Utah passes bill to cut "useless" college degrees at state universities.

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$19.6 taxpayer dollars.

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So 20 bucks?

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Utah passes bill to cut "useless" college degrees at state universities

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100% support.

Publicly funded schools should teach condensed curriculums focused on trades and streamlined stem classes.

If you want to major in anything from social sciences to gender studies or whatever else you can go to a private school. The states shouldn’t be funding those things.

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If you want to major in anything from social sciences to gender studies or whatever else you can go to a private school. The states shouldn’t be funding those things

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That's actually a brilliant take.

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"useless" college degrees

engineering, science, and business.

hm

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Those are schools where the “useless” degrees are housed. They aren’t cutting business administration or mechanical engineering degrees.

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business administration

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“useless” degree

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The savings? Up to $19.6 million taxpayer dollars.

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You misread.

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Earlier this year, Utah lawmakers cut 10% from the instruction budgets for each of the state’s eight public colleges, The Salt Lake Tribune reported. The cuts amounted to $60.5 million, with University of Utah facing the largest budget reduction of $19.6 million.
To reclaim the funding, the legislation orders colleges to craft three-year plans for cutting certain academic programs and administrative expenses and redirecting the money to high-demand programs.

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Unless the universities are firing professors, I’m not sure how much money this will actually save. “Degree programs” don’t cost anything in a vacuum; it’s just a list of course people are required to take to get a particular degree. You can get rid of the list, or even some of the courses, but you’re not saving money unless you get rid of professors and don’t replace them.

Eta: Unless the schools have massive bloated administrations that have dozens of “presidents” over different “colleges”, but that’s a vastly larger issue than “useless degrees”.

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graduated at most one student over the past eight years

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I appreciate that the cuts are data driven and have nothing to do with subjective criteria.

Looks like most of the programs cut are duplicate or have much more popular alternatives, like the M.En degrees in engineering vs the typical M.S.

Why did Utah have such a broad range of Middle Eastern Studies degrees?

Eta: wrong word used. Meant Subjective criteria.

Real discussion needs to be had about what a university is supposed to be now. Or whether they should differ between private and public ones.

A trade school?

A free jobs training program that companies don't have to pay for and offload onto taxpayers?

A home for research and academic exploration?

What are we doing here?

I don't subscribe that things such as philosophy for example have no societal value.

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What? Then they're not universities anymore and they're trade schools.

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Ok.

Public schools and universities should be focused on training people for dedicated real world careers that will benefit the public.

Trades, construction, business, engineering, technology, etc…

I cannot find a single compelling argument for why a public tax funded university should offer a degree in history or philosophy or gender studies or politics or “general studies” or art.

Do you have an argument for why those things in 2025 America should be government funded and taught as a main course of instruction?

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I don't subscribe that things such as philosophy for example have no societal value.

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Philosophy and history and art have massive societal value and should be taught and pursued with vigor and discipline by people. But the government should not fund and promote those studies. Often the best philosophy and art comes from people struggling against the government. Often the worst types of philosophy and suppression come from the government itself.

Society has a duty to uphold itself and its standards. A duty we often forget is the responsibility of each individual citizen and mistakenly or lazily hand over to the government. It is not the government’s job to ensure things like art and morals and philosophy are upheld or taught or carried on. It is society itself.