With so many more Americans going to college than in the past, you would think that anti-intellectualism would be a distant, rapidly fading memory. But you’d be mistaken argue Mark Bauerlein and Adam Bellow, editors of a sharp new book The State of the American Mind.
The reopening of UNC–Chapel Hill Law School’s Center on Poverty, Work, and Opportunity as the “North Carolina Poverty Research Fund” by law professor Gene Nichol shows great contempt for the UNC system Board of Governors, the state legislature, and the people of North Carolina. It also may be illegal.
Tomorrow is the day we celebrate our nation’s founding—and the first time that a nation was deliberately founded on reason and the rule of law instead of on accidents of history. The central question of this article is “how are the founding and related topics treated in today’s academia?” It is a matter of crucial importance, since academia’s treatment of the nation’s history and fundamental ideals influences the future.
Wharton School professor Peter Cappelli has taken a careful look at the relative costs and benefits of college and concludes that going to college can be a terrible decision for many young Americans. He objects to “unqualified statements about the big payoff to a college degree.” His book, Will College Pay Off?, also provides some insight into the crucial question: What are employers looking for?
To hear some policymakers talk, one would think colleges and universities exist mainly to enhance economic growth rather than to educate.
The emergence of a holistic, individual-centered approach to guidance, which informs students of alternate paths, is promising. New innovations are addressing an issue that public high schools have been straining to solve. Raising awareness of alternate careers, apprenticeships, and earning non-degree certificates will allow more students to enter the workforce early and without amassing debt. That may not be the right path for everyone, but more high school graduates need to be aware of those options and more. Any progress in this long-neglected area is welcome.
People are right to be skeptical of the College Board’s new Advanced Placement U.S. History standards. They accelerate the trend toward making American history mainly about race, class, and gender grievances. Events are included only if they can be framed that way.
Today, the system is faced with an important existential question: how to “right-size” the system itself, which may include reducing the number of campuses. This question badly needs to be addressed, and soon; as Harry Smith, the chair of the Board of Governor’s budget and finance committee, admitted in March, “[P]eople have been ducking this conversation for a long time.”
The North Carolina Senate is taking a responsible stance by not funding unnecessary new building projects for the UNC system.
Higher education will work better for all Americans if academic theorists like Lani Guinier would stop using it for social engineering and just let each individual search for the education or training that best suits his abilities and circumstances.