Politicians Eyeing Those Supersized University Endowments
Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah and Representatives Kevin Brady of Texas and Peter Roskam of Illinois wrote a letter on February 8 to the presidents of 56 private colleges and universities, who all hold endowments of more than $1 billion. In the letter, the Republican committee chairmen wrote, “Despite these large and growing endowments, many colleges and universities have raised tuition far in excess of inflation” and said they want to hear officials explain to their committees “how colleges and universities are using endowment assets to fulfill their charitable and educational purposes.” The presidents have until April 1 to reply. It will be interesting to see how many defend against the letter’s implication that they don’t properly use their endowments as they keep increasing tuition. Of course, the politicians don’t just want to satisfy their intellectual curiosity; they’re looking for a justification to change the law.
The Federal Leviathan Is Crushing Colleges and Universities
Federal, state, and local higher education laws seem to multiply by the hour. Bureaucrats now dictate campus policies regarding academics, sexual assault, athletics, dining, technology, employment, campus construction, and student health, among other areas. Meanwhile, schools devote millions of dollars and valuable resources to comply with those rules—many of which confuse and do little to improve student outcomes.
Needed: Business-Minded College Presidents
Through their experience, business executives are well-equipped to respond to unanticipated market changes, competitive threats, and know how to capitalize on strategic opportunities. Therefore it’s somewhat surprising that most small colleges continue drawing their presidents almost exclusively from the academic ranks.
What If Federal Regulations for Colleges Are Themselves Illegal?
We’ve created a serious problem by allowing federal bureaucrats to dictate education policies nationwide, K-12 through college. Many rules that appeal to ideologically zealous regulators would never be adopted by school and college officials who are in the best position to weigh costs versus benefits.
Guaranteed Tuition Plans Pose Greater Risk Than Potential Benefit
Amid what appears to be a national crisis of student debt, legislators and higher education leaders have clamored for a more affordable route to a bachelor’s degree. Guaranteed tuition programs are among the innovations gaining traction. More than 300 colleges offer these programs, and a group of North Carolina legislators wants to explore whether to add the state’s 17 public universities to the growing list. While that may seem like a good idea, there are potential negative consequences for both students and universities.
Ten Years Later, the Duke Lacrosse Case Still Reverberates
Next month will be the tenth anniversary of the spring break party that triggered the Duke lacrosse case. That incident probably remains the highest-profile false rape claim in recent U.S. history—rivaled only by the claim against University of Virginia fraternity members leveled, and then retracted, by Rolling Stone. An unwillingness to engage in any critical self-reflection is the foremost legacy of how the academy responded to the lacrosse case, at Duke and beyond.
Michigan’s Experiment with Incentives to Keep Down Tuition Hikes
Politicians around the nation like to say that they have held down tuition at their state universities. Michigan’s are no different, and to validate their claim, in 2011 they added incentive-based funding to university appropriations.
No Accountability: UNC System Foundations Operate in Secrecy
The UNC System is flush with foundations that raise money for their associated universities, and researchers who have looked at these types of organizations on a national level have called them “slush funds” and “shadow corporations” that too often operate in secrecy, despite spending taxpayers’ money. The unusual practice in North Carolina in which foundations buy property, then lease space back to their universities, has raised eyebrows among some of those experts.
Should Elite Universities Have Preferences for Low-Income Students?
The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation has just launched the latest offensive in the war over admissions to the supposed elite of America’s colleges and universities. In its report entitled True Merit, the Foundation advocates economic preferences so that smart students from relatively poor families can have their fair share of the small number of spots at schools like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Stanford. But admission preferences, whether based on race or income, are clumsy tools for achieving social or educational ends. A much better approach is to identify academically sharp but lower-income students, then help them to find the best college and assist them through to their degrees.
The Hunt for Faculty Diversity Aims at the Wrong Targets
University administrators and faculty have long been dedicated to increasing the numbers of blacks, Latinos, and women, among others, in their teaching ranks. But despite their intentions and efforts, the desired degree of diversity has not materialized. The reason is there is a pipeline problem. For example, in 2014, black students earned just 1.8 percent of doctoral degrees in the physical sciences. Even if every physics department in the nation were to recruit black Ph.D.s, there wouldn’t a big enough pool to effect much statistical change.
Julie Posselt, an assistant professor of higher education at the University of Michigan, wishes to increase faculty diversity by expanding that pipeline and thinks that this pipeline problem has much to do with how Ph.D. students are selected. She makes her case in her new book Inside Graduate Admissions: Merit, Diversity, and Faculty Gatekeeping.