In many countries higher education is encouraged and valued which makes for a better educated electorate... oooooh now I get it.

It has a lot to do with the fact if you learn to think for yourself. You will question their policies and their god. The other thing is they don't think the common man or woman should be educated, but their kids and family should be. They like to tell you that the colleges are teaching you the wrong things, if that was true then they wouldn't be bragging about their own education in the same schools that they say are too liberal.

This probably has to do with the fact that colleges have a tendency to have left leaning ideologies. Would you not see it as possibly negative if colleges were right leaning institutions that pushed viewpoints opposed to yours?