Catherine Rampell asks that interesting question. Trump is hostile to higher education but courts the steel and aluminum sectors? Maybe he disdains higher education because, as he said during the 2016 campaign, he “loves the uneducated.”
Rampell says that Trump
“has been threatening [higher education] with anti-immigrant policy and rhetoric; several recent data releases suggest that the long-term growth in international students has now reversed itself. In response, a reader asked me how U.S. employment in higher education compares to employment in some of the industries Trump has sought to protect through tariffs.
“As you might expect, the comparison is not exactly flattering to Trump’s trade policies: Higher ed vastly dwarfs those other sectors.
“According to the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’s Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, from the third quarter of 2017, about 3 million people were employed by colleges and universities, both public and private. That tally excludes those employed by junior colleges (an additional 697,000), technical and trade schools (131,000), and other related employers, which likely enroll fewer international students.
“By contrast, in iron and steel mills and ferroalloy production, employment tallied 82,000. Alumina and aluminum production had 57,000 jobs. Meanwhile, millions of Americans are employed in industries that use these metals as an input (aerospace, construction, energy, beer can manufacturers, etc.), and will therefore face higher prices and the threat of layoffs. Many millions more may also find their jobs threatened if, say, China follows through with its threats of retaliatory tariffs.
“I would offer you my chart of higher ed employment vs. steel and aluminum employment, but given that higher ed employment is more than 20 times as large as steel and aluminum employment combined, the chart’s a bit hard to read.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Trump is hostile to any thinking at all.
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and there is a striking difference between promoting the stereotype of the Might Is Right big-muscled blue collar steel worker and that of the Let’s Think About It First be-speckled college nerd
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Why shouldn’t Trump love the uneducated.
It is their ignorance that got him elected to quite a bit of an extent.
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It’s getting so bizarre. From tonight’s news: A spokesperson/toady first says Trump will approve the budget deal. Then, this morning Trump reportedly watches “Fox and Friends” and says he might veto it -because the TV show criticized the agreement. What??? I guess Mattis and Ryan went into high gear to talk him out of it. My God, this country is out of control. Facts, statistics, logic, education….they’re out the window. Civilization appears to be unraveling, at least here in the U.S.A.
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I do not know whether I should cry or laugh!
Thank you for the factual information that it is more educated Hi Ed employed working people than the manual employed ones in USA.
This has confirmed that the more educated people, the more egoistic people are, and the less unified in voting President Election. Most of all, the spirit of humanity is worsen with educated law makers in public policy. Why?
Conscientious Americans need to wake up to guide younger generation to achieve and to maintain American Spirit = Dominant position in public education, humanitarian and military. Back2basic
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May, People with a college education and those who work in higher ed tend to be more liberal, at least in the US, so we are not the voters who Trump can count on, like the uneducated people who he said he loves and who are more likely to be hoodwinked by Fox News.
For Trump, everything is all about HIM and his regular rallies are for stroking his ego and trying to get himself re-elected. To that end, he will throw millions of educated people under the bus and pretend to care about his base.
That might come back to bite him, because his billionaire cronies are also a part of his base and they take priority, though their numbers are even smaller. The uneducated who’ve been duped are likely to feel the pinch when there is no trickle down from his tax cuts for the rich and when safety nets, like social security and medicare, are cut to pay for that, as his party plans to do.
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The argument is a straw-man, The choice. is not between funding higher education and trying to give blue collar factory workers a fair shot. . Would you compare the number of workers in the low wage sector of healthcare, to the number of employees in higher education.
There are no free markets . Politics is by definition the process of picking winners and losers . It is not about what is economically beneficial, but who it is economically beneficial for . The most stunning remark about our trade policy came from Michael Froman the US trades representative. . In a Senate hearing when asked by Elisabeth Warren why the American people can not see the details of TPP . The exec from the failed bank that got 350 Billion in (free market ) bailouts and then picked the entire Obama economic team in the financial collapse, stated; “Because if the American people knew what was in it they would not like it “.
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Are tariffs the way to restore these jobs , probably not . Has China been a consistent violator of fair trade protocols absolutely. I think my credentials as a bonafide Trump hater are not in question . Without getting into a back and forth on the issues in multilateral trade agreements or the causes of job losses in the last 25 years . . Which I might like to do as someone who fought against fast track for 3 years and than TPP, ,from the progressive left . . Think about who is screaming the loudest about the tariffs and the demise of TPP. What other issues do they display unanimity on ?
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Interesting.
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According to the most recent data from the Bureau of Debt Peonage,
student loan debt is greater than credit card debt. Studies from I.O.U.
have shown, once an individual paints themselve into a corner of debt,
they view their debt peonage as circumstance.
The “circumstance” functions as a guarantee of subservience,
repeating institutionized fraud, like charter fools or testing.
In terms of economic conscripts, courting the steel/aluminum sector
is a diversionary spectacle.
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