Juxtaposition is defined as “the fact of two things being seen or placed close together with contrasting effect”. The word came to mind as I read two items in yesterday’s January 29 edition of the Daily Post.
One was “The End of ‘Sports Illustrated’” by Hank Lydick. The other was “Can Colorado Universities Become Efficient?” by Jason Gonzales.
The former discusses the decline of ‘white collar’ jobs. The latter relates to the alleged ticket to ‘white collar’ success: a college education.
Colorado universities want more money, though (as the article points out) for what ain’t exactly clear. Presumably the universities want the taxpayers to think it’s so more students can matriculate into the ‘white collar’ work force.
Meanwhile, Sports Illustrated laid off all it’s ‘white collar’ employees. The LA Times just laid off 115 of its ‘white collar’ staff.
Mr. Lydick’s ‘Sports Illustrated’ article points out ‘blue collar’ jobs are increasing. (‘Trending’, as the ‘white collar’ journalists would say. For my money, we need colleges churning out more ‘white collar’ journalists like we need another pandemic. They’re both annoying, and serve no useful purpose!)
What we DO need are ‘blue collar’ workers who can build and maintain things properly — like, for instance, doors on commercial airliners.
My advice to the Colorado legislature is to give the money to trade and technical schools instead of the universities.
The easiest way to trim university budgets is to get rid of administrators. That is, if — as Mr. Gonzales’ ‘Colorado Universities’ article points — you can even figure out how much of the budget is allocated to them.
One way to do it is cut funding to programs which are purely administrative — such as the Florida legislature did. They cut all funding to the state universities for DEI – defined as “any program, campus activity, or policy that classifies individuals on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, gender identity, or sexual orientation and promotes differential or preferential treatment of individuals on the basis of such classification.” Florida taxpayers will no longer fund institutional discrimination in the state university system.
Instead of spending money on DEI in universities, it can be better spent teaching DIY in trade schools. Colorado should do the same.
Now… I just hope Bill Hudson doesn’t lay off all his staff at the Daily Post.
Gary Beatty lives between Florida and Pagosa Springs. He retired after 30 years as a prosecutor for the State of Florida, has a doctorate in law, is Board Certified in Criminal Trial law by the Florida Supreme Court, and is now a law professor.