@jhs, of course Rush Limbaugh is doctrainaire. The point was that he was different from the dominant media of the time. The more salient point was that the network media wasn’t widely thought of as down the line liberal by the majority of the population (as it clearly is now) because there was nothing really to compare it to. It’s just what it was. I assume you get the analogy.
@pragmaticmom, I understand what you are saying, but for well over half the population Harvard is free of charge. Yale and Princeton too. All of the Ivys are in fact very likely to be the least costly choice for colleges for large majorities within the United States. So I don’t think your economic argument works quite the way you are intending it too. In fact, one could argue the converse, and that people apply to the Ivies because it makes economic sense even if some percentage of them don’t particularly care for their brand of politics.
Again, except for a very few examples (Brown, Vassar, Wesleyan, Berkley, Evergreen, USMA, USNA, Liberty, etc) I doubt this really effects very many people at all.