Will This New College Ranking System Upend the Status Quo?
Higher education reformers have long argued that colleges’ admissions selectivity reveals little about their educational quality and how well they prepare students for the workforce and civic life. The U.S.…
The High Cost of Cultural Amnesia
Famed literary critic George Steiner once said that cultural knowledge allows one to “resist” and that “no one can make a zombie of you if you carry [cultural knowledge] inside…
Universities Are Churning Out the Next Generation of Higher Ed Bureaucrats
The number of non-academic administrators at colleges and universities has more than doubled in the last 25 years, far outpacing the growth in students and faculty. According to a report…
College Officials, Take Note: We’re Watching You
The Gallup Organization and Inside Higher Ed co-hosted a conference in Washington on September 15. They called it “Not Out of the Woods: Colleges, Diversity and Affirmative Action after a…
The New College Cheating: Why Not Buy Your Degree?
Like hospital “superbugs” that grow increasingly deadly and difficult to kill, cheating by college students keeps morphing into new and more virulent forms. Notes hidden away under a shirt cuff…
Is Underemployment of Recent College Grads a Serious Problem?
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.…
Yes, There’s Such a Thing as Too Much Enrollment Growth
Now that another academic year is underway, many university administrators are anxiously awaiting the final tally of fall semester enrollment numbers. Such enrollment mania is a driving force at many…
Which College or Whether College? Maybe the Feds Can Help, After All
When I enrolled in college back in the prehistoric days of 1966, the process was simple. I went to the high school guidance office, browsed some college catalogs, spoke with…
Academic Freedom in an Age of Political Correctness
In 2010, a seemingly insignificant event in a far-off land caught my eye. The Israeli academic world was having a fracas over the actions of “post-Zionist” faculty that raised important…
Athletics Reform Is Possible Without the NCAA
In the past two decades, North Carolina higher education leaders have tried to address problems related to college athletics. But whether they’ve focused on the increasing pressure to admit academically ill-prepared…