Court Decision Erases a Huge Student Debt—Is that Good or Bad?
For years, a contentious and sometimes emotionally heated debate has raged over the issue of letting people discharge their student loan debts in bankruptcy. A recent decision opens the door…
Did You Know? The States Doing the Most to Protect Student Rights
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education was founded in 1999 by University of Pennsylvania professor Alan Charles Kors and Boston civil liberties attorney Harvey Silverglate. One of the country’s…
The Intellectual and Moral Decline in Academic Research
For most of the past century, the United States was the pre-eminent nation in science and technology. The evidence for that is beyond dispute: Since 1901, American researchers have won…
The New American Academy: Break Out the Crayons and Play-Doh
The idea of a campus “safe space”—a university-sanctioned oasis where students can go to destress and feel at ease—has had its share of ridicule. And it’s not hard to see…
The Mess That Is Science Publishing
Researchers have been grumbling about the state of scientific publishing for years. Now, rumor has it that the Trump administration (yes, those science-haters!) may be trying to fix at least…
Did You Know? Confucius Institutes Disappearing from American Campuses
After years of expansion, Communist Party-funded Confucius Institutes have seen the tide turn against them at American colleges. The Institutes, controlled by the Chinese government, were created to teach Chinese…
Social Justice Revisionism Comes for Washington and Lee
In the fall of 2018, the trustees of Washington and Lee University voted to paper over parts of the university’s history. On the recommendations of Washington and Lee’s “Commission on…
Free Expression at Duke: What Do Freshmen Blue Devils Think?
As director of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Campus Free Expression Project, I am always eager to get beyond the DC beltway to learn how students understand free expression on their…
Emerson’s Vision of the American Scholar
Editor’s Note: This is an abridged version of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s The American Scholar, a lecture he gave to Harvard’s Phi Beta Kappa Society in 1837. This is the third…
Did You Know? Parental Income Across UNC Schools
The University of North Carolina system boasts a diverse set of institutions. There are many ways in which the 16 schools differ: size, geography, research intensity, curriculum, and student characteristics.…