Author Profile

George Leef

George Leef is director of external relations for the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal. He holds a bachelor of arts degree from Carroll College (Waukesha, WI) and a juris doctor from Duke University School of Law. He was a vice president of the John Locke Foundation until 2003.

Prior to joining the Locke Foundation, Leef was president of Patrick Henry Associates, a consulting firm in Michigan dedicated to assisting others in advocating free markets, minimal government, private property, and individual rights. Previously, Leef was on the faculty of Northwood University in Midland, Michigan, where he taught courses in economics, business law, and logic. He has also worked as a policy adviser in the Michigan Senate.

A regular columnist for Forbes.com, Leef was book review editor of The Freeman, published by the Foundation for Economic Education, from 1996 to 2012. He has published numerous articles in The Freeman, Reason, The Free Market, Cato Journal, The Detroit News, Independent Review, and Regulation. He writes regularly for the National Review's The Corner blog and for SeethruEdu.com.

Articles by George Leef

Aug 24, 2006 ·

The Student Fee System Sets a Bad Example

The new college school year has begun and the many student groups either have held or soon will hold their initial meetings. There is nothing objectionable about students with like interests getting together to pursue them, any more than for residents of a subdivision who like playing bridge, for example, to get together for a few hands. Unfortunately, student groups don’t rely entirely on money that comes from willing participants and there is something objectionable about that.

At each of the institutions of the UNC system, students are assessed, in addition to their payments for tuition, mandatory “student activity fees.” Some of the money thus collected goes toward the expense of running the student union, student TV and radio stations and similar services that are available to all and would be difficult to charge for on an individual basis. The rest of the money is distributed by the school’s student congress to various campus groups that have requested funding.

Aug 17, 2006 ·

The Intellectual Monoculture of Higher Education

“It just won’t do to have an all-white university,” Harvard’s president Derek Bok said several years ago, attempting to justify the policy of favoring non-white applicants. The rallying cry for “diversity” proponents has long been that our institutions should “look like America” – that is, to mirror the composition of society with regard to racial, ethnic, and other classifications of individuals. Taking them at their word, what about diversity of philosophy? What about intellectual diversity?

In education, you would think that diversity of ideas would be at least as, if not more important than skin color or sexual preferences. But when it has been pointed out that college faculties tend to be very homogeneous when it comes to their beliefs on socio-economic questions, the response from the higher education establishment has mostly been that it’s a threat to academic freedom even to discuss the matter. No need for “all colors of the rainbow” when it comes to points of view on the proper relationship between state and society. Many academic departments are intellectual monocultures, with hiring preferences by those in authority filtering out any new professors whose opinions are much different from the norm. They think that is perfectly fine.

Aug 3, 2006 ·

A New Academic Field – “Whiteness Studies”

For several decades now, American colleges and universities have been expanding their academic offerings to include courses in different species of identity politics: Women’s Studies, Black (now African-American) Studies, Latino Studies, Queer Studies and more. Whereas traditional academic fields were rooted in some distinct body of knowledge such as chemistry, mathematics, or economics, these new fields are not about transmitting knowledge so much as they’re about transmitting the edgy and often intellectually shaky attitudes of the professors. Women’s Studies, for example, is mostly about trying to inculcate a sense of grievance in young, impressionable women and that is accomplished with the use of some disreputable arguments about the supposedly discriminatory nature of our economic system.

Jul 27, 2006 ·

An Essential Book on Education

Does education matter? That is the title of an absolutely essential book by Professor Alison Wolf.

Yes, of course education matters. The author, who holds the Sir Roy Griffiths professorship of public sector management at King’s College, London, is not questioning whether education is good at all. Rather, she questions whether governmental efforts to expand “access” to higher education and public training programs are justified. The book’s subtitle – myths about education and economic growth – suggests that her answer is in the negative. It certainly is. In my view, Professor Wolf has given us one of the most useful books on education policy in many years because she quietly and carefully demolishes the conventional wisdom that it is imperative for government to “invest” more in higher education. After reading the book, I believe that most people will agree that the best we can do is to provide a solid education in each child’s early years and forget about trying to manage higher education and workforce training.

Jul 25, 2006 ·

Does Education Matter?

Does education matter? Alison Wolf addresses the question in her new book, “Does Education Matter: Myths about Education and Economic Growth.” The author, who holds the Sir Roy Griffiths professorship…

Jul 13, 2006 ·

John Edwards wants “greater access to college” – good policy or bad?

In an interview published in the July 7th The Chronicle of Higher Education, former North Carolina senator John Edwards set forth his views on higher education, arguing in favor of federal policies to make college education nearly as universal as K-12 is, with the government picking up the expense for students who can’t afford it.

Let’s take a look at his arguments, which are similar to those of former governor Jim Hunt and others who think that the country needs to “invest” more in higher education.

The first question from the interviewer asked how important a college education is for the poorest students to succeed. Edwards replied, “It’s everything….Education is absolutely critical…and that’s going to be more intensely true going forward than it is today….”

Jun 29, 2006 ·

Does America need a National University?

An idea dating from 1789 has recently been resurrected – the creation of a national university for the United States. George Washington proposed exactly that in his first inaugural address and two young idealists have now set up an organization that will push for the creation of such a university.

Writing in the June 16th Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription required), Chris Myers Asch, chairman of the Campaign for a U.S. Service Academy argues that the U.S. needs to have a national university “designed to cultivate a steady flow of first-rate young leaders dedicated to civic leadership.” (Another article on the subject is available here.) Asch and Shawn Raymond, both of whom taught in the Teach for America program and subsequently founded a non-profit group to provide after-school tutoring to low-income students, are promoting the establishment of a United States Public Service Academy because they think it’s time to “tap into a renewed sense of patriotism and civic obligation among young people.”

Jun 22, 2006 ·

Why college graduates don’t write well

We keep hearing that America’s colleges and universities are the envy of the world, which seems to imply that they impart to students an extremely high level of knowledge and deep, refined skills necessary for success in today’s world. The trouble with that idea is the fact that many students manage to obtain college degrees despite the fact that they don’t even have the basic language and math skills that would have been taken for granted among high school students fifty years ago. Last year’s National Assessment of Adult Literacy report showed that basic literacy of college graduates is low and falling and a new paper released this week by the Pope Center shows that college graduates also have weak writing skills and explains why that is the case.

In “English 101: Prologue to Literacy or Postmodern Moonshine?” retired English professor Nan Miller, who taught writing for twenty-six years, examines the changes in the typical freshman composition course. She laments that those crucial courses are now dominated by “composition theorists.” Miller writes that “Composition is now taught according to their vision, in spite of evidence that shows a sharp decline in literacy among college graduates.” The ideas of the theorists, she contends, “hold students hostage to a bad idea.”

Jun 12, 2006 ·

Jim Hunt believes colleges are not measuring up

In a report recently issued by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, former North Carolina governor Jim Hunt and businessman Thomas Tierney address the question “How does American higher education measure up for the 21st century?” Not very well, they conclude.
I happen to think their conclusion is correct, but not for the reasons they give. The difficulty is that Hunt and Tierney are obsessed with the notion that we have a quantity problem. We don’t. We have a quality problem.
The tone for the report is set by former New Mexico governor Garrey Carruthers in his foreword. He states that, due to the demands of the “knowledge-based global economy,” it is imperative that “more Americans must prepare for, enroll in, and successfully complete degree and certificate programs.” Carruthers provides not the tiniest bit of evidence to support his assertion, but this is only the foreword. He calls for government, schools and colleges, and public leaders to “ratchet up the educational level” of the populace.