Florida's Governor Declares War on Useless Degrees
Florida's comically unpopular governor, Rick Scott, has decided to pick another new, arbitrary fight: This time with anthropology majors! And psychology majors, and really all liberal arts/social science majors, whom he believes his state university system subsidizes for no good reason. Have any of these invalids ever gotten a job, in Florida? There is no reason to humor them any longer.
Scott pissed off a broad chunk of the Academy, who surely hated him already, with these comments earlier this week:
Scott said Monday that he hopes to shift more funding to science, technology, engineering and math departments, the so-called "STEM" disciplines. The big losers: Programs like psychology and anthropology and potentially schools like New College in Sarasota that emphasize a liberal arts curriculum.
"If I'm going to take money from a citizen to put into education then I'm going to take that money to create jobs," Scott said. "So I want that money to go to degrees where people can get jobs in this state. Is it a vital interest of the state to have more anthropologists? I don't think so."
As a pathetic, self-loathing holder of an English degree, my first reaction is to wholeheartedly support this. Go Rick Scott! Kill us off, please!
On the other hand, maybe he had no idea what he was talking about.
[Image via AP]