Free Republic

Over a mere two days recently (May 14-15), the major daily news outlets serving higher education, Inside Higher Ed and the Chronicle of Higher Education, reported the following: Data collected by the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) reveals that state-government support of universities rose by a minuscule inflation-adjusted 0.8 percent in the last year, an actual decline after adjusting for enrollment or income growth; Penn State University has announced plans to close seven campuses; The U.S. House of Representatives appears poised to make sharp reductions in federally guaranteed student-loan support, for example capping support for graduate and professional...

Every year, postsecondary institutions of all kinds distribute hundreds of billions of dollars in student financial aid across the United States—not to mention the tens of billions in aid allocated by state governments and institutions of higher learning themselves. Such aid ranges from loans with well-below-market interest rates to flat-out grants (such as Pell Grants), the lion’s share of which are propped up by taxpayer dollars. Since the end of the Second World War, America has invested heavily in higher education, for good reason. But a recent spike in financial-aid fraud is syphoning taxpayer dollars away from their intended purpose:...

Here's an economics lesson that belongs in the textbooks. Student loan debt soared to more than $1.5 trillion during the Biden presidency, and the response by Washington was to "forgive" hundreds of billions of these unpaid loans by deadbeat borrowers and let the taxpayers pick up the tab. It was never clear why the universities that charge exorbitant tuitions that have reached more than $75,000 a year at many elite schools shouldn't bear the cost of the program -- but that's another story. Those of us who watched these events unfold predicted that one result of this policy would be...

College is often touted as a time for young people to explore their passions and interests. But passion isn’t going to pay the bills. Graduates who majored in education, social work, or the arts end up earning the lowest median income within five years, according to recent data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. … To summarize, the worst paying degrees for early-career earnings are: Foreign language ($40,000) General social sciences ($41,000) Performing arts ($41,900) Anthropology ($42,000) Early childhood education ($42,000) Family and consumer sciences ($42,000) General education ($42,000) Miscellaneous biological science ($42,000) Social services ($42,000) Theology and...

In 2023, the Supreme Court rendered a 6-3 decision that effectively outlawed affirmative-action policies in college admissions, finding in favor of groups representing qualified students whose applications were rejected at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. But, as he often does, Chief Justice John Roberts left a loophole. It allows colleges to continue their discriminatory admissions policies if they desire, and Roberts made sure to point at it in the decision. He stressed that universities can still take into account “an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.” It...

3 in 4 parents of college-age students also oppose men in women’s spaces A majority of parents with college-age students want universities to stop prioritizing race in hiring and scholarship decisions ... The results showed a majority of parents “are at odds with our country’s higher education institutions on several contentious issues that are consistently in today’s political dialogue,” according to a news release. Defending Education works to rid education of ideological agendas. In the poll, which involved parents of 15- to 21-year-old students, 54 percent said universities should not prioritize a student’s race when awarding scholarships, and 57 percent...

At one time, most Americans (and virtually all academics) would have agreed with the famous saying, often attributed to Voltaire, “While I disagree with what you say, I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Over the last several decades, that has dramatically changed. Many academics now seem to embrace the opposite view—something like, “Since I disagree with what you say, I will do everything possible to silence you.” Is that an exaggeration? You won’t think so after reading Nicholas Wolfinger’s new book, Professors Speak Out: The Truth About Campus Investigations. Wolfinger, a sociology professor at the...

The Trump administration is, for the first time since the emergence of the full-blown DEI regime in higher education, looking closely at what that movement has produced and where it runs counter to educational and political norms. The administration is using its authority to pressure colleges and universities to move away from practices that are not in conformity with those norms. This has led to bitter complaint from the advocates of DEI ideology. In a recent Inside Higher Ed article, writer Sara Weissman ponders the “DEI Hills Higher Education Is Willing to Die On.” Naturally, DEI advocates want people to...

Jason Collier, a special education teacher in Virginia, often needs to wait until payday to fill up the gas tank of his car — and in the meantime hopes he doesn’t run out. “Money is tight when you’re a teacher,” Collier, 46, said. Now he’s afraid that the U.S. Department of Education will soon garnish up to 15% of his wages because he’s behind on his student debt payments. Collier said he hasn’t been able to meet his monthly bill for years, while juggling the expenses of raising two children and medical expenses from a cancer diagnosis. If his paycheck...

Last spring, I coauthored an AEI report examining the taxpayer-subsidized Truman Scholarship program, founded in 1975 to identify “aspiring leaders” during their college years and encourage “their commitments to careers in public service.” We found an overwhelming left-wing bias. Among the fellows selected between 2021 and 2023, just six of 182 winners expressed interest in even a single conservative issue. Meanwhile, 72 had explicit interest in “woke” areas like “LGBT+” advocacy, DEI, or immigration rights, while dozens more had biographies readily recognizable as left-leaning. The Truman Foundation recently named its 2025 winners, and nothing has changed. The College Fix reported,...

Over the last several years, we have seen many colleges and universities make aggrieved statements in response to current events, from the election of President Trump to the death of George Floyd. The social implication is that if a school doesn’t speak out on an event, it is agreeing by omission. Many argue, however, that when colleges get involved in political issues, it only makes the political divide on campus grow larger. In fact, a recent survey from Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab found that the majority of students don’t want colleges to make statements about political events at...

The Trump administration’s flurry of action on education reform creates space for states to chart their own paths. Efforts to abolish the Department of Education aim to “return education to the states.” Yet most conservative states have mostly been timid in embracing and building a better future for higher education. This is partly a fault of imagination, partly a lack of will. Florida led the way in both imagination and will. Many acts of the DeSantis administration presaged those of the Trump administration. Florida banned DEI offices, while the Trump administration is using national civil-rights laws to root them out....

The Georgia college student in federal custody who could be deported after she was pulled over by local cops should have never been stopped, officials admitted Monday. Mexican national Ximena Arias-Cristobal was wrongly accused by Dalton police of making an illegal turn at a red light after an officer confused her with another driver on May 5, city leaders said in a press release. During the stop, authorities said the 19-year-old, who is in the country illegally, didn’t have a proper driver’s license and was taken into custody at the scene and later detained by immigration enforcement authorities. While all...

The scamdemic is the gift that keeps on giving, and it’s only a matter of time before we the taxpayers are called upon to settle the student loan bill for robots too.According to a report from SFGate, “ghost” students are on the rise at colleges across the nation, particularly in California, a dramatic increase seen after much of the education sector transitioned to remote learning during 2020.Here’s the story:When the pandemic upended the world of higher education, Robin Pugh, a professor at City College of San Francisco, began to see one puzzling problem in her online courses: Not everyone was...

For years, would-be higher-education reformers have warned that America’s higher education crisis—soaring tuition, crippling student debt, and weak learning—was rooted in a dangerous myth: every high school graduate should go to college.In 2025, the proof is glaring. Public confidence in colleges has crashed to 36%, down from 57% in 2015. The college-for-all dream, though well-intentioned, has inflated costs, buried millions in debt, and watered down education. Built on sand, its reputation is collapsing before us.But you wouldn’t know any of this from many media accounts, according to which, as in this breathless headline, “Trump’s Demands of Harvard Escalate His War...

I'm referring to not just the curriculum or majors offered, but also the administration and staff roster. My guess: 75-80% can be eliminated without material impact to the American economy (in spite of the insistence by liberal arts professors that this won't be the case).

Police arrested nine protestors, including seven agitators, while breaking up a pro-Palestinian encampment on Swarthmore College’s campus in an ugly scene Saturday — a “terribly difficult” decision the school’s president says was in part prompted by FBI scrutiny. One current and one former student of the private liberal arts school in the suburbs of Philadelphia were arrested, while the seven others were activists who were not affiliated with the college. “The promotion of the protest on social media drew the attention of law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, who urged us to bring the encampment to an end as quickly...

College students don't work very hard these days, write Rick Hess and Greg Fournier of the Manhattan Institute. Full-time students say they average 20 to 25 hours of class time and studying each week, and some estimates are even lower. Thirty-five hours a week would be a reasonable amount of time, according to traditional measures. They're not more likely to have paying jobs than earlier generations, research shows. In 2024, the average first-year student reported spending 5.3 hours per week in campus activities and clubs, 9.3 hours working for pay and 11.9 hours relaxing and socializing. Yet most think they're...

Ohio colleges and universities should prepare students for their roles as good citizens, promote diverse academic thought on campus, and give graduates the basic skills they need to succeed at a price they can afford. Regrettably, many of the state’s schools have failed to meet these rudimentary goals. Despite paying lip service to the seemingly relevant notions of “diversity,” “equity,” and “inclusion,” university campuses breed contempt for dissenting views that stray from liberal orthodoxies, with 80 percent of college students recently saying that they self-censor their views for fear of retaliation. This is the case despite universities investing huge resources...

Universities are currently experiencing a full-blown assault from the federal government and from red-state politicians. Tired of subsidizing universities as a hotbed of ideological activism, Republican leaders are cutting budgets, forcing reorganizations, asserting control of university governance, and taking control of the general-education curriculum at state universities. Republicans have generally been more skeptical of generous funding of public education, including at the postsecondary level, but this is different. According to Gallup, 56 percent of Republicans in 2015 had a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education. In 2024, only 20 percent of Republicans did, and 50...