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The fuck it does. Nothing “weird” and cool about a straight up right wing grift. It’s just shitty.
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That undergraduate description sounds like the type of place where critical race theory might actually be taught. 
I would imagine the legal department at UT Austin is watching this “university” very, very closely for anything straying too close to UT Austin’s trademarks or service marks.
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I’m not understanding the premise so far. If they don’t offer degrees then they can’t be accredited and therefore can’t receive government money for tuition. If they don’t offer degrees then what are students paying for? Is it supposed to just be a payed and in-person version of PragerU or just a coded line in people’s CVs saying that they are “right-kind-of-people” or something else that I’m not understanding?
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It’s a grift.
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That much I could tell. I just can’t figure out the mechanics of how the grift works. Is the money being grifted from poor people, rich people, the government, or some combination? etc. I’m hoping the grifters are just grifting themselves.
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People pay tuition to take “classes” with a bunch of right wing “elites” and come out with nothing to show for it…
I think enough people will embrace this that it won’t end up being the case.
There are plenty of people who really do believe that not having a racial caste system and teaching fact-based history is “oppression”… that’s their audience.
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I wonder if they accept transfer credits from Trump University.
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With TrumpU the angle was “Pay us and you will make more money”, which was evidently appealing to enough people to work. With this, the angle is “Pay us and you will get better indoctrinated about your freedumz.”? I guess I’m hoping that their target audience is too self-interested to buy in even if they aren’t smart enough to recognize it for what it is.
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It also serves as a debt-peonage program, getting the “middle class” highly indebted before they even look for work.
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They’re pretending like Liberty University, PragerU, and Trump University haven’t already covered all the angles of conservative doublethink, propaganda mills, lack of accreditation, and total scams. Is this supposed to be the fake university to rule all fake universities?
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According to their campaign webpage, the undergrad program will cost $25K, and the grad program will cost $40K.
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Word salad! Yummy yummy!
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“We can’t wait for universities to fix themselves” starts with the assumption that higher education is broken.
They mean college sports, right?
/s
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To me, that looks an awful lot like the grift is aimed at one person in particular, someone for whom “$100 million naming opportunity” doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, with headquarters in Austin and likes these “free thought” kinds of ideas. I think we have a thread dedicated to him.
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Wow. I know there are a lot of stupid rich families out there in the U.S., but are there really enough of them willing to blow that kind of tuition money (plus Austin living expenses) to come away without even a recognised college credential from an accredited institution?
The prospectus for this doomed venture is probably just what one would expect of a Libertarian business “genius”.
To me, that looks an awful lot like the grift is aimed at one person in particular, someone for whom “$100 million naming opportunity” doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, with headquarters in Austin
That makes sense on a slightly larger scale too. Basically an ultra expensive version of a vanity press.
I’m sure they’ll also attempt to qualify for federal loans and then (when they’re laughed out of the room) complain loudly about the government trying to “cancel” them.
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It has been noted that one of the roster of names listed was Kathleen Stock. She was, ahem, ‘hounded out’ of her position at Sussex University for being a bigot and went on the ‘cancel culture’ circuit (“Help, I’m being cancelled so let me have five big media interviews and a book deal”.)
It seems like an amazing coincidence that barely days later she pops up as part of this.
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The article compares this University to Falwell’s
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Yeah. Liberty U came immediately to mind for me when I heard about this new effort to lend academic legitimacy to disproven rightwing claims and “ideas.”
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