Sperber’s ‘Beer and Circus’—An Unintentional Argument for Community College?
The year 2000 saw the publication of Beer and Circus, the notable book by former Indiana University professor Murray Sperber. It was a big step forward for the analysis of…
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Articles
A Professor’s Tough Examination—Of Our Higher Education System
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…
The State of Private Higher Ed in North Carolina
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…
College Students’ Disability Claims Show Unintended Consequences of ADA
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…
The New Head of the Office for Civil Rights Charts a Very Different Course
Last month, the Senate voted to confirm Kenneth L. Marcus as assistant secretary for civil rights in the Department of Education. The vote was 50-46, with not one Democrat supporting…
Free College Is Just Another Middle-Class Entitlement
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…
A Worrisome Trend for Higher Education: Declining Enrollments
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…
Colleges Reject Duty to Teach Liberty’s Framework
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…
Man in the Middle
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 Latest Affirmative Action Suit May Succeed Where Others Failed
In 2016, the University of Texas won the case over its use of racial preferences (Fisher v. Texas), but the Supreme Court did not rule that all racial preference plans…