Free Republic

Glenn Reynolds flagged the higher education bubble nearly a decade ago. America is facing a higher education bubble. Like the housing bubble, it is the product of cheap credit coupled with popular expectations of ever-increasing returns on investment, and as with housing prices, the cheap credit has caused college tuitions to vastly outpace inflation and family incomes. Institutes of higher education ignored the warnings and continued their great expansion under the operating premise that “if we build it, they will come.” And come they did: an ever increasing pool of unqualified, remedial ‘stew-dense’ without the basic skills to figure out...

... Today’s most serious problem, which annihilates thoughtfulness about all others, is that a significant portion of the intelligentsia — the lumpen intelligentsia — cannot think. Its torrent of talk is an ever-intensifying hurricane of hysteria about the endemic sickness of the nation since its founding in 1619 (don’t ask). And the iniquities of historic figures mistakenly admired. An admirable intelligentsia, inoculated by education against fashions and fads, would make thoughtful distinctions arising from historically informed empathy. It would be society’s ballast against mob mentalities. Instead, much of America’s intelligentsia has become a mob. Seeking to impose on others the...

An anonymous history professor at U.C. Berkeley has penned an open letter against the current narratives of racial injustice underpinning the BLM movement and ongoing protests over the death of George Floyd. Its authenticity was confirmed by Kentucky State University Assistant Professor of Political Science, Wilfred Reilly, who says he was sent a copy of the letter along with Stanford University economist Thomas Sowell. UC Berkeley History Professor’s Open Letter Against BLM, Police Brutality and Cultural Orthodoxy Dear Professors I am one of your colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley. I have met you both personally but do not...

A black professor tweeted that he wants white people to die and supports “fighting white people,” concerned individuals notified his university. However, instead of firing or even punishing him, the campus administration insists that he did nothing wrong. For Irami Osei-Frimpong, every discrepancy within minority communities can be reduced to racial inequality, namely the oppression of white people. Additionally, he has been afforded a gratifying platform to spew this racial propaganda and spread the idea of victim superiority at the University of Georgia, convincing young people that a certain race of people is inherently racist and, therefore, evil. Fighting White...

Many college graduates think to themselves, “I don’t have any immediate job prospects that are attractive and I can easily get into grad school with the chance of eventually getting my PhD and then a tenured professorship; I guess that’s what I’ll do.” If you know anyone in that situation, do him or her a big favor by suggesting a new book by Georgetown University philosophy professor Jason Brennan: Good Work If You Can Get It. This year (at least before COVID-19 struck us), about 80,000 students were planning to begin doctoral programs, but, Brennan cautions, “most are destined for...

When I got my M.A. some years ago, I had to take a course on Latin American culture and specifically chose Peru to do the study. What I found was absolutely stunning. A former professor, Abimael Guzman, had started terrorist group, The Sendero Luminoso, with students and built it into an efficient, ruthless killing machine in a bid to take over the country. One woman who was trying to persuade people to NOT follow him was grabbed by his goons, dragged into the center of town where she lived, and strapped with dynamite. The villagers were told if they kept...

The price of liberty is eternal vigilance, but not everyone shares in the cost. Even fewer comprehend that the threat to our democracy is more likely to come from the internal erosion of our civic institutions than from external forces. The most corrupting influence on our democracy is rooted in political correctness in our education system. Whereas there once was an emphasis on civic education as a means to imbue the citizenry with the values of the Constitution, that emphasis has long been diminished. From elementary school through college, basic requirements in American history and civics have been replaced by...

When I accepted an administrative position at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, friends warned me that I would not fit in as a conservative. I dismissed their concerns as hyperbole, an instance of believing universities are more politicized than they actually are. After eight long months, however, I had to admit that they were right. The political atmosphere in the college bureaucracy does not tolerate political disagreement and is overwhelmingly left-leaning. Administrators keep large universities running and help students access the extra services for which they pay. University staff handle finances, work in human resources, or, in...

The world is full of self-righteous crackpots. Especially the troglodytes who crawl out from their subterranean dwellings to play the racist card every time the scent of a Trump supporter is in the air. Or Krispy Kreme has its "Hot Now" light flashing, and it's time for a second breakfast. Enter: Rutgers University Associate Professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Brittney Cooper clad in a tight-fitting "Black Femme Power" t-shirt. Lately, Cooper's been showcasing the jaw-dropping intelligence of leftist academia, making the case why parents should strongly consider where they send their kids to college. Unless, of course, they...

Humorless, intolerant leftist academics are a force to be reckoned with on many college campuses, and a new case at the University of North Texas (UNT) pushes the envelope. After earning his PhD in mathematics from Baylor University in spring 2019, Nathaniel Hiers found employment at UNT. He began teaching full-time as an adjunct faculty member in the fall semester—three sections of linear algebra and one of calculus. The mathematics department thought highly enough of Dr. Hiers that, in November, it notified him that he was invited to renew his contract for the coming semester. Hiers promptly emailed back to...

'Even a phenomenon as menacing as COVID-19 is one of the inevitable risks of life,' writes Purdue President and former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels. While other education leaders are waiting for politicians to release their students from the lockdowns suspending their futures, former Indiana governor Mitch Daniels, now head of Purdue University, is making plans to reopen his campus for fall.“We have every intention of being on campus this fall,” he told the faculty senate on April 20, according to USA Today. “We are sober about the challenges that will bring. We believe in the value of the on-campus experience,...

Bloated universities should reform or perish. One can only hope British conservatives can show the same resolve as their American counterparts in blocking any bailouts Emily Cousens, a gender studies teacher at the University of Oxford and London School of Economics, is in despair that Oxford University will start a vaccine trial. In an article for Huffington Post titled “I Teach At Oxford, But I Don’t Want It To Win The Coronavirus Vaccine Race,” she writes that she is worried this scientific research would justify stereotypes, such as that “China, once again, has unleashed a threat to civilisation. But the...

Did you hear that President Trump recently tweeted that Mexicans were “Plague Spreaders”? Isn’t it shocking that Mike Pence, in referring to women in the workforce said, “We need a list of the virus-spreaders & the virus-adjacent”? Can you believe that Rush Limbaugh actually referred to non-Christians as members of a “Death Cult”? Yeah, me neither. Because they didn’t. However, a professor at Kansas State University recently said those exact things about Republicans when he wrote, “Has anyone developed an app to track Republicans & other plague-spreaders?” He also referred to local Republicans as, “Local branch of death cult, aka...

Some of America's most beautiful spaces -- our colleges and university campuses -- are closed and empty these days. Schools have canceled their spring semesters and commencements because of the COVID-19 virus; classrooms, dormitories and athletic facilities have been closed. Students at many institutions are told that they can continue to access instruction online. But exams and grades have been canceled in many cases, and one suspects that online viewership will be sporadic and concentration intermittent. But students shouldn't hover around their home mailboxes waiting for an envelope with a tuition rebate check. And students -- and parents -- who...

It’s often said that most of what the academic elites call “philosophy” is nothing but some underutilized minds worrying themselves about questions that common-sense folk find obvious. The saying came to mind as I listened recently to some of these folks straining to fit their various theories to the Age of Trump. More precisely, they were double-helixing themselves trying to explain why the amoral, relativist, truth-denying theories they’ve championed for so long are actually good reasons for hating the supposedly amoral, relativist, truth-defying current President. Listening to this theorizing crystallized (at least for this initially reluctant Trump supporter) why President...

Professor John Ellis has served on college faculties since 1963 and is now an emeritus professor at the University of California-Santa Cruz. He has witnessed enormous changes in higher education over his years and he finds those changes to be deplorable. In his new book The Breakdown of Higher Education, Ellis explains how our system was subverted, why it matters, and what it will take to put it back on the proper track. Americans, Ellis observes, used to have almost unlimited confidence in our colleges and universities. They were expected to provide advanced learning for serious students and a forum...

Suffering from self-inflicted wounds, the University of Tulsa is sick and getting sicker. This is a case study in how “progressive” academic leadership can wreck a once-excellent university. Last April 11, the university’s administration rolled out “True Commitment,” a radical restructuring that gutted the liberal arts, raised course loads, dissolved academic departments, and effectively turned the university into a technical and vocational school. I wrote about the turmoil that caused in this article for the Martin Center, but I’ll recap the events below. A campaign of opposition to the restructuring formed immediately, sparked by the circulation of an article that...

On Wednesday morning on “Morning Joe,” Joe Scarborough dismissed a Princeton University professor’s explanation of Bernie Sanders’s electoral appeal despite Sanders’s open, lifelong admiration for socialist dictators.“Who is telling him to continue to defend Castro, to continue to defend the Sandinistas, to continue to defend the Soviets? I think he can check the [polling] crosstabs, it’s doesn’t play well in Charleston,” Scarborough said.“I think two things,” responded panelist Eddie Glaude Jr., chair of the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University. “One, I think it’s Bernie Sanders being true to his brand, that he’s consistent, he’s authentic, that...

The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania named its next dean and it's a historic choice. Erika H. James will be the first woman and first person of color to lead the prestigious business school. "This is an exciting time to be in business education," James said. "The scope and platform of the Wharton School provides an opportunity to create far reaching impact for students, scholars, and the business community." The announcement was made Wednesday by Penn President Amy Gutmann and Provost Wendell Pritchett.

A little more than 20 years ago, Dr. Ibram X. Kendi delivered the speech that changed his life forever. Kendi, who grew up in New York and went to school in Virginia, was a finalist in the Prince William County Martin Luther King, Jr. oratorical contest. Hosted by the Delta Theta Sigma Alumnae Chapter, the contest encourages children from across Northern Virginia to display extraordinary oratorical and rhetoric skills in honor of Dr. King. He took the stage and made a presentation that he later came to regret. “I more or less expressed many of the ideas that had been...