In 2012, CBS noted the bleak future that awaited PhD graduates. From 2005 to 2009, American universities graduated 100,000 new PhDs but only created 16,000 new professorships. The average PhD … Continue reading “The True Cost of a PhD: Giving Up a Family for Academia”
Though college leaders constantly remind the public about the value of a college degree, graduates sometimes leave without important knowledge. As Americans celebrate the 4th of July holiday, it’s a … Continue reading “Colleges Reject Duty to Teach Liberty’s Framework”
Increasing teacher pay to improve teaching quality has grabbed media attention for months. But North Carolina’s General Assembly has been trying to figure out how to get better teachers into … Continue reading “Proposed Bills Could Improve Teacher Quality in the Tar Heel State”
The world of law school and the legal profession is in turmoil. This is because there are not only many market distortions at play, but because the economy is undergoing transitions. … Continue reading “The Legal Innovations Trying to Save Law School from Itself”
“Dartmouth falls out of an exclusive group,” declared a 2016 headline in The Washington Post just days after the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education released its 2015 classifications … Continue reading “Carnegie Classifications—What’s All the Fuss?”
“The United States is producing more research scientists than academia can handle,” so begins a July 2016 article by respected New York Times science reporter Gina Kolata. It turns out … Continue reading “Science and Its Discontents: Too Few Jobs—or Too Many Scientists?”
Georgia’s HOPE Scholarship is now in its twenty-fourth year of existence. Originally the brainchild of then Governor Zell Miller, since 1993 this merit-based scholarship program has distributed in excess of … Continue reading “Grade Inflation Just Got Respectable: The New Eligibility Rule Governing Georgia’s HOPE Scholarship”
Recently I attended a meeting of a committee of the University of North Carolina system’s Board of Governors that has a mission of “setting goals for economic impact.” Higher education’s … Continue reading “Educating for the Workplace: A Dilemma”
For decades, the American higher education establishment was able to sell the idea that promoting college was sound policy because it seemed that nearly all graduates found good, high-paying jobs. … Continue reading “Is Underemployment of Recent College Grads a Serious Problem?”
Conventional wisdom has it that America desperately needs more STEM graduates, but “it just ain’t so.”