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

Dec 15, 2005 · George Leef

Can We Measure the Educational Value of College?

The fall semester has recently concluded at many colleges and universities. Some students have now completed the necessary credit hours and received their diplomas. That is the tangible evidence of having gone to college and for most it serves the purpose of satisfying the B.A. degree requirement that so many employers now insist upon.

Has the college experience, however, given the students more than just a piece of paper attesting to their having completed enough credits to qualify for a degree? Are they better at thinking and writing than when they entered? Unfortunately, we don’t really know.

Former college president Richard Hersh writes in the afterword to his recent book (co-edited with John Merrow) Declining by Degrees, “to date, we have no measures of the cumulative result of an undergraduate education.” While it may seem to be perfectly clear that some graduates (for example, the kid who knocks himself out in a pre-med curriculum) derive an enormous benefit from their studies and others (for example, the scholarship athlete who never takes a remotely challenging course) are educationally no different than on their first day as freshmen, we just don’t know.

Dec 1, 2005 · George Leef

Mandatory Student Fee Systems Continue to Produce Trouble

Most people don’t like to be compelled to pay for things they don’t want. Taxpayers rarely think, “The government sure is taking a lot of the money I earn, but I trust that in the wise judgment of the politicians, the money is being spent for the greatest overall good, so I’m content.” Quite a few revolts in history have been sparked by the perception that taxation was mostly funding high living for the favored few.

Mandatory student fee systems are a sub-species of the taxation beast. Most colleges and universities these days have established a policy of adding on to the tuition, room and board, and other education-related fees, a “student fee” that provides the school with a substantial pot of money which is then doled out among various student groups on campus. Exactly how the money is divvied up varies, but the principle is the same as taxation: We’ll take your money, then other people will decide how it’s spent.

Nov 22, 2005 · George Leef

The Coming Revolution in Higher Education

Advancing technology has brought about dramatic change in many industries. The transportation industry today looks nothing like the transportation industry of a century ago. The same is true of medical science, communications, the production of food, and so on. But what about higher education?

For the most part, college teaching today is done in pretty much the same way it was done a century ago. Indeed, it’s done in pretty much the same way as in the day when Socrates taught. Sure, technology has made some inroads at the margins – professors today are apt to use power point presentations rather than blackboards, and if a student loses his syllabus, he can get the information online – but nothing essential has changed.

If Yale computer science professor David Gelernter is correct, however, a technological revolution is just around the corner, a revolution that may bring about a sea change in the way the higher education industry works. Writing in the November 28 issue of Forbes Professor Gelernter entitles his piece “Who Needs a College Campus?” It is a thought-provoking piece that everyone concerned with education should read.

Nov 17, 2005 · George Leef

Racial Preferences – The Issue that Won’t Go Away

Consider, if you will, the virtue of simple rules. The First Amendment to the Constitution is a simple rule. It says that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech. Although the government hasn’t always followed it, having a sharp constitutional line has undoubtedly spared the country a great deal of meddling with free speech. With a simple rule, violations are readily apparent.

Now imagine that the First Amendment instead went like this: “Congress shouldn’t enact laws that abridge the freedom of speech unless it thinks that there is a pretty good reason to do so.” If the Founders had given us so vague and equivocal a rule, there would probably be much less freedom to speak without fear of legal repercussions today.

Nov 3, 2005 · George Leef

Recent Court Decision Undermines Rights of Student Journalists

Throughout their history, college newspapers have mostly enjoyed the same rights under the First Amendment as have other newspapers. A recent decision by a federal appellate court, however, jeopardizes their freedom.

Here are the facts.

In 2000, Margaret Hosty was the editor of The Innovator, the student newspaper of Governors State University (GSU), located just west of Chicago. Like many student newspapers, The Innovator was supported mainly by student fees. That fall, Patricia Carter, the university’s Dean of Student Affairs, told the company that printed the paper that in the future, school officials would review each issue before it could be printed. She took this action despite written GSU policy stating that the student staff of the paper would “determine content and format of their publications without censorship or advance approval.”

Oct 27, 2005 · George Leef

Will UNC Ever Be “Diverse” Enough?

Last April, UNC released its “Chancellor’s Task Force on Diversity” report, 58 pages in length and loaded with eight big recommendations for making the Chapel Hill campus more diverse. And in his State of the University speech, Chancellor Moeser devoted several paragraphs to this subject, saying that “Diversity is a key component of our academic plan,” and lauding “improvement in the diversity of our full-time permanent faculty.”

Alas, UNC is not yet diverse enough. The Task Force report recommends, for example, that the university increase the number of “minorities” in executive, administrative and managerial positions. That might be accomplished through a heavier emphasis on “diversity” in hiring and promotion.

Oct 20, 2005 · George Leef

Advice for Erskine Bowles: Ratchet Up and Ratchet Down

The UNC presidential search committee has done its work and the new president of the UNC system will be Erskine Bowles. Although the North Carolina Press Association has said that it may challenge the legality of the selection process under the Open Meetings Act, no one doubts that Mr. Bowles will succeed Molly Broad in this important position.

An accomplished, multi-talented man, Mr. Bowles will take the UNC helm with this notable advantage — he isn’t an education “insider.” People who have been immersed in higher education administration for most if not all of their careers tend to uncritically accept most of the “conventional wisdom” about how our colleges and universities supposedly need to function. That fact produces tunnel vision much like a horse with blinders. Bowles doesn’t appear to be wearing them.

Oct 6, 2005 · George Leef

UNC Gets Serious About Grade Inflation…Maybe

In the great majority of courses at UNC-Chapel Hill, the average gradepoint is above 3.0 and in a few, it is 4.0, meaning that every student received an A. The question is whether that is a problem.

Evidently, some people at the university believe that it is a problem because the Educational Policy Committee, a subcommittee of the Faculty Council is going to address the matter of grade inflation. Said Professor Peter Gordon, who chairs the committee, “We have begun to explore techniques that give an alternative to the traditional grade point average.”

Sep 29, 2005 · George Leef

Professors and Unions – Do the Two Mix?

A recent decision by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has given the green light to the formation of a faculty union at a private, church-affiliated college in Wisconsin. The case is important not only because it may stimulate unionization drives at colleges and universities around the nation, but also because it highlights some of the glaring problems in the law governing labor relations for all kinds of workers.

Carroll College is a liberal arts college located in Waukesha, WI. While nominally affiliated with the Presbyterian Church, its religious ties are not much in evidence. An administrative decision in 2001 to divide the college into schools of liberal arts and professional studies led to considerable faculty dissension and ultimately a drive for unionization. Some professors felt that their interests would be better represented by a union, specifically the United Auto Workers.

Sep 22, 2005 · George Leef

The University Needs to Know Its Own Limitations

One of my favorite movie lines occurs when Clint Eastwood (“Dirty Harry” Callahan) says to a criminal he has just subdued, “A man has got to know his own limitations.”

Knowing one’s limitations is a good idea for institutions as well as individuals, but for some years now, it’s been evident that UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor James Moeser doesn’t recognize any limits on his university. His September 15 “State of the University Address” shows that he believes the university to have a far wider range of capabilities than it actually does.

One example is the Chancellor’s statement that “North Carolina must compete in this global economy, so it is absolutely critical that its flagship university be a player on the world stage.” That’s why UNC is building a new Global Education Center.