I also agree that higher ed is under attack- which is why I wish Mesa had focused on their academic offerings, and not just “we don’t care who your daddy is”. Fun ad, they must have had a blast making it.
I believe that most people (even the fervently “anti-university/too elite/bastions of liberalism” want a cure (or more likely, hundreds of different cures) for various cancers. I believe that most people- even the ones screaming that climate change is a fake- would rather NOT have to have their shoreline home swept away by a “once in a hundred year” storm which seems to arrive every ten years or so. And most people don’t want our air traffic control system or electrical grid or banking system or hospital operating rooms shut down willy nilly due to cyber attacks which have become increasingly sophisticated.
Sure, there’s a lone researcher out there toiling away in his or her garage who may make progress on some of these issues. But even the folks shouting that college is for losers and we should defund Berkeley because it is too radical and should be shut down– understand on some level that allowing universities to do what they do is ultimately going to help people. Even people like them who don’t believe in “book larning”. As emotionally appealing as it is, we aren’t seeing big, inventive, ground breaking research coming out of the “We aren’t politically correct and we don’t take government money” colleges. Are VC’s lining up to fund the startups coming out of Liberty or Hillsdale?
Not every student is going to end up winning a Nobel in medicine and that’s just fine also. So if Mesa wants to emphasize its cred in training occupational therapists and nurses- terrific. We need those also. But breaking the anti-higher ed mindset is going to take a lot more than poking fun at rich people. It’s like the old saw- there are no atheists in foxholes. And I’m observing more and more that all the people who “hate” elite educational institutions and the people who work there, study there, fund things- all seem to end up at their affiliated hospitals when they have a scary diagnosis. People love to hate Harvard- but they sure love the neurology department at Mass General.