Media interest in higher education frequently shifted throughout the Texas Legislature’s 84th regular session, from reforms concerning campus carry to those on funding veterans’ education and reintroducing tuition limits. Yet in the end, almost none of the many reforms proposed for improving higher-education quality, affordability, or transparency lived to reach the governor’s desk. By far the most significant piece of higher-education legislation passed was HB 100, which would authorize $3.1 billion in tuition revenue bonds for campus construction projects.
A Double “Return” on Education
From across the political spectrum, voters rural and urban and suburban, everyone I talk to has a theory about what has gone so wrong with American education. From cellphones to laptops, the culture wars and the pandemic, teacher pay and teacher burnout, weak discipline and bad curriculum to collapsing standards, there are no shortage of...