Faith Experts to Santorum: Stop Ripping Colleges

Rick Santorum has a bone to pick with college. This weekend, he called President Obama "a snob" for wanting "everybody in America to go to college"—perhaps a bit strange coming from a man with more degrees than the president, the Washington Post notes. Added Santorum: “There are good decent men and women who go out and work hard every day that aren’t taught by some liberal college professor trying to indoctrinate them." On ABC yesterday, Santorum noted that "a lot" of Americans "have no desire or no aspiration to go to college."

"They have a different set of skills and desires and dreams," and insisting that all Americans go to college "devalues" such work, Santorum said. He's also concerned about the effect that academic "indoctrination mills" have on religious faith, telling Glenn Beck that "62% of kids who go into college with a faith commitment leave without it." Catholic experts aren't so sure. "There is no statistical difference ... Going to college doesn't make you a religious dropout," an analyst tells USA Today. "Higher education is not the villain," concurs a Catholic University of America sociologist. (More Rick Santorum 2012 stories.)