Making Room for More Ideas in Higher Education
Late last year, I had the honor of being nominated by Governor Kim Reynolds to serve on the advisory board of the newly created Center for Intellectual Freedom at the…
Articles
Articles
Huge University Spending Yields Little Value
Why do public university officials do the things they do? What drives their decisions to allocate scarce resources in some ways and not others? In his recent book The University…
Student Loans: A Multi-Generational Financial Trap
When the United States began its experiment with federally backed student loans in the 1960s, no one predicted that, by the early 21st century, students would have run up over…
Harvard Tries Grade Deflation
This academic year, Harvard has endured a dark night of the soul, including (among other troubles) facing down the consequences of grade inflation and searching for curricular absolution. In a…
Taxpayers Shouldn’t Fund NIL
College athletics are big business. And states are increasingly competing to give their universities an edge in recruiting talented student-athletes. What began as an effort to allow athletes to profit…
Rara Avis: Professor Finds Harvard’s Faults
Harvey Mansfield is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Government at Harvard University. Still teaching at the age of 94, he has just published a collection of essays, Where…
50-State Comparison: Syllabus Transparency
In an era of the internet, AI, and constant information overload, most public colleges and universities in the United States still don’t consistently make syllabi and course information publicly available.…
North Carolina Has the Degrees, But What About the Paychecks?
The hot new words in higher education are educational attainment and career outcomes. Educational attainment is the raw share of adults who hold a degree or credential. Career outcomes or…
A Little-Known Lawsuit May Weaken University Ethics Boards
For 45 years, research at American universities has been supervised by Institutional Review Boards (IRBs), which are committees that ensure scientific research is conducted ethically. At most universities, faculty, students,…
Degrees Still Matter—But They’re Not Enough
A recent poll shows employers still value college degrees, but they are worried about a skills gap between what they need and what candidates actually possess. Earlier this year, Lumina…