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How education’s decline is corroding a pillar of the left’s power

Nypost · · 824 words · By Glenn H Reynolds
Political Polarization and Education Decline of Higher Education Shifting Demographic and Political Power
open_in_new Read the original article: https://nypost.com/2026/04/21/opinion/how-educations-decline-corrodes-a-pillar-o…

psychologyDetected Techniques

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Loaded Language 95% confidence
Using words with strong emotional connotations to influence an audience.
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Name Calling / Labeling 90% confidence
Attaching a negative label to a person or group to reject them without evidence.
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Glittering Generalities 70% confidence
Using vague, emotionally appealing phrases ('freedom', 'justice') without specifics.
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Selective Omission 85% confidence
Deliberately leaving out important context or facts that would change interpretation.

fact_checkFact-Check Results

13 claims extracted and verified against multiple sources including cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia.

info Single Source 7
check_circle Corroborated 3
schedule Pending 3
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“Demographic developments are moving voters (and congressional seats, and electoral votes) from blue states to red ones.”
SINGLE SOURCE
The web search results provide general demographic and political information (e.g., 'How red or blue is your state?'), but none of the provided evidence explicitly corroborates the specific claim that 'Demographic developments are moving voters (and congressional seats, and electoral votes) from blue states to red ones' using multiple independent sources. The evidence is suggestive but not conclusive enough for 'corroborated'.
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web search NEUTRAL — Mar 5, 2026 · As of December 2025, the US military consisted of 2.81 million people worldwide, including 2.10 million military personnel and 715,212 civilians. With the most recent numbers, the milita…
https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-people-are-in-the-us-…
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web search NEUTRAL — Apr 25, 2025 · From Indian Americans to Laotian Americans, demographics across Asian ethnicities reveal differences in everything from educational attainment to family size.
https://usafacts.org/articles/the-diverse-demographics-of-as…
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web search NEUTRAL — Dec 9, 2025 · Population How red or blue is your state? In the last ten elections, 41 states voted for the same party eight times or more.
https://usafacts.org/articles/how-red-or-blue-is-your-state/
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“Trust in the traditional media — routinely in the tank for Democrats — has plummeted.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple web search results indicate a general trend of declining trust in traditional media. One source notes trust is at a 'new low of 28%' across newspapers, television, and radio, and another notes that media trust 'sits near the bottom of the list' compared to previous decades.
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web search NEUTRAL — Americans' trust in newspapers, television and radio to report the news fully, accurately and fairly is at a new low of 28%.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/695762/trust-media-new-low.aspx
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web search NEUTRAL — Midway through the 20th century, the news media was among the most trusted institutions in the United States. Today, it sits near the bottom of the list, outflanked only by Congress in most surveys. I…
https://www.pew.org/en/trend/archive/fall-2024/media-mistrus…
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web search NEUTRAL — How Americans' trust in information from news organizations and social media sites has changed over time Overall, 56% of U.S. adults now say they have a lot of or some trust in the information they ge…
https://www.pewresearch.org/topic/news-habits-media/media-so…
info
“The entire education industry, a key pillar of the leftist establishment, is now crumbling, too.”
SINGLE SOURCE
The claim is directly quoted or paraphrased from a web search result that links the decline of traditional media to the education industry. While two other web results discuss the decline of education, they do not independently corroborate the specific assertion that 'the entire education industry... is now crumbling' as a single, established fact from multiple sources.
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web search NEUTRAL — Trust in the traditional media — routinely in the tank for Democrats — has plummeted. And the entire education industry, a key pillar of the leftist establishment, is now crumbling, too. The ...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/how-education-…
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web search NEUTRAL — Last winter, the federal government released the results of its semi-annual reading and math tests of fourth- and eighth-graders, assessments that are considered the most authoritative measure of the …
https://cepr.harvard.edu/news/2025/11/education-crumbling-it…
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web search NEUTRAL — The downward trend in proficiency, which preceded the pandemic, is a harbinger of the decline of America's global competitiveness and economic power in the decades ahead.
https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbesbusinessdevelopmentcou…
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“The long decline of higher education — the subject of my 2012 book “The Higher Education Bubble” — has been slowly accelerating for over a decade, driven by sky-high tuition and shrinking employment prospects for recent college grads.”
SINGLE SOURCE
This claim is almost verbatim from one web search result, which references the author's 2012 book. While the web search provides context regarding high tuition and job market struggles, it does not provide independent corroboration from multiple sources to confirm the entire narrative structure (decline accelerating over a decade due to specific factors).
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web search NEUTRAL — Student writing in higher education: An academic literacies approach.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0307507981233138…
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web search NEUTRAL — The long decline of higher education — the subject of my 2012 book “The Higher Education Bubble” — has been slowly accelerating for over a decade, driven by sky-high tuition and shrinking employment p…
https://nypost.com/2026/04/21/opinion/how-educations-decline…
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web search NEUTRAL — That’s a recent reversal after decades when young men with bachelor’s degrees had an advantage in the labor market, economists said. Young women haven’t experienced the same trend; they are still sign…
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/young-men-strugglin…
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“When Hampshire College in Massachusetts announced its plans to close last week, it became the latest private college to fall victim to the ruin.”
CORROBORATED
Multiple web search results report that Hampshire College announced plans to close. One source mentions the announcement was made 'last week,' and others confirm the plan to close by a specific date (end of 2026). This is confirmed by both web search results and Wikipedia entries detailing the college's history and location.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Five College Consortium (often referred to as simply the Five Colleges) comprises four liberal arts colleges and one university in the Connecticut River Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts: A…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_College_Consortium
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Hampshire College is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. It was opened in 1970 as an experiment in alternative education, in association with four other colleges i…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampshire_College
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Hampshire County is a historical and judicial county located in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. As of the 2020 census, the population was 162,308. Its most populous municipality is Amherst (due to se…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampshire_County,_Massachusett…
+ 3 more evidence sources
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“Others include King’s College in New York, Birmingham-Southern College in Alabama and St. Andrews in North Carolina, among many more.”
SINGLE SOURCE
The web search results mention King's College (in the context of Ivy League listing and King's College London) and Birmingham-Southern College is not explicitly mentioned in the provided snippets. While the evidence shows multiple colleges are discussed in the context of decline (Claim 6), this specific list of three colleges is not independently corroborated by multiple sources.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Birmingham campaign, also known as the Birmingham movement or Birmingham confrontation, was an American movement organized in early 1963 by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to bring a…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_campaign
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King's_College_London
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The "Letter from Birmingham Jail", also known as the "Letter from Birmingham City Jail" and "The Negro Is Your Brother", is an open letter written on April 16, 1963, by Martin Luther King Jr. It says…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_from_Birmingham_Jail
+ 3 more evidence sources
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“More than a quarter of the nation’s private colleges is at risk of closure in the next decade, NPR reported last week.”
CORROBORATED
Two separate web search results cite NPR reporting that 'More than a quarter of the nation’s private colleges is at risk of closure in the next decade.' This constitutes corroboration from multiple sources reporting the same specific statistic.
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web search NEUTRAL — More than a quarter of private colleges are at risk of closing, a new projection shows.The college has announced that it will close at the end of this semester. Oliver Parini for The Hechinger Report …
https://www.npr.org/2026/04/13/nx-s1-5777582/many-private-co…
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web search NEUTRAL — More than a quarter of the nation’s private colleges is at risk of closure in the next decade, NPR reported last week. Even some law schools have gone out of business. As I predicted, small, expensive…
https://nypost.com/2026/04/21/opinion/how-educations-decline…
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web search NEUTRAL — The previous decade had been especially hard for private colleges. Fewer students were enrolling in college, and some colleges responded by increasing spending to chase after the smaller group of appl…
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/26/upshot/virus-colleges-ris…
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“Colleges today are awarding the smallest number of humanities degrees since 1991, 30% below 2012.”
SINGLE SOURCE
The claim is not directly supported by any of the provided web search or Wikipedia snippets. The evidence provided for this claim is insufficient to verify the specific statistic regarding humanities degrees declining by 30% since 1991.
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — America's Top Colleges is an annual Forbes ranking of colleges and universities in the United States, first published in 2008.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America's_Top_Colleges
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — A college (Latin: collegium) may be a tertiary educational institution (sometimes awarding degrees), part of a collegiate university, an institution offering vocational education, a further education …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Below are links to lists of institutions of higher education in the United States (colleges and universities) by geography and other criteria, as well as lists of American institutions located outside…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_American_universities…
+ 3 more evidence sources
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“A recent report from Bellwether, an education think tank, explored the sharp decline in public-school enrollment, which deepened during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.”
SINGLE SOURCE
The evidence provided includes Wikipedia entries for unrelated topics (Zimbabwean rugby player, Singapore economy, Live Nation). None of the evidence supports the claim that 'A recent report from Bellwether... explored the sharp decline in public-school enrollment.'
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Cleopas Kundiona (born 15 December 1998) is a Zimbabwean rugby union player, currently playing for the Northampton Saints in the Gallagher PREM. His preferred position is tighthead prop.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleopas_Kundiona
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The economy of Singapore is a highly developed mixed market economy with dirigiste characteristics. Singapore's economy has been consistently ranked as the most open, competitive and pro-business in t…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Singapore
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. is an American multinational entertainment company that was founded in 2010 following the merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster. It continues to operate both brands as…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Nation_Entertainment
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“Eight states — California, Hawaii, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and West Virginia — are on pace to see enrollment plummet by more than 10% in the next five years, researchers found.”
SINGLE SOURCE
The evidence provides Wikipedia entries related to elections in Hawaii and general information about rivers and cities, but none of the provided snippets contain the specific data point that 'Eight states... are on pace to see enrollment plummet by more than 10% in the next five years.'
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The 2024 United States presidential election in Hawaii took place on Tuesday, November 5, 2024, as part of the 2024 United States presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Colu…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_United_States_presidentia…
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — The Mississippi River is the primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States. It is the second-longest river in the United States, behind only the Missouri. From its traditional sourc…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_River
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wikipedia NEUTRAL — New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy, among other nicknames) is a consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Orleans
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“This has produced a boom in homeschooling, which is no longer a marginal phenomenon: There are now over 3.4 million homeschooled students, more than 6% of the K-12 population, and those numbers are growing.”
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“Private-school enrollment has grown in 24 states since 2012, and that too will likely increase as more states adopt voucher and scholarship programs.”
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“And the significant growth in charter-school enrollment has also chipped away at the power of traditional public schools.”
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info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.