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?”
A decade ago, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was engulfed in a sports scandal that made national headlines, brought down a chancellor who seemed destined for a lustrous career, and caused the school huge expenses in litigation and for public relations experts. For the Carolina faithful, those events are now just a … Continue reading “Recalling the Great UNC Sports Scandal—How Much has Really Changed?”
Law schools in the U.S. used to be run by no-nonsense individuals who, whatever their personal politics, thought that their institutions existed to teach students about the law, not to engage in advocacy or speculation. That began to change in the 1980s, as some younger law professors started to push into previously forbidden terrain, introducing … Continue reading “Progressivism Surges Through America’s Law Schools”
Here is a recurring situation on American college and university campuses—an official acts in a way that violates the constitutional rights of students or faculty members, usually by trampling on the First Amendment. The aggrieved party then sues, naming the institution and the officials who approved the actions as defendants. Those lawsuits often succeed, with … Continue reading “College Officials Should be Responsible When They Violate People’s Rights”
(Editor’s note: this article was updated on August 25, 2021, to provide additional information and clarification about the microaggressions research done by Monnica Williams, Ph.D.) The need to combat “microaggressions” has recently saturated America. In higher education, business, and government, programs and policies have been implemented to deal with a supposed problem that almost no … Continue reading “How ‘Experts’ Abused Science to Saddle America with the Microaggression Mania”
Colleges and universities used to proclaim that their mission was to give students a broad education that would expand their intellectual vistas—one that would open their minds. Most still say that, but the sad truth is that what passes for higher education these days often does the opposite. Many professors and some whole academic fields … Continue reading “Higher Education Is Shutting Student Minds”
Last year, advocates of racial preferences in California, where they’d been banned since 1996, attempted to change the law so that state colleges and universities could again give admission advantages to certain groups. Despite outspending opponents by about 15-1 and with backing from big business, labor, and other organizations, the effort at repealing racial neutrality … Continue reading “A Broad and Devastating Offensive Against Racial Preferences”