Reforms We’re Cheering For in 2026

Every December, the staff of the Martin Center share our higher-ed-reform dreams for the coming 12 months. Some are obvious; others are fanciful. We offer them all here in a spirit of optimism, for the reader’s enjoyment and edification.

Turn to the Founders

The Founding Fathers are a source of insight and wisdom that should be drawn on more frequently. Their writings on liberty and natural rights shed light on questions of human dignity. Their example of simultaneous restraint and boldness in the appropriate contexts provides a model of leadership. And their educational vision adds clarity to the purpose of higher education.

The new year 2026 will continue to present challenges to colleges and universities. The new year 2026 will continue to present challenges to colleges and universities. Difficult decisions will have to be made regarding a shrinking student population, programs that yield poor returns on investment, and an overall decline in Americans’ confidence in the value of a college education. When navigating this challenging landscape, it can be easy to lose sight of higher education’s core mission.

College leaders should pull a page or two out of the Founders’ handbook. For guidance, college leaders should pull a page or two out of the Founders’ handbook. Especially in anticipation of the upcoming Semiquincentennial, the Founders’ writings on higher education should be closely studied. The Founders, in particular, valued the liberal arts for their ability to prepare students for civic life. George Washington, for example, believed that “liberal knowledge” was “necessary to qualify our citizens for the exigencies of public, as well as private life.” He again emphasized higher education’s civic mission in his Eighth Annual Message, in which he advocated for a national university:

A primary object of such a national institution should be, the education of our Youth in the science of Government. In a Republic, what species of knowledge can be equally important? and what duty more pressing on its Legislature, than to patronize a plan for communicating it to those, who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country?

John Adams argued that the country should “cherish the interests of literature and the sciences” because of their ability to form virtuous citizens—a necessary prerequisite for the nation’s welfare.

For more detailed readings, I suggest The Learning of Liberty: The Educational Ideas of the American Founders by Lorraine and Thomas Pangle.

These insights and more can serve as a compass for college leaders in the year ahead.

-Shannon Watkins, research and policy fellow

Combat Intolerance With a Course on Logic

Besides teaching students important skills and fundamental knowledge about the world, a college education should help them to mature into responsible, civic-minded adults. Sadly, events of recent years have made it plain that, in large measure, higher ed is failing in the latter. Many students are intolerant and even violent when faced with differing points of view. As Princeton’s Robbie George wrote in “A Solution to Campus Extremism,” college leaders need to focus on promoting healthy dialogue.

That’s a tall order, since so many students have been led to believe that speech can be the equivalent of violence and that they are justified in doing whatever it takes to silence people who they believe have bad views.

Professor George lauds a small number of schools that have established programs designed to model the respectful exchange of ideas, and those are laudable. They won’t, however, do nearly enough, since many students are taught in their K-12 years to react with anger towards “wrong” opinions. They will tune out programs intended to counteract intolerance.

What college leaders should do is to create a required course for freshmen that will accomplish the following: teach students why freedom of speech is important, why intolerance and violence are never productive, and how to engage in rational argumentation.

In the course, students would learn to spot fallacious reasoning, such as ad hominem arguments, which are so often their immediate response to dealing with contending points of view. They would learn to shape their arguments against views with which they disagree, calmly and analytically. They would be expected to write pro and con essays on controversial topics.

A required freshman course on argumentation and logic is necessary if schools are going to graduate thoughtful, mature adults.

-George Leef, director of external relations

State legislators should make clear through legislation that state law supersedes accreditors’ regulations. Continue Reforming Accreditation and Pass the REACH Act

When Martin Center editor Graham Hillard asked me what I would write about in our annual “Reforms for the New Year” article, my answer included syllabus transparency in North Carolina. But I got my wish early! UNC System president Peter Hans announced earlier this month that the UNC System will make all syllabi available to the public by the 2026-27 academic year. This is an extremely exciting reform—and one that we’ve been cheering for since 2008. We’re gratified to see our ideas become reality here in North Carolina.

The N.C. General Assembly should build on this momentum by passing the REACH Act. The other two items on my wish list for the Tar Heel State build on accreditation reform and civics requirements for community colleges.

North Carolina has already made important strides in expanding accreditation choice for its public colleges and universities. Now, state legislators should make clear through legislation that state law supersedes accreditors’ regulations, including accreditation standards that promote discrimination and DEI in curricula. The Martin Center’s model Accreditation Choice Act includes such a provision.

I also hope the legislature will finally pass the REACH Act, which has been under consideration since 2023. The REACH Act would require all college and university students to take a civics course focused on primary documents in order to graduate. The UNC System has already moved in this direction with its introduction of a “Foundations of American Democracy” requirement. The General Assembly should build on this momentum by passing the REACH Act, which would strengthen the UNC requirement and spread civics education in the North Carolina Community College System.

-Jenna A. Robinson, president

Instill American Civic Values in Foreign Students

Since 1945, the United States has been the world’s leading destination for international students. In the 2024-25 academic year, American colleges and universities enrolled nearly 1.2 million foreign students—about six percent of the total higher-education population.

In 2024, international students contributed $55 billion to the U.S. economy and supported more than 355,000 jobs.

Foreign students come to the United States to advance their education and contribute to their institutions and new communities. What is less clear is how much they learn about the United States during their time here.

Studying in the United States is a dream for millions of young people around the world, and only a small share earn the privilege of receiving an American education. That privilege should carry certain responsibilities, including learning about American government, history, and culture.

Introducing foreign students to American values and the American way of life complements their education; it is not an act of hostility toward them, despite the claims of leftists for whom any whiff of assimilation is an act of “violence.”

International students in the United States come from more than 200 countries, many governed by authoritarian or hybrid regimes that are often hostile to American interests. Exposing these students to the nation’s founding principles—constitutionalism, free speech, the rule of law, and equality before the law—would help them better understand the American way of life and could inspire reform-minded change when they return home.

Unfortunately, many American universities devote significant attention to DEI programs and workshops while neglecting the civic education of foreign students. Structured orientation programs or coursework focused on U.S. civic norms are largely absent.

In the coming year, I would like to see the Trump administration establish clear civic-orientation workshop and seminar requirements for foreign-student visa holders. In addition, the Department of Homeland Security, which administers most foreign-student visas, should require a three-credit-hour course for all international students, both degree- and non-degree-seeking. As the nation approaches its Semiquincentennial, this is the right moment to instill America’s foundational principles and values in foreign students while highlighting the country’s achievements and development.

-Jovan Tripkovic, communications manager 

In a sport that is already more similar to professional wrestling than is healthy, this cannot continue. Stop the College-Sports Madness

If the iconic image of the 2025 college-football season was Indiana receiver Omar Cooper’s insane touchdown catch to beat Penn State, a close second was Lane Kiffin’s appearance before an LSU backdrop at his introductory press conference earlier this month.

One possible solution is for Congress to pass the SCORE Act, which provides limited antitrust exemptions to the NCAA. Kiffin, until late November the head coach of playoff-bound Ole Miss, had long been expected to flee Oxford for richer Southeastern Conference territory eventually. Almost no one anticipated that he would leave midseason, abandoning a team in national-title contention for the sake of personal branding and a higher NIL budget with which to buy players. (Given new loopholes, spending on college athletes is now virtually unlimited.)

Yet that is exactly what happened. Thanks to new transfer-portal rules, players cannot announce their “free agency” until after the end of their teams’ seasons. Coaches, however, may do what they like. At one end of the spectrum, state employees such as Jimbo Fisher (Texas A&M) arrange high-eight-figure “buyouts” should their services no longer be required. At the other, coaches flee the moment better terms materialize elsewhere.

In a sport that is already more similar to professional wrestling than is healthy, this cannot continue.

The NFL prohibits unseemly coaching changes, mostly limiting the ability of active team employees to interview elsewhere before the season ends. That the SEC and other college conferences don’t is presumably due to their fear of antitrust litigation. Since NCAA v. Alston (2021) upended college athletics, sports authorities have lived in terror of further smackdowns from the bench. Hence the “Wild West” in which we now find ourselves. When enforcement is itself against the law, lawlessness reigns.

One possible solution is for Congress to pass the SCORE Act, which provides limited antitrust exemptions to the NCAA. (The extent of those exemptions will, ironically, be tested in court.) Another is for hugely compensated adults to stop acting like greedy children and behave with a little class.

Neither is likely to happen, of course, but both are worth wishing for in the new year.

-Graham Hillard, editor