From the earliest days of his administration, President Biden has been under pressure from activist groups and many fellow Democrats to take action to relieve students of their college loan debts. For example, a coalition of 105 organizations urged him to unilaterally cancel most or all of the more than $1.6 trillion that students owe. … Continue reading “The Debate Over Canceling Student Loan Debt”
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear two cases that challenge the legality of racial preferences in college admissions, one involving Harvard and the other the University of North Carolina. It might rule that preferences for particular racial groups violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and/or the 14th Amendment. Such a decision would be … Continue reading “Should We Replace Racial Preferences with Socio-Economic Preferences?”
Law students are adults who have completed an undergraduate degree. They’re in a professional school to learn the law, procedures, and skills they’ll need in a conflict-ridden, frequently harsh world. You would expect that they would act accordingly. Sadly, that’s not always the case. As we’ll see, law students can be petty and vindictive. And … Continue reading “Law Student Complains about a Question; Professor Sentenced to Re-education Camp”
America’s colleges and universities are loaded with professors who insist on teaching students various theories that amount to nothing but fringe opinions and who don’t engage intellectually with those who disagree, but merely try to “cancel” them. There are, however, still some professors who won’t play those games. One of them is Erec Smith, who … Continue reading “Meet a Rhetoric Professor Who Favors Empowerment and Opposes CRT”
From the 1960s until quite recently, the conventional wisdom in America was that going to college and earning a degree was a very good investment. The time and money that a student puts into it would be repaid very handsomely over his or her lifetime. College debt was called “good debt.” No need to worry … Continue reading “Will Your College Degree be a Good Investment?”
In 2014, Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) filed suit against the University of North Carolina. Its complaint argued that the university had engaged in intentional discrimination on the basis of race and ethnicity to the detriment of SFFA members. The suit followed in a line of cases challenging the admissions policies of universities, where students … Continue reading “Judge Rules for UNC in Admissions Case”
Predictions that American higher education is on the verge of great change have been heard for quite a few years, but so far the system doesn’t look much different than it did twenty years ago. Perhaps the prognostications were wrong. I have never doubted that higher education was on an unsustainable path and after reading … Continue reading “How Higher Education is Going to Change”
The most striking fact about American colleges and universities over the last fifty years is how rapidly the cost of attending has risen. A good perspective on the college cost explosion is found in a November, 2017 study prepared for the Joint Economic Committee of Congress. It states, “A student working full-time over the summer … Continue reading “Explaining the High Cost of College”
We take it for granted that people are free to use their abilities as they choose, and as a result, society as a whole benefits from their work and innovations. Progress depends on this. Today our lives are vastly better than those of our distant ancestors because individuals were free to try new ideas. For … Continue reading “Universities and Meritocracy”
No one spoke of college students being trapped in debt until rather recently. Prior to the advent of federal student aid programs, college wasn’t expensive, few Americans regarded it as important to their lives, and what borrowing they did for it was through private institutions that were careful not to lend where they perceived too … Continue reading “How Did We Get Into the Debt Trap?”