Toward the end of Phaedrus–Plato’s masterful dialogue on rhetoric and erotic love–Socrates introduces an interesting argument with implications for us centuries later. The argument is that the written word promotes superficial understanding because reading erodes discussion and the habit of discourse. People will come to believe they know much, but “for the most part they […]
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Cross Posted From Open Market I’ve written before about perverse federal financial aid policies that encourage colleges to jack up tuition. Recently, the Obama administration came up with something even worse. It announced a new financial aid policy that will effectively bail out low-quality, high-tuition colleges and especially law schools at taxpayer expense, and encourage […]
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“How, for example, is it possible that universities dare to designate only a specific area on campus as a ‘free speech zone,’ indicating that all other areas are not? How can a student be expelled for reading a book with a cover that someone else finds offensive? How can a professor have his job threatened […]
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Major university presidents, supported by their governing boards that typically they have wrapped around their fingers, behave often like Marie Antoinette (“Let them eat cake”) or Leona Helmsley (“only little people pay taxes.”) The most recent outrage is the revelation by Jack Stripling of the Chronicle of Higher Education that 25 of the 50 highest […]
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What is the meaning of this new logo?: 1. Don’t forget to flush before leaving. 2. It’s fun to finger-paint the letter “C.” 3. The coat of arms of Stephen Colbert 4. Halley’s Comet is in a black hole 5. A new symbol for the University of California 6. Cover art for a book about […]
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When Isaac Newton went to the University of Cambridge several centuries ago, he studied seven days a week, at least ten hours a day, and actively avoided the revelry that some Cambridge undergraduates engaged in even then. No one expects American undergraduates to work as hard as Isaac Newton or as medieval monks. However, […]
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By Eric Pianin and Brianna Ehley Cross-posted and adapted from The Fiscal Times With at least $16 billion in federal funds and grants at stake next year if the government goes over the fiscal cliff, the nation’s universities and primary and secondary education systems are waging an unprecedented lobbying effort of more than $67 million […]
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It may be moral preening, but some students are trying to launch a campaign against colleges with endowment money invested in fossil fuels. The New York Times recently reported on one such effort by Swarthmore students. The Times seems to have thrown its weight behind the protesters by puffing them up as “the vanguard of […]
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By J.M. Anderson MOOCs are all the rage. Not a day goes by without someone extolling how they will transform and rescue higher education: they will democratize it; they will revolutionize it; they will make it more affordable. In an essay here yesterday, Richard Vedder outlined their promise of positive impact. At the same time, […]
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A new report from the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, Black Male Student-Athletes and Racial Inequities in NCAA Division I College Sports, points with horror at the “racial inequities” in big-time college sports, finding it “shocking” and “astonishing” that college leaders, the NCAA, and the public at large have “accepted as normal the […]
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By Richard Vedder Although difficult to measure, it is unlikely that higher education has had any productivity advance in the 50 years since I finished college. Economists like Princeton’s William Baumol have argued that rising college costs are inevitable, given inherent limitations on reducing the cost of disseminating knowledge -only so many people can fit […]
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As a professional historian at Hamilton College, I teach my students that the United States was founded on the principles of limited government, voluntary exchange, respect for private property, and civil freedom. Does any sane parent believe that more than a tiny fraction of students graduate from college these days with a deep and abiding […]
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My City University of New York colleague David Gordon has penned a convincing analysis about the current state of history in higher education. I share, and fully endorse, his critique about the direction of the field, with the vise-grip of the race/class/gender trinity “distort[ing] historical enquiry.” Stressing above all else victimization and oppression poorly serves […]
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The evolution of the historical profession in the United States in the last fifty years provides much reason for celebration. It provides even more reason for unhappiness and dread. Never before has the profession seemed so intellectually vibrant. An unprecedented amount of scholarship and teaching is being devoted to regions outside of the traditional American […]
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Increasing the likelihood that innocent college students in the future will instead be branded rapists is a legacy of which few government officials can boast. Yet this was the prime accomplishment of Russlynn Ali, who announced late last week that she would be stepping down as director of the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights. […]
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Conventional wisdom states that the future of higher education lies online. However, few studies tell us whether this is necessarily a good thing. Indeed, both the detractors and supporters of online education tend to rely on anecdotes rather than data. So a recent report by William Bowen, Matthew Chingos, Kelly Lack, and Thomas Nygren of […]
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Central Connecticut State University is doing its part for international diplomacy. The campus newspaper, The Central Reporter, tells us that in late September CCSU professor of political science Ghassan El-Eid brought a dozen CCSC students “to attend a dinner with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran,” who was in New York for a meeting of […]
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The 1997 film Good Will Hunting features Matt Damon’s character in a conversation with Harvard students, touting Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States as a way to better understand the American past. The scene was cringe-worthy for at least two reasons. First, there was something more than a little off-putting about a movie whose lead character demonstrated […]
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Teresa Wagner’s lawsuit against the University of Iowa law school ended a few weeks ago when a jury declared that the school did not submit her to political discrimination when it rejected her application for a job. Wagner made a second allegation–that her equal protection rights were violated because the law school held her political […]
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In 1956 my Jamaica high school basketball team played Far Rockaway, a league rival. At the end of the first quarter I had 19 points and our team was ahead by twenty. The result of the game was already determined. I felt confident of breaking the school scoring record and perhaps the city record as […]
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