There are lots of people in our higher education system who claim that it is “the envy of the world” and just needs more money to graduate more young Americans with the degrees that are supposedly in great demand. One naysayer who disputes that rosy picture is Professor Warren Treadgold, who teaches history at Saint … Continue reading “A Professor’s Tough Examination—Of Our Higher Education System”
Private colleges and universities face challenges distinct from their public counterparts. For one, unlike public institutions, they are not the recipients of generous state funding. Instead, they rely heavily on revenue generated from tuition—as well as on the generous support of donors. Such a reliance on tuition revenue puts private institutions in a vulnerable position—especially … Continue reading “The State of Private Higher Ed in North Carolina”
Twentieth-century American sociologist Robert Merton popularized a term that is now a part of our everyday vocabulary. “The Law of Unintended Consequences,” often cited but rarely defined, posits that actions of people—and most especially of government—always have effects that are unanticipated or unintended. Since our government is prolific at enacting sweeping legislation, there are countless … Continue reading “College Students’ Disability Claims Show Unintended Consequences of ADA”
Tennessee legislators received a shock in 2012 when a study from Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce predicted that by 2020, 55 percent of Tennessee jobs would require some kind of postsecondary education or job training. To elected officials in a state where only a quarter of citizens possessed a bachelor’s degree and … Continue reading “Free College Is Just Another Middle-Class Entitlement”
A specter is haunting higher education—the specter of declining enrollments. University and college enrollment has fallen nearly 9 percent since 2011, according to the National Student Clearinghouse, and no one is exactly sure why. The decrease is not that obvious yet because the decline follows many decades of tremendous growth in enrollment. On a website … Continue reading “A Worrisome Trend for Higher Education: Declining Enrollments”
Though college leaders constantly remind the public about the value of a college degree, graduates sometimes leave without important knowledge. As Americans celebrate the 4th of July holiday, it’s a good time to reflect on just how little college students know about the Declaration of Independence and American history. The data are depressing. A 2016 … Continue reading “Colleges Reject Duty to Teach Liberty’s Framework”
Community colleges are the unheralded linchpins at the center of state educational systems. They get less funding than K-12 schools and universities, but are expected to correct the failures of the former through remedial education and uphold the academic standards of the latter for transfer students. And, if those tasks weren’t enough, they must respond … Continue reading “Man in the Middle”
Conventional wisdom and public perception hold that college sports provide educational opportunities for thousands of student-athletes who could not afford to attend college without them. The National Collegiate Athletic Association lists “providing opportunities to earn a college degree” as at the heart of its mission and boasts that nearly 500,000 student-athletes participate in college sports … Continue reading “College Sports and Educational Opportunity: Exposing the (Half) Truth”
The number of part-time and nontenure faculty continues to rise on campus as university officials try to cut costs. So does their dissatisfaction over wages and benefits, which is stirring disruptive pushback. Few question the credentials, knowledge, or teaching skills of adjunct and contingent faculty. But some are exploring whether their working conditions, lack of … Continue reading “With Colleges Shifting to Adjuncts, Teaching Quality May Suffer”
If you want to see one example of why a new populism has emerged in American universities in the last 10 years, take a look at a statement issued last week by the Association of University Professors and the Association of American Colleges and Universities. The incapacity of the experts and professionals who wrote the … Continue reading “Faculty in Denial about Own Role in Decline of Humanities”