That overreliance means high property taxes, which compounds the problem of attracting new industry.
Property taxes have increased 50% in the past four years. Jones said he believes the colleges should contribute $2 million annually to lower them.
Both tenured professors and working Joes see threats to higher education as a threat to Northfield’s lifeblood.
“We, the quote-unquote ‘elite institutions,’ have this very large symbolic influence,” said Byerly, the Carleton president. “It’s very weird to have that turned on its head.
“Some of it comes about through the politicization of higher ed, some of which we bear some responsibility for. But a lot is a deliberate effort to undermine higher education by associating it with political views and implying there’s a much stronger ideology at work than anyone who is in higher ed would say.”
On the Carleton campus on a recent afternoon, students tossed Frisbees between giant burr oak trees near the Bald Spot, the main quad. Inside a building nearby, a couple hundred local high school and middle school theater kids gathered for a screening of “Karate Kid: Legends,” where the film’s star, Northfield native Ben Wang, sat in the front row and talked about the joy of growing up in the community.