The Curse of a University Education, By Professor X

The traditional promise of a university education—particularly in a liberal democracy like Australia—was to cultivate critical thinking, intellectual independence, and the pursuit of truth through open inquiry. However, in the current climate, this ideal has been undermined by a pervasive "woke Leftist" environment that prioritises ideological conformity over genuine debate, effectively crushing free thought. Australian universities, once bastions of intellectual rigor, have morphed into assembly lines for credentials, increasingly tailored to serve the economic interests of international students—most notably from China—rather than fostering a robust domestic intellectual culture. This dual curse reflects a deeper malaise: a system that sacrifices its core mission for political correctness and profit, leaving students, particularly local ones, with an education that is more about compliance and marketability than enlightenment.

The rise of "woke" ideology—characterised by an intense focus on social justice, identity politics, and systemic oppression—has reshaped the academic landscape in Australia. Its implementation has often veered into dogmatism, where certain ideas are deemed sacrosanct and others are taboo, stifling the free exchange of perspectives that universities were meant to champion. For instance, policies and classroom dynamics increasingly emphasise "safe spaces" and "trigger warnings," which, while intended to protect students, often discourage challenging discussions. Topics like race, gender, or colonialism are framed through a narrow lens—typically one that aligns with Leftist orthodoxy—leaving little room for dissent or alternative viewpoints.

This environment punishes intellectual risk-taking. Lecturers and students alike face pressure to self-censor, fearing accusations of insensitivity or worse—career-damaging labels like "racist" or "bigot." The Institute of Public Affairs' 2023 Free Speech on Campus Audit found that 90 percent of Australian universities have policies hostile to free speech, banning expressions deemed "insulting" or "offensive." Such restrictions choke the Socratic method, where ideas are tested through rigorous debate, replacing it with a culture of pre-approved narratives. For example, a lecturer might avoid discussing the complexities of immigration policy or historical perspectives on empire—not because they lack merit, but because they risk being misconstrued as politically incorrect. Students, in turn, learn to parrot rather than probe, graduating with degrees that signify conformity rather than critical acumen.

This woke framework also distorts academic priorities. Research and curricula are increasingly evaluated not for their intellectual merit but for their alignment with progressive causes. Subjects like STEM, which should be grounded in objective inquiry, are pressured to "decolonise' or integrate social justice themes, diluting their focus. The result is a generation of graduates trained to see the world through a moralistic filter rather than a rational one—a curse for a society that needs independent thinkers to tackle complex challenges.

Compounding this ideological shift is the transformation of Australian universities into "degree machines" for China, driven by economic necessity (= greed) rather than educational integrity. International students, particularly from China, have become a financial lifeline for the sector. In 2019, before the pandemic disrupted flows, Chinese students accounted for roughly 40 percent of Australia's international student market, contributing billions annually to university coffers. This reliance has turned universities into export industries, churning out degrees to meet demand rather than fostering a domestic intellectual elite.

The focus on Chinese students has practical and philosophical consequences. Practically, universities tailor programs to attract and retain this cohort—often prioritising vocational courses like business, engineering, and IT over the humanities or pure sciences, which are less appealing to fee-paying internationals. This shift skews the educational mission toward market-driven outcomes, reducing the emphasis on liberal arts traditions that nurture free thought. Philosophically, it introduces a troubling dynamic: to maintain this revenue stream, universities may compromise on academic freedom, avoiding content or discussions that could offend Beijing or its citizens. The 2020 incident at the University of Queensland, where a student was suspended for criticising the Chinese Communist Party during a protest, exemplifies this tension. Rather than defend free expression, the university sided with sensitivity to its largest student market, signalling that economic interests trump intellectual principles.

This dependency also raises questions about the long-term purpose of Australian higher education. Are universities educating citizens for a vibrant, questioning democracy, or are they producing graduates—many of whom return to China—to bolster a foreign economy and, indirectly, a regime that suppresses free thought at home? The latter suggests a Faustian bargain: Australian universities gain short-term financial stability but lose their soul, becoming complicit in a system that undermines the very values they claim to uphold.

For local Australian students, this dual curse—ideological conformity and economic subservience—manifests as a diminished educational experience. They enter universities expecting to grapple with big ideas, only to find themselves navigating a minefield of political correctness and a curriculum diluted by profit motives. The traditional "Aussie uni" experience—rooted in a laid-back yet rigorous pursuit of knowledge—has been replaced by a corporate model where they are secondary to the international cash cow. Tuition fees remain high, yet teaching quality suffers as funds are diverted to infrastructure or marketing aimed at overseas recruitment rather than enhancing domestic education.

The broader societal impact is equally dire. A nation that prides itself on egalitarianism and scepticism risks producing a generation ill-equipped for independent thought, conditioned instead to follow ideological scripts or chase credentials for economic survival. This is particularly acute in an era of geopolitical tension, where Australia needs sharp minds to navigate its relationship with powers like China, not graduates moulded by a system that prioritises appeasement and conformity.

The curse of a university education in today's Australia lies in its surrender to a woke Leftist environment that crushes free thought and its transformation into degree factories serving China's economic demands. Together, these forces erode the institution's noble purpose, leaving behind a hollow shell that produces compliant, credentialed drones rather than bold, independent thinkers. To reclaim their mission, Australian universities must resist ideological conformity, reassert free inquiry, and rethink their economic model—lest they remain cursed to churn out degrees for a foreign power while stifling the minds of their own.

Good luck with that one!

https://goodsauce.news/the-downside-of-a-university-education/

"Universities have led the way in shutting down dissent, enforcing compliance with "woke" dictums and trashing traditional Western values and history.

In retrospect it comes as no surprise the Canadian psychologist, Jordan Peterson came to prominence for refusing to accede to so-called "anti-hate speech laws" seeking to compel him to refer to transgender students by their preferred pronouns.

Historian Niall Ferguson in challenging the current direction of established universities wrote:

"To the historian's eyes there is something unpleasantly familiar about the patterns of behaviour that have, in a matter of a few years, become normal in many campuses. The chanting of slogans. The brandishing of placards. The letters informing on colleagues and classmates.The denunciations of professors to the authorities. The lack of due process. The cancellations. The rehabilitations following abject confesssions. The officiousness of unaccountable bureaucrats. Any student of the totalitarian regimes of the mid 20^th century recognises all this with astonishment. It turns out it can happen in a free society too, if institutions and individuals who claim to be liberal, choose to behave in an entirely illiberal fashion."

English academic, Matt Goodwin explains why he gave up his university career:

Over the last sixty years our universities and the wider system of higher education have been engulfed by a political revolution which is transforming them for the worse, pushing them away from their original purpose and subjecting an entire generation of students to a bad education, setting them up to fail.

Our universities in short, have been captured by what I call a 'new dominant ideology' on campus, a new belief system, a new worldview which is being imposed in top-down fashion on university staff, students and administrators, and which has now fully permeated the culture of academic life.

It's a belief system that has little if any serious interest in the things universities are meant to defend and which they used to promote – free speech and academic freedom, objective scientific evidence, reason, logic, tolerance, debating in good faith, and the exposure of students to a diverse range of ideas and opinions (what John Stuart Mill argued is essential to free speech).

As the result of this malign influence, many universities have become openly political, biased and activist institutions. There is a consensus amongst liberal commentators that most universities are fundamentally opposed to classical liberalism.

Professor Eric Kaufmann is a professor of political science at Buckingham University. He defines this belief system as "being completely organised around the sacralisation of racial, sexual and gender minorities."

Such a belief system is focussed on, if not obsessed with all racial, sexual and gender minorities. These minorities must be considered sacred and untouchable and protected from undue scrutiny and not be subjected to emotional "harm" by having them justify their special status.

It is pertinent to mention a young lady I know who commenced a teaching degree at the local university. After some months when I saw her I asked how her studies were going. She shrugged her shoulders and admitted, "Not very well!"

"Have you learnt anything about teaching?" I enquired.

"So far nothing at all," she replied.

"Then what have you been studying?"

"So far, only about diversity."

She subsequently withdrew from her teaching studies and took studies in Commerce. She completed those studies and is now pursuing a successful career in financial services.

This ideology, pervasive in universities (and unfortunately elsewhere as well) pushes the notions that minorities are "good", whilst majorities are "bad". It seeks to highlight all injustices ever suffered or perceived to have been suffered by such minorities thus magnifying their sense of victimhood. The overwhelming importance given to highlighting the injustices suffered by these minorities outweighs the importance of everything else, including free speech, tolerance and the basic oneness of humanity.

Contrast this with the classic liberalism that once permeated our universities and emphasised individual rights, a common humanity, a shared community identity and history, tolerance and people being equal before the law!

But today, so that these fragile minorities don't have to confront reality, universities promulgate "safe spaces", "trigger warnings" and teach people to be aware of "microagressions".

Francis Fukuyama in Liberalism and Its Discontents warned us that any movement that prioritises group identities of people over individual rights has no place in liberalism.

And of course, paradoxically, under the edicts of this perverse movement some minorities are more deserving than others. Some American universities have relaxed the entry standards for Afro-American students to ensure they are better represented on their campuses. This has been achieved but only to the detriment of Asian-American students who tend to perform well academically but have consequently reduced access by compromising the accepted standards in favour of Afro-Americans!

It also follows that if this perverse movement is determined to unduly champion minorities (and most of us would accept that minorities need to be protected to some degree) it becomes necessary to denigrate the majority and to repudiate mainstream values and beliefs. This has resulted in a strongly anti-white and anti-Western ethos.

This is what Kaufmann terms a "deculturalising thrust" which encourages mainly white Western students to repudiate their own history, culture and values.

In Australia, universities are scrambling to employ indigenous people in academic positions to demonstrate their commitment to this particular minority group. Unfortunately many of such recruits have few academic credentials and often have little or dubious genealogical indigenous heritage!

In Australia two thirds of Labor MP's have a university degree compared with one third of the population in general. It is certainly the case that those with left-wing, "woke" beliefs will have those beliefs reinforced in a university environment. Or perhaps more germane to my argument they would likely learn such beliefs from their university education.

In our universities dogma often trumps free discussion.

Bjorn Lomborg is a Nobel Prize winning economist. Lomborg is head of the think tank, the Copenhagen Consensus Centre. The Australian Government, under the Prime Ministership of Tony Abbott, offered three million dollars to facilitate an Australian university hosting a research centre under Lomborg's stewardship and to contribute a third of its ongoing operating expenses.. This offer was initially accepted by the University of Western Australia (UWA). But some time later the Vice Chancellor of UWA informed the government it was withdrawing from the proposal.

The reason the UWA withdrew was because of a rebellion of its academic staff that saw Lomborg as a climate denialist. But Lomborg is not a climate denier. Lomborg believes in climate change but as a prudent economist warns that we should spend our money where it makes the most difference.

In essence Lomborg was pilloried because he was not a climate catastrophist and believes that Humankind would be better served in spending money on such things securing food and water supplies for third world countries and fighting endemic diseases like Malaria."