George Leef is director of editorial content at the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal.
Almost every day you’ll find new evidence that the United States has vastly oversold higher education. The evidence du jour is in the Wall Street Journal of January 3, a piece by a young lawyer named Chris Fletcher. In it, Fletcher points out that, according to an estimate by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the […]
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The Michigan legislature has just passed a Right to Work bill. That will allow unionized workers in the state, including teachers and professors, to stop paying dues to the union representing them and not be fired – as would have previously been the case. Unions almost always bargain for and get contract clauses stipulating that […]
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Tar Heel alums may be embarrassed over the scandal involving the amazingly low academic standards for “student-athletes” at the University of North Carolina, but for the rest of America, it is the gift that keeps on giving for its insights into the true priorities of our higher education leaders. This recent article in the Raleigh […]
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You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, or its title, but how about from an extended interview with the authors? On November 2, Inside Higher Ed carried such an interview with the three authors of a new book entitled Occupying the Academy. The authors, Christine Clark (a professor of multicultural education at UNLV), Kenneth […]
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On the day the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Fisher v. Texas, a case challenging racial preferences in college admissions, the Wall Street Journal published a piece purporting to give “A Liberal Critique of Racial Preferences.” Author Richard Kahlenberg argued (as he almost always does) in favor of changing “affirmative action” to a system […]
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On September 12, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce held a hearing that focused on the subject of unionization of graduate students. Inside Higher ed covered the story. Here is the issue. Private colleges and universities are subject to the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which permits employees to seek to unionize through […]
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In his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention last night, President Obama promised that he would “work with colleges and universities” to slow the steady rise in tuition we have experienced, cutting the rate of increase in half. Inside Higher Ed has the story. Naturally, the president’s statement drew applause from the Democratic faithful, […]
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Why go to college? Go back fifty years, and the answer commonly given was, “To become a well-rounded person who has a grasp of our civilization’s history, science, and art.” Go back about twenty-five years and the answer commonly given was, “So you’ll be able to get a good job.” And now one authoritative source […]
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Professor Patrick Deneen’s Feb. 17 essay “Campus Libertarianism up, Civic Commitment Down” cries out for a response. He finds the apparent increase in libertarian thinking among college students disquieting, but I think that if this trend is real, it’s a reason for optimism. It indicates that young Americans are breaking free of the adulation of […]
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In his January 29 Forum piece, Peter Sacks says that I engaged in “nitpicking” in a blog post expressing disdain for President Obama’s higher education agenda. He’s free to call my skeptical view about federal initiatives to lower the costs of college whatever he wants. But in my opinion, it is naive to believe politicians […]
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The Chronicle Review is notorious for publishing outlandish opinion pieces more in the nature of white-hot rants than well-reasoned essays. A good case in point is Professor John Quiggin’s “A Vicious Duo” (September 16 – subscriber site), is one of the most overwrought pieces I’ve read there. Quiggin, who teaches economics at the University of Queensland […]
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The last time President Obama gave a speech dealing with education (his address to Congress on February 24), he misrepresented government data to make his case that the country needs to put a significantly higher percentage of people through college. (I wrote about his fudging of the figures here) For that reason, Americans would be […]
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On December 16, the higher education establishment put out its tin cup, asking Congress to give it a 5 percent cut of any “stimulus” spending package—around $40 to $50 billion for new university construction projects. In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I’m opposed to the concept of “economic stimulus” spending. The […]
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