The Manhattan Institute has just published my new report on the promise of for-profit colleges. I argue that though these institutions face greater scrutiny than any other sector of the higher-ed industry, we should celebrate their potential to accommodate untraditional students. I acknowledge for-profits’ shortcomings; however, I conclude that if the Department of Education is concerned about loan repayment, completion […]
Read More
Inside Higher Ed reports this morning on the Success for ‘Holistic’ Med School Admissions at Boston University: Boston University has demonstrated the success of “holistic” admissions for medical school, according an analysis published in The New England Journal of Medicine. Under such admissions, grades and test scores aren’t accorded the same dominant role they have […]
Read More
Plenty of liberals–and not just liberal professors–think there is a conservative conspiracy to use online education and MOOCs, to destroy genuinely higher education in this country. I see no organized conspiracy, and much of the liberal paranoia amounts to whining about the results of legitimate political defeats. Nonetheless, there is something to the thought that hostility to […]
Read More
“Intellectual Diversity in Legal Academe” was the subject of an April 5th conference sponsored by the Harvard Federalist Society at the university’s law school. The videos of the one-day meeting are now available here. You can watch the first panel, entitled “Is There a Lack of Intellectual Diversity in Law School Faculties?,” below. Among […]
Read More
Fareed Zakaria, in his new Time magazine column, “The Thin-Envelope Crisis,” does some hand-wringing over the supposed complicity of our colleges and universities in the decline of economic mobility in our country. He writes, “The institutions that have been the best at opening access in the U.S. have been its colleges and universities. If they […]
Read More
Writer Christopher Shea argued in the Washington Post that the problems associated with student loans – and by extension, the cost of college – are overstated. Contrary to many of the sob stories in the media, says Shea, “…it’s almost always well worth what it does cost — assuming that you graduate and, if your loans […]
Read More
Big news about homework: a new technology allows professors to monitor the reading and studying of their students outside of class. Digital tools record what students do on their e-textbooks: how often they open it and to what pages, whether they highlight or not, whether they take notes. It’s called CourseSmart, and it offers a […]
Read More
Did you know you can get a degree in your pajamas? It’s true, the company EdConnect assures us–thousands of students are doing it every day. Meanwhile, in California, the legislature and governor are cooking up a “faculty free” college experience: just take exams to get a degree. Too lazy to take your own exam? Maybe […]
Read More
Over at The American Conservative, Samuel Goldman has a sharp response to the National Association of Scholars’ Bowdoin report: The authors’ tin ear for readers’ sensibilities is in evidence throughout the report. In particular, the report shows no sympathy for students who doubt, with some justification, that old Bowdoin had room for them. Acknowledging such […]
Read More
From the National Association of Scholars’ 100 Great Ideas for Higher Education *** Many popular proposals to improve higher education would actually weaken it. Faculty are letting academic standards slip–in the name of academic enrichment–and increasingly giving students academic credit for activities that are “academic” in only a lax sense. Not everything taught or learned is […]
Read More
To the careful observer of American higher education, the questions Neil Gross raises in Why Are Professors Liberal and Why Do Conservatives Care? might seem self-explanatory. Indeed, such an observer could reason, everyone knows that American universities are run by left-wing academics who bar conservative students and faculty from moving up the ranks. In addition, he might say, […]
Read More
Peter Berkowitz, Real Clear Politics: The body of the report demonstrates that left-leaning ideology permeates the college; the report’s preface explains the harm this does to students and the nation.The problem is not that Bowdoin teaches contemporary progressivism — that is, the idea that government’s chief aims include securing substantial social and economic […]
Read More
It is difficult to know if MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are a conspiracy to undermine the academy or a way to open the avenues of higher education. However one sees it, though, a revolution is certainly taking place: millions of people are already taking on-line courses. It seems that the U.S. Department of Education […]
Read More
The Supreme Court decided last week to review the Sixth Circuit’s decision in Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, whose majority opinion (joined by all 8 Democratic appointees, opposed by all 7 Republican appointees) held that the 14th Amendment bars the people of Michigan from amending their state constitution to prohibit preferential treatment based […]
Read More
Very few people who enroll in MOOCs (massive open online courses) tell us about the experience. I just took one and learned these lessons: Lesson One: Professors need to start phasing out in-class lecturing now. Based on my own experience as a student and as an adjunct professor, the vast majority of professors spend much […]
Read More
Yesterday the Manhattan Institute sponsored a panel on the National Association of Scholars’ report on the decline of Bowdoin College. It featured Peter Wood, Thomas Klingenstein, and William Bennett. You can watch the video below:
Read More
Today the National Association of Scholars is releasing the results of its long, in-depth study of Bowdoin College, “What Does Bowdoin Teach? How a Contemporary Liberal Arts College Shapes Students.” Among the findings: Bowdoin, in a retreat from its past, stresses global citizenship (with declining emphasis and on and concern for the United States). Multi-culturalism, […]
Read More
There are many paths to becoming a Columbia University professor, but Kathy Boudin’s is probably unique. In 1970, she fled naked or nearly naked from an explosion in a Greenwich Village townhouse, which she and her Weather Underground friends were using as a bomb factory. Later she was convicted as the get-away driver in a […]
Read More
The Student Government Association at Johns Hopkins University has denied official recognition to a pro-life student organization. The Daily Caller reports that the SGA voted10-8 to reject the group—cutting it off from student activities funding and building access for meetings, apparently on grounds that demonstrations and counseling attempts outside abortion clinics amounted to harassment. … […]
Read More
Insidehighered.com has an update on the controversy at Florida Atlantic University. The story quickly summarizes the event at the center of the affair, that is, having students write “Jesus” on a piece of paper put it on the floor, then asking them to step on it. The exercise isn’t the instructor’s invention. It comes out […]
Read More