Renewing the University: A Pro/Con of proposals

James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal ^ | August 16, 2021 | Anthony Hennen

[karpov]

Conservative thinkers are mostly united on the need for reforming the American college system, but they’re divided on how to do it. It can be hard to pin down, exactly, what is to be done, as the Martin Center has previously reported.

So it may be worthwhile to step back and look at what proposals are on the table.

Some may be utopian, others too targeted to have national implications, but they all aim to improve our flailing institutions that all-too-often cheat students out of a good education.

Build new universities

Some advocates say the only way to fix higher education is to create alternative institutions.

One advantage of this approach is that a few case studies exist: Hillsdale College in Michigan takes no federal money and is a pipeline of sorts into conservative policy circles. Grove City College in Pennsylvania is a similar, though less noted, example, as is the College of the Ozarks. This strategy actually works. It does not fix the mess of public higher education, but it gives students the option to avoid a campus that is hostile to conservative ideas.

The problem is that these are niche alternatives. Hillsdale and Grove City don’t have the prestige of Harvard or the University of Michigan on a grad school application. And elite grad schools dominate in academic circles. For conservative-minded young intellectuals, Hillsdale is a fine choice. But for a pre-med student, or someone more interested in finance or something outside the Realm of Ideas, there is no Hillsdale-like alternative.

Some new attempts, like Thales College, want to keep costs low and require internships while students study so they gain real-world experience.

[Rurudyne]

Without showing the Woke the door and blacklisting them it’s a pointless effort.

[lurk]

Get rid of elective courses. Teach only core courses for each major, eliminating requirements for humanities and woke fluff courses. Place majors with ‘studies’ in the name on a second-tier classification, and the other majors on a first-tier classification.

Eliminate cancel culture and mandate free speech.