What is education, and why should we care?
Well–as I have repeatedly argued–education is not job training. (Not that there is anything wrong with job training; it is obviously both useful and important.) Education, however, is a far more capacious concept. Familiarity with human history and with classic works of art and literature, appreciation of science and the scientific method, a basic understanding of the workings of government and the economy, the role played by the rule of law, and the ability to distinguish between logic and error–between fact and fantasy– are skills that dramatically enhance an individual’s life and that not so incidentally make democratic regimes workable.
Which brings me to the utter idiocy of a proposal to defund college courses that don’t show a financial “return on investment.”
From a recent article in the Indianapolis Star, we learn that
An Indiana bill, written by a conservative think tank based in Florida, would deny grants and scholarships administered by the Indiana Commission for Higher Education to college degree programs that don’t provide a sufficient return on investment for graduates, just less than a year after lawmakers forced colleges to eliminate or merge hundreds of degrees.
Senate Bill 161 is based off of a similar provision in President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which blocks federal student loans and other aid from “low earning” degrees.
Words fail.
Proponents of this ridiculous measure rather obviously limit their definition of “education” to training programs that provide “real economic value.” (Indiana’s Secretary of Education, Katie Jenner, has demonstrated her utter lack of qualification for that position by promoting the bill as “an accountability measure for schools.” )
Students whose major motive for continuing education is financial can easily find out which programs offer a monetary “return on investment.” Students and families that define “return” differently–who define it as an improved ability to understand and appreciate the world they live in– attend institutions of higher learning in order to explore the multiple gifts and lessons that previous generations have left them. For those students, the “return on investment” manifests itself in lifelong interest in the world they inhabit, and in increased understanding of –and ability to navigate– that world.
Ironically, even evaluating this proposal on its own terms shows how stupid it is.
Students who major in philosophy, the arts, or history may initially earn less than those taking courses tailored to the needs of current markets–but those essentially vocational education courses often turn out to provide considerably less financial security when market conditions change–which they do quite frequently. Meanwhile, a genuine education provides its recipients with an invaluable skill: the ability to learn, change and adapt to a rapidly changing world–including a rapidly evolving economic environment.
This proposal isn’t the only indication that Indiana’s pathetic legislature is either unfamiliar with the concept of an education or actively hostile to it. Our legislative overlords either confuse education with job training, or they want to replace it with “Christian” indoctrination.
As the Indiana Citizen reports, among the bills filed for the 2026 legislative session were seven measures that would “incorporate Christian religious texts or beliefs commonly associated with Christian social teaching into public education and laws governing sex and gender — areas that have become recurring flashpoints at the Statehouse.”
Among the measures being advanced by Indiana’s culture warriors are bills mandating the display of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms, bills allowing chaplains to serve in public schools, and measures that would reshape civics education to emphasize “traditional values” and to restrict how gender is defined or recognized under state law.
The Indiana Citizen reminds readers that, during the 2025 session, more than 20 House lawmakers co-authored a House Resolution urging legislators to “humbly submit” their work to Jesus Christ and govern according to biblical principles. The resolution confirmed the results of an examination by the Arnolt Center for Investigative Journalism at Indiana University that found Christian nationalist ideology significantly influencing Hoosier legislation. (Separation of Church and State? Evidently, only people with actual educations understand the operation of the First Amendment…)
Ironically, our legislature’s inability to understand the dimensions of an actual education is a major reason for our lackluster economic performance. Viable businesses locate in areas where they can access an educated workforce–people who have learned how to think and how to learn.
Employers aren’t looking for people trained in narrow skill-sets who’ve been taught to submit to Jesus.
As I and others have mentioned several times before, Indiana isn’t alone in its race back to the stone age. The churches are much to blame for influencing the idiots who end up being Republican legislators and governors. It’s about control. Todd and I will agree that the oligarch money also supports this broad dumbing down of our population. Why? Money, of course.
The ROI on education funding is pure corporate B.S. It’s also anti-union; especially teachers unions. To the corporate mindset, there’s nothing worse than educated people banding together to assert their needs and wants. And, as a former school union rep., I can tell you first hand that teachers HATE being in unions, but are compelled to join. If they didn’t, single parents wouldn’t be able to afford groceries … and that was before all this Trumpian/Republican B.S. came down the road.
The concept of having a knowledge base for everyone is totally lost on these backward-thinking, corrupt fools. Vocational or college education ALSO provides earning skills, you know, like critical thinking. Throughout our lives we all draw on our knowledge base even as we add to it. It’s how healthy people and healthy societies flourish.
Republicans aren’t interested in flourishing anything except the bottom lines of the corporations who bribe them.
I know this sounds contradictory, but I had no need to be immersed in history, algebra, calculus, art, a foreign language, or geometry. In Florida, the humanities were required, and they were lost a few years after graduation. I could go on down the list of classes that were considered requirements that did nothing for me, nor improved my life as an adult.
I know there are people who love math and want to be engineers. Let them take math classes. The math associated with my financial degree was more than adequate to build complex spreadsheets.
Being introduced to our world in the age of technology and knowledge seems redundant. Learn a language in your own time with apps. My 12-year-old has an assignment every night on several languages. However, she has already read more books by 12 than I did by my 40s.
However, as a parent, I would lose my shit if the school introduced a fairy tale myth to kids and tried to pass it off as fact. That is an individual choice and should involve the parents, not a public school.
I think our education system needs an overhaul, with a new curriculum based on individual progression. We are not manufacturing widgets. No two kids mature at the same rate, even by age. Our linear production-line educational programs are so outdated that it’s embarrassing.
My personal rant is over… as for our statewide rulers, they are too financially motivated by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce and Evangelical Churches. We are consistently rated at the bottom for education and quality of life (happiness), yet we always rank high for business-friendly policies. And what is the first thing businesses do when they locate to Indiana? They bitch about unqualified workers and/or too many workers who can’t pass drug tests. 😉
“SB 275 contains language that would remove protections against rate cuts for Home Health Agencies. We need your voices to be loud and constant on this issue if we hope to be able to remove it from the bill.
In 2017, Chairman Tim Brown inserted this language in the budget to prevent FSSA from continuing to reduce Home Health rates. Removing this protection clearly telegraphs to us that FSSA intends to reduce Home Health rates and access to Home Health at some point very soon, should this language pass.”
The “Return on this Investment” would be lives of those inflicted with serious, often terminal if not treated, physical, emotional and mental health issues. These trained Home Health Care providers are dedicated “above and beyond” the typical health care issues faced by the general health care patients and their personal interest in patients goes far beyond the appointment time spent with primary physicians as they are “Specialists” in many areas of health care to fully treat each patient. Their “Defining “Return On Investment” is invaluable to patients, families and society in general.
“Employers aren’t looking for people trained in narrow skill-sets who’ve been taught to submit to Jesus.” Neither are the patients or their families who are in need of competent health care providers.
These bills are so incredibly sad, misguided, outrageous.
A world obsessed with “financial return on investment” is indeed an arid space.
Art, music, literature, philosophy , history which indeed promote independent thinking, compassion, respect for others, empathy…. How can one put a price on this?
So many in Indiana Legislature are filled with small minds and mean spirits.
How incredibly sad.
Thank you , Shelia for this essay.
The uneducated are easier to rule/fleece.
But the job training is a solid pitch to the many who are raised in households that don’t value or appreciate the benefits of a liberal education because the parents never experienced it. I’m a boomer and I can’t remember a time when my family didn’t recognize the benefits of higher education. That seems to be a disappearing aspiration being replaced by a distrust of anyone who is able to problem-solve or take a broader view of an issue. It’s a direction that leads nowhere.
i grew up very close to the,,street. those values taught me to understand people at a distance,and face to face. then with the need to eat and be merry, the small odd job,and the bonus. hustling is a art. but dignaty is a self made use. in the big world of suits and being locked into a way of life ,trade or view of life, can be getting one painted into a corner. driving truck isnt for the faint of heart. especially when some people who must have their way first,and then influence the idea with lies and deciet without any forethought of what its doing to someone else.(any blue collar job today)the education of doing this must be taught? or is it a birthrite of a few. seems law makers want to own the narrative and then demand it be. ive seen over the decades where we the workers had some clout over those who were few to issue depraved laws cutting our throats. now its the other way around,and we just get our throats cut buy the few. your education is paramount to our success. but now we have legislatures who are now nothing but con artists supporting the rich. basic education is being trivialized and made generic.higher ed is being priced for a lifelong debt to be educated.
either way, the state should keep thier bloody hands off what the people want for a society. if your elected in any state wants to hold their ax to grind menatllity, demand the answers in public,why? make em answer to the working class why we should be made to step down for their con job of a society being made by them. its obvious they dont want us to think,or act out. when you can look around at the present state,you dont need a education to know when your being screwed.
Todd,Vern:
i once delivered a load to a property in SoCalif. nice,peaceful, and the owner,or debt payer,outgoing and thoughtful. after a few hours of getting the machinery off my trailer we talked politics and life. hes a member of e mega church. as i looked around,seems he did quite well in his life. his idea was to get ahead in politics,belong to a mega church,and you will reap its rewards. his words..
that was back in 1995.
Jack,
‘’dignity, self-made use” a compelling point
Citizens are robbed of their dignity by despots. Jefferson warned, in every age, in every country, the priest aligns with the despot. The clergy’s conditioning begins in the cradle, “we’re all born sinners,” it follows with forced pregnancies (Ireland during the Great Hunger when a million people died) and, even at death, the right wing religionists deny a person’s choice to die with dignity.
My brothers, like me, are the product of private (Jesuit) education, and both work in construction and own their own companies. They do very well. But I think they realize the value of liberal arts education, as their kids all went on to college.
I recently attended a “registration information night” for 8th graders headed to public high schools, and was unsettled after learning of the new curriculum for those planning to graduate high school after 2029. It seems to be mostly about high school as a trade school, or JROTC program. I recalled the Presidents of the public universities opining early in the process of developing the new graduation criteria their concerns as to whether the curriculum would support granting admission to the state universities; and I see those concerns are now overcome by state laws and IHEC (which is now just an extension of the Indiana Department of Education) rules that if it works for a public high school, it will be acceptable for a university. How does democracy survive?
“…“humbly submit” their work to Jesus Christ.” Sure, and just where does one find Him? Behind a desk, ready to grade the little blue books?
So, here in rather backwards Florididia, I saw a young man, an early teen, wearing a shirt, last week, that proclaimed “He has risen.” I did not ask him what the evidence is for that claim, or where Jesus may be, but he’s been taught to not think, it is apparent to me. If, indeed, “He has risen” wouldn’t there be some major changes going on? Maybe he, and his family, think He is the Trumpster. Damn! that’s a scary thought! But, hey 10% of the population thought that Nixon was doing “A fine job,” a week before he resigned.
Maybe I will come back as a petrel, if possible.
The three “authors” of the bill are anti-abortionists, Chris Garten, Linda Rogers and Jeff Raatz. Conservative Christian (Protestant), Chris Garten, hit media attention on Christmas Day for posting AI pics of himself kicking and punching Santa Claus.
The Florida stink tank, FGA (member of Koch’s State Policy Network), that is behind 2026 Indiana bill 161, was reviewed by the Center for Media and Democracy. CMD’s report is worth reading, “State Financial Officers
Foundation, Foundation for Government Accountability.”
A read of the report shows the organization employs the wording, “religion/religious,” for some of its recent legislative efforts. CMD reported FGA paid $400,000 to CRC Advisers (public relations). CRC was founded by Leonard Leo, a right wing Catholic who is associated with the Federalist Society. The CMD report makes a tie in between FGA and anti-woke.
FGA’s donors are the usual, Uihlein and Scaife.
FGA’s legislation appears to frequently focus on dismantling the social safety net. IMO, the axis of the religious right and libertarians is to model the US on Ireland during the Great Hunger.
A Google query of Federalist Society Catholic, provides an AI generated answer about the “intertwining.”
Media, e.g. NYT, profiled Florida Gov. DeSantis describing him as attending public high school. The profile omitted his K-8 attendance at Catholic school.
I spent a significant part of my work life interviewing candidates for a wide variety of positions, some technical, some science based and some not. I always liked to ask, “What was the last book you read?” Why would that make any difference? If I had a reader, I knew I had someone who appreciated things outside of work. I wanted people who could think on their feet, who could figure things out, with little supervision.
When I was in college they told students that what they needed to know was how to find what you need to know. Those were the days of microfiche and typewriters. There weren’t home computers, much less tablets, notebooks, or cell phones. Today, the world is at our fingertips. The question now is, “Are we on earth one or earth two?” My thinking is that the new curriculum will limit the discernment needed to answer that question. In other words, “Good luck with that, techies!”
Reading recommendation for those interested in the scope of the fight for democracy- “Following Leonard Leo’s dark money in pushing America to the far right,” 2-7-2025, Baptist News Global. BNG is a major force in confronting the libertarian/right wing religious axis.
The BNG reporting describes the Teneo Network which added Leonard Leo to the board in 2021. It describes funding sources for $7.6 million to Knights of Columbus charitable fund. btw- Carl Anderson, the long-term head of K of C was a legislative aide to Jesse Helms.
BNG tells readers about right wing motives to enforce racial and gender hierarchies and social hierarchies, Catholic natural law, etc.