Brussels. This is what is happening to President Trump in America, and we encourage him to fight for his own truth not only in the elections but also in the courts."

In contrast to the liberal progressive world,supported by US financier George Soross open society, the sovereigntist world order will construct a "protected society", protecting the borders, and families.

The prime minister struck an optimistic tone, telling CPAC attendees: "Make America great again, make Europe great again! Go Donald Trump, go European sovereigntists!"

"Let's saddle up, put on our armour, head to the battlefield and begin the election battle!" he said.

On the first day of the conference, Orban held talks on the event's sidelines withJanza and former Australian premier Tony Abbott. The prime minister hosted a gala reception for 80 special foreign guests later in the evening.

In his speech,Jansa said there is no sovereigntywithoutborder control. The open border policy of the liberal-left aims to dismantle Western civilisations.

Numerous speakers at CPAC voiced their support for combating woke ideology, antisemitism, and "illegal" immigration. Tom van Grieken, leader of the Belgian Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest), commended Hungary's commitment to freedom of speech and strongly condemned the recent shutdown of the National Conservatism Conference (NatCon) in Brussels.

The Belgian politician said Hungary is the centre of conservative resistance. Amihai Sikli, Israeli Minister for Diaspora Affairs, praised the flourishing relations between the two countries, emphasising that the Hungarian government is one of Israel's biggest supporters. He praised Budapest as "one of the safest capitals in Europe for Jews" and praised Hungary's "zero tolerance" onantisemitism.

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Orban: Hungary is island in the European progressive liberal ocean - bne IntelliNews

The attempted shutdown of the National Conservatism Conference by police in Brussels made for a diverting spectacle. Staged at the centre of the European project, the flagrant attack on free speech and association was a piquant commentary on the bien pensant fancy that the European Union is redeeming the dark continent and refounding it on the basis of liberal values.

The local mayor who authorised the assault declared that the far right was not welcome in the city. Whether the conference can be described in these terms is questionable, but as he made the announcement parties that are undoubtedly from the far right were preparing to become a deciding force in the European Parliament after the elections in June. The meeting was resumed after the ban was condemned by the Belgian prime minister and overturned by the countrys top administrative court.

Yet this was not the only example of creeping authoritarianism. In a separate incident, the former Greek finance minister, left-wing political theorist and pro-Palestine speaker Yanis Varoufakis was prohibited from entering German territory and connecting with public meetings in Germany by video link. Throughout these episodes, the EU was silent.

Suspending freedom of expression for the sake of liberal values may seem a paradox, but it is not illogical. For latter-day hyper-liberals, free speech is useful only so long as it advances a progressive project. Confronted by criticism, they respond by trying to suppress debate. An ever-widening category of hate speech is deployed against any discourse deemed offensive or a risk to public safety.

The canonical liberal John Stuart Mill is often invoked against censorship of this sort, and it is true that in On Liberty (1859) he argued that free speech must include the freedom to cause offence. But when, in the same essay, he argued that the value of freedom lay in collective well-being or utility, he specified that it must be utility in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of man as a progressive being. Free speech had little value if it served reactionary ends.

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Like many other 19th-century liberals, Mill feared the rise of democratic government because he believed it meant empowering an ignorant and tyrannical majority. Time and again, he vilified the torpid masses who were content with traditional ways of living.

At present, however, it is the masses that are preserving liberal freedoms. Nicola Sturgeons dominance of Scottish politics came to an abrupt end with gender self-ID, which is rejected by most voters because it undermines the liberty of women to have their own safe spaces. The resounding defeat of Leo Varadkars referenda on family life has stalled and possibly stymied Irelands draconian hate speech bill. Both leaders were toppled by resistance to the imposition of progressive values on majorities that do not share them. The most effective defence against tyranny is not an ever multiplying panoply of rights, which activist judges interpret in accordance with the ruling ideology, but a functioning democracy.

The fundamental threat to freedom in the West comes not from Marxism, postmodernism or even the increasing sway of autocratic regimes in boardrooms and universities, but from within liberalism. From being an empirical philosophy, open in principle to learning from experience, it has become a self-referential world-view that screens out forbidden truths. With the closing of the liberal mind, critical thinking has become the recitation of a secular catechism, an exercise designed to banish other modes of thought.

At bottom, the liberal assault on free speech is a bid for unchecked power. By shifting the locus of decision from democratic deliberation to legal procedures, progressives aim to insulate their cultish programmes from contestation and accountability. The politicisation of law and the hollowing out of politics go hand in hand.

The high point of this strategy may have been the ruling earlier this month by the Council of Europes Strasbourg Court that the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) mandates a right to protection from the adverse effects of global warming. Unsurprisingly, the social and economic costs of climate justice were excluded from consideration. The ruling can only strengthen the case for the UKs withdrawal from the ECHR and the Council of Europe, already compelling after decades of judicial overreach. It is telling that, less than a fortnight after the court issued its judgment, the Scottish government abandoned its 2030 net zero target.

There is a lesson here for Labour. Behind the conservative public image his advisers have cultivated for campaigning purposes, Keir Starmer and his shadow cabinet seem curiously confident that history is on the side of progressives like themselves. The little we know of what they plan to do in office involves a further devolution of authority to institutions led by technocrats and lawyers. Behind the scenes, Tony Blair is promoting a model of governance in which democracy figures as an inconvenient afterthought.

The persisting influence of hyper-liberal extremism in professedly centrist parties invites a dangerous blowback. The spectres of Donald Trump returning to the White House in 2025 and Marine Le Pen entering the lyse Palace in 2027 loom. Politics is reasserting its primacy, while Labour marches resolutely into the past.

[See also: Dune: Part Two depicts a world of ceaseless struggle like our own]

This article appears in the 24 Apr 2024 issue of the New Statesman, The Age of Danger

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The biggest threat to freedom in the West is liberalism itself - The New Statesman

National Public Radio's Editor for 25 years Uri Berliner has just spilled the beans revealing how the broadcast is totally liberal biased. NPR is under the Public Broadcasting System. About 17% of NPR's budget is federal government funded by tax payers. Berliner stated that NPR has become a liberal advocacy group that sought to topple President Trump. That race and identity became paramount in nearly every aspect of the workplace. That NPR's stance was that America is infested with systematic racism. Berliner stated the most damaging development at NPR is the absence of viewpoint diversity. Berliner found that in the NPR newsroom there were 87 Democrats to 0 Republicans. And he stated than an open-minded spirit no longer existed within NPR. NPR is really no different than other liberal biased news broadcasts and outlets like the NY Times, Washington Post, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS and PBS. Our local AZ Daily Star is operated by the same liberal biased people as at NPR. All like minded clones of each other.

Disclaimer: As submitted to the Arizona Daily Star.

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Letter: NPR Editor Berliner reveals liberal bias of network - Arizona Daily Star

In its well-meaning effort to encourage the migration of international students to Canada, the Trudeau government is turning swaths of our postsecondary education system into a grift.

As a result, broad public support for immigration, the foundation stone of multicultural Canada, is eroding.

My colleague Marie Woolf has been investigating and reporting on the flood of international students there are now more than a million who have been coming into Canada in recent years. Many of these students get a sound education, land good jobs and eventually become valued Canadian citizens.

But others show up at so-called puppy mills: pop-up private colleges noticeably lacking in academic rigour or, for that matter, much in the way of classrooms or teachers.

They are here as much for the work permit as for an education, and to leverage that work into permanent-resident status. This is a reasonable hope, since the Liberals have vastly increased the number of permanent residents being admitted to this country, from 260,400 in 2014, to a projected 500,000 next year.

But not everyone lands a spot through the regular stream. And so many of these students make asylum claims.

This is so wrong.

There may be students who, after studying in Canada, fear persecution when they return to their home country. Maybe they are LGBTQ. Maybe they come from a country such as Haiti, where already grim conditions have become even worse.

But many are simply seeking to stay here while their claim works its way through a system that is already so overwhelmed some claimants are living in homeless shelters or on the street and it can take several years before the Immigration and Refugee Board reaches a final decision on an application.

The worst thing about all this? The Liberals immigration policies have accomplished the very opposite of what they intended: They have undermined support for immigration.

Poll after poll after poll reports that an increasing number of Canadians now believe there are too many immigrants coming into Canada. To cite just one example: An Environics Institute study showed that the share of the population who believe there are too many immigrants coming into Canada rose from only 27 per cent in 2022 to 41 per cent in 2023.

(The survey involved telephone interviews of 2,002 Canadians conducted Sept. 4-17, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.)

The federal government is moving, belatedly, to place caps on international-student migration. But we have entered the whack-a-mole phase of this government, in which each new policy seeks to correct for past failures.

Because Canadas aging society needed young workers, and because, as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau put it, diversity is our strength, the Liberals began ratcheting up the intake of both permanent residents and temporary foreign workers soon after they came into office. This was, in principle, the right thing to do.

But they went too far, too fast and with too few guardrails. The result was the worst housing crisis in the G7, as millions of newcomers competed with those already here for a place to call home.

To compensate, last weeks budget poured billions of dollars into supports for housing. But with the federal budget already deeply in the red, Chrystia Freeland had to find new revenue, so the Finance Minister hiked the tax on capital gains.

The increased taxes will further suppress productivity growth, and, as a TD Economics analysis of the budget observed, Canadas productivity has been abysmal.

Maybe the next budget will dedicate itself to improving productivity growth by cutting back on immigration. Nothing would surprise any more.

There is a final irony to all of this. Since the days of the Laurier government in the late 1800s, the Liberal Party has been the party that supported immigration and that immigrants supported.

But an online survey in December by Leger of 2,104 adults who arrived in Canada within the past 10 years (margin of error within 2.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20) found that 4 in 10 newcomers believe Canada brings in too many immigrants.

The Conservatives are now as popular as the Liberals with newcomers. There would be a certain irony if the Liberal Partys wide-open immigration policies caused immigrant voters to contribute to its defeat.

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Opinion: The Liberals' immigration policies have accomplished the opposite of what was intended - The Globe and Mail