Author’s Note: This article originally appeared in my weekly Top of Mind newsletter, which goes out to subscribers every Thursday. Sign up to receive it directly in your inbox.

Happy New Year!

This letter will reach you on New Year’s Day 2026, though I began drafting it on Sunday, December 28, shortly after boarding a night train out of Vienna. This opening paragraph, at least, is written from the top bunk of a sleeper car, where I’m eating orange chicken and lo mein that tastes indistinguishable from Chinese takeout back home—a stubborn reminder that globalization, despite itself, has left some things reassuringly unchanged. Beside me also sits Steven Pinker’s latest, which I’ll read as the train chugs west toward Zurich. By morning, I’ll be in the Swiss Alps; it is freezing here.

I’ve never closed a year quite like this. Rattling through Europe in the dark invites reflection on a 2025 that ended well but moved faster than it seemed while I was in it.

It feels like only yesterday that Minding the Campus was creeping past 300,000 annual views; today we’re approaching 700,000, with a realistic chance of reaching a million in the year ahead. Along the way, we published nearly 850 articles, relaunched the site with a fresh design, and spun off our American Revolution series to its own Substack, where it’s unfolding as the sustained, chronological project it was meant to be.

None of this came easily. I worked to the bone in 2025, and I intend to do the same in 2026. But effort—even sustained effort—is never solitary. I must say thank you: to our readers, whose engagement gives this work its purpose; to our contributors, who week after week send us sharp, serious essays; and to my colleagues, whose work behind the scenes turned another demanding year into something achievable.

Our message is also gaining traction—finding readers, sparking conversation, even catching the ear of those who can effect reform. Yet there is no room for complacency.

Higher education enters 2026 staring down an enrollment cliff, crippling financial pressures, and a dangerous temptation—encouraged in some quarters of government—to prop up struggling institutions by dramatically expanding foreign student enrollment. Layer on the ongoing politicization of curricula, the further erosion of academic standards, and the grim reality that too many graduates still struggle to find meaningful work, and the challenges ahead remain stark.

I’m finishing this letter from a corner in Switzerland. By the time it reaches your inbox, I’ll be in Italy. Happy New Year, and thank you for being part of this with us.

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