Nope, definitely an issue in the UK too. At the last circuit assembly I attended about 4 years ago we had an idiot of an overseer blast HE for his entire talk, explicitly stating that enrolling at a university was grounds for disfellowshipping.
A friend called HQ to confirm this and was told it was NOT grounds, but all those who heard this moron say that it was took it as gospel and labelled checking with WT as murmuring!
So the vogue in my area is very much anti-HE :(