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…
Articles
Articles
How Postmodernism Killed Great Literature
Last week, I finished reading Ottessa Moshfegh’s bestselling 2018 novel My Year of Rest and Relaxation. While I usually do not read books from the “Millennial Sad Girl Navigates Modern…
Ten Books We Want Under the Tree in 2025
If you’ve been a longtime reader of the Martin Center’s work, then you know we collect books. Our library now holds nearly 1,000 titles, although our recent move means that…
Do Data Dashboards Truly Illuminate?
In 2010, when I first entered the institutional-research field, the most common request from academic departments was a simple, almost humble “I need data.” A decade later, that request had…
RE: “Florida’s H-1B Visa Crackdown”
Bruce Gilley’s article “Florida’s H-1B Visa Crackdown” (Dec. 19) raises legitimate concerns about higher education, but its argument fails on its own terms and is inconsistent with the broader goals…
Florida’s H-1B Visa Crackdown
Conservative politicians have often made their careers in part by fixing higher education. Both Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan leveraged the campus radicalism of the 1960s to expand their voting…
The Cost of Tuition Discounting
Public universities have spent years insisting that rising tuition is unavoidable. State funding, they say, hasn’t kept pace. Costs are up, and quality must be maintained. But a new brief…
Wyoming’s Higher-Ed Funding Choice
Last week, Cowboy State Daily—Wyoming’s largest news outlet—published a piece titled “UW Seeks Extra $54 Million On Top Of Its $440 Million State-Funded Budget.” Cowboy State Daily’s reporter did a…
Measure Microcredential Outcomes
The Higher Learning Commission (HLC), one of the nation’s largest institutional accreditors with more than 1,000 member organizations, recently announced a new endorsement application for short-term-credential providers, including microcredential organizations.…
Charting a Better Collegiate & Workforce Education Course
This policy brief analyzes North Carolina’s experience launching Project Kitty Hawk, a nonprofit project of the UNC System that works with North Carolina’s public universities to “build pathways for adult…