Why Does American Higher Education Work So Poorly?
After enjoying many decades of high public support, higher education in the U.S. is in serious decline. Polls show that a sizeable percentage of the populace now doubts that college…
Articles by George Leef
Universities’ Stalinesque Procedures Are Silencing Unpopular Professors
At one time, most Americans (and virtually all academics) would have agreed with the famous saying, often attributed to Voltaire, “While I disagree with what you say, I will defend…
Yes, the College Bubble Will Deflate
For the entire existence of the James G. Martin Center, we have been arguing that, due to governmental policies, higher education has been badly oversold. That is, many students have…
Bad Legal Education Puts America in Jeopardy
It is worrisome that “progressive” activism has managed to infiltrate so much of American higher education, but wildly politicized sociology and English departments can do us only marginal damage. Few…
Is Standardized Testing Good or Bad?
Should colleges and universities—especially those regarded as elite—use the scores students earned on standardized tests in making admissions decisions? That has been a heated subject of debate for several decades.…
No More Qualified Immunity for Administrators
Courts have repeatedly ruled that colleges and universities violate the First Amendment rights of professors when they retaliate against them for having said things administrators dislike. Nevertheless, such cases continue…
Is Higher Education Inevitably Stuck in the Past?
A common refrain among observers of American higher education is that it changes at a glacial pace—if even that fast. The structure of our colleges and universities serves largely to…
How Academic Elites Are Undoing Centuries of Progress
Professor John Ellis has been a critic of our higher-education system for many years. His book The Breakdown of Higher Education (which I reviewed here) masterfully analyzed the perverse trends…
The Clash Between Academic Freedom and Antisemitism
Academics who cherish free speech have been pushed into a corner by the rapid rise of anti-Zionist and antisemitic rhetoric and action on our campuses. The concept of free speech…
Do We Need to Abolish Grading?
Many generations of young Americans have learned in school under the grading system. We took tests in subjects and would find out how well we had done when the instructor…