On Sept. 22, President William Powers, Jr. delivered his final state of the university address. In that speech, he laid out nicely the path ahead. Among UT’s “serious challenges,” he finds “[t]oo many families are being left out of higher education because they can’t afford it.” Affordability is a national issue. President Barack Obama has...
This commentary originally appeared in Forbes, on September 23, 2014. If, as Whitehead observed, all European philosophy is “a series of footnotes to Plato,” all contemporary critiques of higher education are addenda to Allan Bloom’s 1987 blockbuster, The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students. Scoring big with the...
This commentary originally appeared in Real Clear Policy on September 17, 2014. As online education grows, so do the ranks of its critics. One of the charges leveled by online learning's doubters is that it is easier for students to cheat on exams given over the Internet. One report quotes a college senior who has taken three online courses...
As Texas college students return to campus this fall, a number of academic researchers are warning that grade inflation constitutes a deep crisis in higher education, both in Texas and nationwide. Over the past half-century, they find, grade inflation has been debasing academic standards and undermining the morale required for genuine learning and workforce competitiveness.
This commentary originally appeared in Forbes on September 2, 2014. Of late, higher education is abuzz with the question, “Will Oregon Be the First State with a College Trust Fund?” For those who care about college affordability in the long term, there are plenty of reasons to hope not.
It is a struggle over whether genuine intellectual liberty, or freedom of the mind, is possible.
Online programs may offer a 'way out' for liberal education-starved students.
Our freedoms are not guaranteed. They must be re-earned, through being relearned, by every generation.
In the past, the debate over the college tuition and debt crisis has produced calls to action on two fronts, both fiscally unsustainable. But today, with the $10,000 degree, universities themselves are beginning to lower the tuition and fees.
The country now needs an external test like the CLA to perform a task measuring what college students actually learn that should be the central responsibility of the universities on which students, their parents and taxpayers spend so much.
'Social justice' and 'otherness' research now stand alongside teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic. Are they also pushing aside reading, writing, and arithmetic?
If the seeds of war are planted in human nature, the study of human nature, the humanities, needs to take account of it.