> societally unproductive majors (gender studies, literature, etc.). I don’t see why we should use tax money to prop up anything other than proven productive fields of study.
Some majors are actually unproductive and a waste of both the student's and taxpayer's money, and should not be subsidized.
But many humanities that often get binned this way are actually civically productive, and they're only economically unproductive because of significant market failure. The benefits to society aren't priced properly. Such majors, and that is the social sciences, should arguably be subsidized by the government, because they are technically public goods.
What the last few years has taught us is how much damage an electorate can do who isn't educated. If they don't understand anything about economic systems, political systems, sociology, history, psychology, then their mind can be taken over too easily by propaganda, which can have catastrophic consequences, all the way up to the death of democracy.
Some majors are actually unproductive and a waste of both the student's and taxpayer's money, and should not be subsidized.
But many humanities that often get binned this way are actually civically productive, and they're only economically unproductive because of significant market failure. The benefits to society aren't priced properly. Such majors, and that is the social sciences, should arguably be subsidized by the government, because they are technically public goods.
What the last few years has taught us is how much damage an electorate can do who isn't educated. If they don't understand anything about economic systems, political systems, sociology, history, psychology, then their mind can be taken over too easily by propaganda, which can have catastrophic consequences, all the way up to the death of democracy.
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