March Madness Means Skyhigh Athletics Spending
As March Madness hits and the public’s attention is on college basketball’s NCAA Tournament, few spectators know just how much the public subsidizes college sports. Within the University of North…
Universities Should Invest in Their Students, Not Securities
Nearly all American institutions of higher education raise money they put into endowments—money that is kept invested in securities. At the same time, many of their students borrow money from…
Why Postmoderns Train—Not Educate—Activists
Here’s why indoctrinating children makes perfect sense to postmodernists. Postmodernism is a sprawling movement centered on the conviction that the modern world’s most distinctive achievements—among them the rise of science,…
The Essential Ingredient for a ‘Deep Education’
About a year ago, Princeton philosopher Robert P. George came to Chapel Hill, North Carolina to speak about civil discourse and diversity of thought with the UNC system Board of…
Life Among the Academic Radicals
For almost a quarter century I have been a professor of economics at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. After years of working there, I have learned something about how…
From Boys to Men? A Review of Alexandra Robbins’ ‘Fraternity’
Wars are rarely kind to the wide-ranging pursuit of the truth. The same goes for culture wars, including the war over fraternities. Harvard University’s recent decision to penalize students who…
NC Promise’s Costs and Benefits: An Early Analysis
Concerned about the high cost of college, the University of North Carolina system is testing a low-tuition model at some schools to drive up enrollments. Though the experiment only started…
Can a New Law Protect Intellectual Diversity on Campus?
American colleges and universities lean left. Among faculty at leading U.S. universities, Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 11-to-one. The administration is even more skewed: there, Democrats outnumber Republicans by…
‘Free College:’ A Better Approach
Two facts about colleges stand out. First, they are largely (some argue almost entirely) a “private” good; that is to say, the benefits from college attendance accrue mainly to the…
Preparing Students for Life Beyond High School
Few factors affect the long-term direction of students’ lives more than the quality of their K-12 education. For students who decide to attend a four-year university, their ability to keep…