Lawmakers: Universities are Incubators for Democracy

By Gordon E. Michalson, Jr.
 

The following article was published in the Tallahassee Democrat on April 28, 2004, in the My View section.  It also appeared in the St. Petersburg Times' Letters to the Editor section on April 27, 2004, under the title "Higher Education Pays Many Dividends."
 

As the Florida Legislature makes the final hard decisions about next year's budget, the significant stake all of us have in healthy funding levels for the state university system cannot be ignored.

We know that our universities are the engine driving Florida's economic development. We also know that, statistically, a college degree ensures significantly greater income over a person's entire career path.

Yet just as important as these economic indicators are the enhancements to the quality of life that higher education produces. A foundation in the liberal arts and sciences not only feeds curiosity so that it becomes a lifetime habit, but also creates qualities of mind and an intellectual openness that make life more intrinsically rewarding and fulfilling over the long haul, wherever the career path may lead.

As someone once put it, life is never boring for the well-educated person. It is, of course, impossible to put a price tag on such a pay-off.

The role higher education plays in strengthening civic life and our democratic institutions is especially critical just now. Consider the qualities of mind that might be produced by the typical demands made within a rigorous college setting.

Higher education requires not only self-discipline and persistence, but also an open mind concerning scholarly and experimental inquiry. The whole point of serious inquiry is that it takes you wherever hard evidence and good argument lead - rather than to a predetermined result that simply reinforces one's own prejudices or outlook.

Consequently, the student learns over time to appreciate the difference between a sound argument and propaganda, and between publicly available evidence and an illicit appeal to personal bias.

Moreover, especially in the study of fields involving acts of interpretation - such as history, philosophy, literature, and art - students come to appreciate that serious disagreements can be profoundly healthy, and that dogmatic insistence on a single point of view means the end of serious inquiry.

In other words, students learn to tolerate complexity and ambiguity without feeling the need to attack those with whom they disagree.

I hardly need to spell out the benefits to our wider democracy of such virtues as a suspicion of propaganda, a commitment to clear argument and tolerance.

Insofar as our public universities such as New College instill these attitudes, we might think of them as incubators of the virtues most important for a healthy democracy.

Viewed in this light, public investment in our institutions of higher learning is among the most cost effective ways to insure a vibrant civic life based upon the worth and importance of the individual.

Personally, I cannot think of anything more important for our state and nation's future.