The Economist Flops on Higher Ed

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I’d rather dodge the sludge I’m about to dive into—more important topics need to be written about, and I’ll tackle them separately—but the Economist’s flop on higher education coverage has been at the top of my mind. If you’ve ever respected their work, as I have, this is important.

The paper is scoffing at the right’s contempt for “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI), shrugs off campus anti-Semitism, and casts the right as anti-education.

Its April 10, 2025, piece, “Donald Trump is battling America’s elite universities—and winning,” claims that the right views elite universities as pushing “illiberal, left-wing ideas,” silencing dissent, and peddling DEI that “discriminates against the majority.”

But the right doesn’t claim DEI targets the “majority.” The right says it’s wrong—morally and legally—to judge students and faculty on the basis of race or gender, and DEI discriminates on that very basis, particularly against whites and Asians. Asian students are a part of a minority group in America, and many backed Students for Fair Admissions in its fight to overturn affirmative action because admission offices demanded higher standards from them than from, say, black applicants.

The Economist also dismisses anti-Semitism with weasel words like “supposedly” or “ostensibly.”

The same article claims the feds slashed $210 million in Princeton research grants “ostensibly for antisemitism,” slyly alleging that Trump has ulterior motives while downplaying rampant campus anti-Semitism. But the administration did not “ostensibly” do anything. It directly targeted Princeton for rising anti-Semitism, which has, indeed, been rampant on college and university campuses in recent years, backed by videos, documents, and thousands of reports.

Its podcast, “Free speech: Trump’s university cuts will gut higher learning,” doubles down, with Yale’s Nicholas Christakis calling anti-Semitism a flimsy pretext for Trump’s actions. But Christakis and the Economist’s interviewers surely know about violent campus protests and foreign cash from Qatar—home to Hamas leaders—fueling anti-Semitism on campuses, right? They certainly should, but it’s not brought up.

[RELATED: Biden-Harris Funneled Tax Cash to Illegals’ Education—Trump ED Says Citizens First]

And the paper’s tears over deporting pro-Hamas foreign students? Cry me a river to the sea.

In another April 10 piece, “MAGA’s university overhaul spells doom,” the Economist wails about free speech, claiming Trump’s deportation of foreign students criticizing Israel’s Gaza war exposes the right’s hypocrisy: the right decries cancel culture while cheering visa revocations for op-eds. But this ignores the vast divide between citizen and non-citizen rights and the clear line between speech and campus violence. It also dismisses the Trump administration’s legal grounds, like the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, used to deport students such as Mahmoud Khalil, tied to pro-Palestinian protests and alleged terrorism.

Most infuriating, the Economist tars the right as brain-dead yokels.

It says the right has viewed elite universities as “hostile territory” since Buckley’s 1951 God and Man at Yale but at least understood this: taxpayers bankroll research and aid, universities deliver epic science. Now, the paper jeers, the right’s bailed on that compact.

But no serious right leaning education reformer scorns education or research. The right’s building Hillsdales and University of Austins to defend Western civilization and real intellectual diversity. What the right rejects is funneling billions into public colleges and endowment-stacked Ivies for bloated bureaucracies and activist side gigs. The right wants research funding for a cancer cure, not to produce graduates preaching dubious notions like we’re all racist and privileged. The right honors the compact; universities have bailed on their role as stewards of intellectual and moral order—including the implicit contract to uphold civil rights law in exchange for public monies.

And what is particularly sad about these recent reports is that the Economist, not even that long ago, was telling a fuller truth.

In September 2023, its article “Diversity initiatives in America are foundering” admitted that DEI rarely diversifies workplaces. Another, “American universities face a reckoning over antisemitism,” roasted MIT, Penn, and Harvard presidents for dodging anti-Semitism with free-speech excuses while axing professors for stating biological facts or exposing administrative double standards. A racist quip gets you fired; a threat to a Jewish student gets a pass. That’s what the Economist reported in 2023. Now? A total flop.

Reading the Economist, I see its Trump-era higher ed coverage betrays its legacy. It swaps candor for cheap jabs, misleading readers who deserve better. As Dr. Ed told us last week, almost anything that happens to universities in the next few years will be considered “outrageous” because Trump is in the White House. That is proving to be true.

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Cover by Jared Gould made with the Economist logo on Wikipedia and a grad cap element in Adobe Express