Bill Maher Says College Is A Scam Just Like Scientology

Last night on Real Time with Bill Maher, the HBO host said he felt safe to lace into pampered college students now that graduation season is over and he won’t spoil anyone’s “big day.” Maher criticized the University of Missouri for having a river grotto inspired by the Playboy Mansion and Texas Tech for having hot tubs, water slides and even a lazy river to make his point that colleges “are giant luxury daycare centers.”

The late night host cited data during his “New Rule” segment of the show which asserted that students study less than five hours a week, and when they do—he joked—it’s for classes such as “sports marketing,” “advanced racist spotting” and “You Owe Me An Apology 101.”

Maher then brought up President Joe Biden’s American Families Plan, which the host said would spend “hundreds of billions” of tax dollars “so everyone can go to college.”

The Right, Maher said, calls the plan “social engineering,” which he feels is over-the-top, while Liberals “see more schools as the answer to everything.” This concept, he insisted, is not the answer to income inequality in America.

Higher education, Maher claims, “is a racket that sells you a very expensive ticket to the upper middle class.” He asked, “Is it really liberal for someone who doesn’t go to college and makes less money to pay for people who do go and make more?”

Maher then said “say what you want about Lori Loughlin,” the actress who served 2 months in jail for her role in a 2019 college bribery scandal, “recognized one good scam deserves another.” He then compared higher education to Scientology, with both entities requiring increasingly costly levels of advancement.

“A wannabe librarian needs a masters degree to get an entry level job filing books,” Maher said in astonishment.

Referring to higher education as a “grift,” Maher complained that despite increasing tuition “no one knows how to change a tire,” and that “the answer isn’t to make college free, the answer is to make it more unnecessary, which it is for most jobs” so that those who can’t or don’t want to go “don’t feel shut out” of society.

The host also mentioned a staggering statistic. “In 1960, colleges awarded A’s to 15% of the students. Well now it’s 45% and it’s not because they got smarter.”

You can check out the full “New Rule” segment above and catch new episodes of Real Time with Bill Maher on Fridays at 10 p.m. EST.

Michael is a music and television junkie keen on most things that are not a complete and total bore. You can follow him on Twitter — @Tweetskoor

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