Dinesh D'Souza: $5,000 online college program would crush liberal hold on higher education

Dinesh D'Souza is proposing an alternative online university system with $5,000 yearly tuition, saying it could crush liberals' hold over higher education.

The famed producer and author told the John Solomon Reports podcast this weekend that the new college system should be part of conservatives' effort to defeat cancel culture and censorship by building their own educational and entertainment infrastructures.

"With regard to digital media and media generally – I mean we have to build our own platform. So I'm very much in the camp that says that at least in the short term, we need to build an alternative educational infrastructure, entertainment infrastructure, we need our own comedians, we really need the whole thing," D'Sousa said.

"We need our own America inside of America," he added.

He said a top-notch online education system was key to the whole infrastructure.

"We basically need one online university that has assembled together, the 100 top teachers and scholars in the world that will offer a Harvard level education for $5,000 a year. If you did that, you would make all of higher education obsolete overnight. I mean, the universities wouldn't go away, but it was kind of like when the iPhone first came out, suddenly, all other phones were obsolete. We can do that for education, we can do that for media, you just have to make the right moves." 

D'Souza discussed the logistics of starting these new infrastructures. 

"I think that the money is there and the will exists to do it. It's just that our side is very erratic and there hasn't been the creativity on the supply side to create these things. I mean, just think, for example, of the amount of creativity it took for Roger Ailes to go to Rupert Murdoch and just say, 'Listen, you know, all these cable channels are fighting for half the country. Geez, why don't we start one, make it a real thing, we'll offer a rival point of view, we'll take the other half of the country.'"

"It's so simple," D'Souza continued, "I mean, for decades before that, you know, all we did - our side did was, you know, complain about media, document the media bias. 'Oh, it's all so biased. We're going to give the bias award to you know' - who cares? Do your own thing and build your own, you know, mousetrap, and that's really what Roger Ailes did. And that's been my model for the world of documentaries and even feature films in Hollywood. That should be the model for education. That should be the model for everything."

There have been various alternative educational institutions established in recent years to try and change the tide of higher education. Some of these include places like the Patriot Academy and Wallbuilders, which teach students about America's founding, focus more on the cultural aspect of education. 

Cheaper, faster, and more skills-oriented educational institutions that places like University Ventures are investing in pioneer the way for more effective education that helps prepare students for the workplace. 

Co-founder and managing director of University Ventures, Ryan Craig, has said that employers are looking for job candidates with technical skills, so his organization invests in what's called "last-mile" training providers that focus on those skills.

One of these "last-mile" training providers, AlwaysHired, "is an immersive tech sales bootcamp for recent graduates who want to gain sales skills and get a job in the tech industry."

Craig is an author of a book entitled "A New U: Faster + Cheaper Alternatives to College" which discusses the issues with higher education and offers better solutions.