When the Prime Minister made the bold assertion that there was no slavery in Australia, many were quick to point out his poor knowledge of our history forcing Morrison to correct himself. Of course, many people would have left it as that, but not our leader.
No, we can’t have all these elites telling the PM that he’s wrong, so he sprung into action and doubled the price of doing a Humanities course at university. That’ll teach those smart-arises to correct him.
Not that there isn’t some merit to ensuring that, when you undertake a large debt to become educated, you are able to find a job which will enable you to repay it. After all, the government recently received a lot of flack over Robodebt where they demanded money from people who couldn’t pay it back. Although Robodebt had the extra complication that they were demanding money with menace from people who didn’t actually owe the money, which would be illegal were it not for the fact that they’re a Coalition government and laws do not apply to them unless the AFP has a sudden urge to do something beyond raiding journalists, Labor senators and other enemies of the state or tweeting jokes.
No, some Arts graduates have no prospect of useful employment. Take Dan Tehan: He completed an Arts Degree with Honours and what possible job is he fit for outside politics… or inside politics, come to that.
Yes, all that rhetoric about our history being important and not pulling down statues because you can’t change history doesn’t apply when talking about studying history. Yes, we need to learn about and celebrate Western civilisation, but we can do that by looking at the statues of bygone colonial masters… And by masters, I don’t mean to suggest that they had slaves. Just people who understood the economics of “opportunity cost”, which means the benefits a person passes up when choosing one course of action over another. In the case of various explorers, this referred to the fact they were passing up the opportunity cost of staying in the comfort of their own land and working for a steady income. In the case of the various people who choose to work for the explorers in a total non-slavery way, the choice to work gave up the opportunity cost of being thrashed or shot.
But enough about economics because, like history, that’s one of the courses that’s going to cost more. Law degrees are also going up in cost.
It’s almost like the government doesn’t see the value of more people learning about history, economics and law…
I guess that’s because they’ve had so many people like Andrew Bolt and other Murdoch commentators who’ve managed to become experts in just about everything without actually obtaining a degree.
[textblock style=”7″]
Like what we do at The AIMN?
You’ll like it even more knowing that your donation will help us to keep up the good fight.
Chuck in a few bucks and see just how far it goes!
[/textblock]
