Free Republic

After enjoying many decades of high public support, higher education in the U.S. is in serious decline. Polls show that a sizeable percentage of the populace now doubts that college is worth the cost and that it contributes to the public good. Enrollments keep falling, and the luster that a college degree used to confer on graduates has become tarnished, especially since recent events indicate that, instead of helping them mature, college turns them into ideologically obsessed activists. What has gone wrong? In his latest book, Let Colleges Fail, economics professor Richard Vedder employs his insights to answer that question....

Despite the fact that the Covid pandemic was officially declared over as of May of 2023 and the federal funds authorized in the American Rescue Plan Act had a "use by date" of December 31, 2024, Manhattan District Judge Edgardo Ramos ruled that Education Secretary Linda McMahon cannot recover the unused funds. McMahon argued that "these funds were intended to aid schools impacted by the shutdowns imposed in 2020. The money was intended to support pandemic recovery efforts like constructing sneeze guards in classrooms, tutoring students being remotely educated, and assistance for homeless students. The schools have been open for...

A student in North Carolina just got $20,000 richer. His school district was forced to apologize to him and make the cash payment because he was suspended for using the term ‘illegal alien.’ The left is so triggered by the topic of illegal immigration, that you can’t even use accurate language when talking about the issue without someone going crazy. FOX News reports: North Carolina school district to issue apology, pay $20K to student suspended over ‘illegal alien’ comment. .....Snip...... The teen received a three-day suspension last year after asking his teacher if a conversation in class was centered around...

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos issued an order preserving a previous preliminary injunction blocking the Department of Education (DOE) from canceling extensions to states that allowed school districts to continue to access COVID-19-related funds. The far-left Obama appointed Ramos originally issued his injunction on May 6. In March, Education Secretary Linda McMahon informed the states that extensions previously granted were being rescinded. The extension directs the DOE to continue to process current and future funding requests “without delay.”

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Space.com reported: “ISpace’s private Resilience Lander will attempt to touch down on the Mare Frigoris region of the moon’s surface on June 5, at 3:17 p.m. EDT (1817 GMT). […]

Just going to share this here for the people who think pushing radical gender-theory nonsense is compassionate: He considers transitioning from male to female the biggest REGRET of his life. VERY INTERESTING 3:28 VIDEO AT LINK.................... There are many young men and women like this out there. This guy didn't even get into the significant and dangerous health effects of injecting cross-sex hormones, both for men and women. How many lives have been hurt/ruined by the gender cult?

It takes me about eight minutes to walk across the campus of the New College of Florida, where I just concluded a year as a visiting professor. There are rare sightings of students, a grand total of 800, who dart in and out from under the palm trees like white ibises. The clock bell on the astroturf in front of the library can be heard from the waterfront all the way to the student dorms. The all-faculty email list for the 100 or so scholars emits messages such as: “Is anyone having trouble with the Internet?” Despite its minuscule size,...

I recently came across an alarming 2014 article on academic freedom in the Harvard Crimson. “Let’s give up on academic freedom in favor of justice” was the subtitle. The author was an obviously very bright female student. Academic freedom exists to allow a university to be unimpeded in its search for truth. It has been known since the 18th-century philosopher David Hume, if not before, that justice depends on first getting the facts right. A just conviction depends on true evidence. Academic freedom is necessary to achieve real justice. But not according to then-Harvard student Sandra Korn, whose first target...

As the administration continues to remake the federal bureaucracy to President Trump’s liking, the Office of Personnel and Management has developed an intensive new training program for those aspiring to join the Senior Executive Service, the upper echelon of government employees. Per an OPM memo, obtained first by RealClearPolitics, the syllabus includes course work grounded in the U.S. Constitution, “Founding ideals of our government,” and Trump’s own executive orders. The development program requires 80 hours of video-based training and culminates in two days of in-person training in Washington, D.C. It will affect government employees across the administration and disparate agencies...

Fascinatingly, woke higher education institutions like Harvard University believe they are entitled to federal funding, to the extent that Harvard has sued the Trump-Vance administration over actions taken in response to the school's defiance of Trump's executive orders on issues like DEI, antisemitism, and men in women's sports. As RedState reported, Harvard president Alan Garber issued a letter to faculty and students in mid-April stating that "We have informed the administration through our legal counsel that we will not accept their proposed agreement. The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights."In response, Trump's task force on...

Over a mere two days recently (May 14-15), the major daily news outlets serving higher education, Inside Higher Ed and the Chronicle of Higher Education, reported the following: Data collected by the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) reveals that state-government support of universities rose by a minuscule inflation-adjusted 0.8 percent in the last year, an actual decline after adjusting for enrollment or income growth; Penn State University has announced plans to close seven campuses; The U.S. House of Representatives appears poised to make sharp reductions in federally guaranteed student-loan support, for example capping support for graduate and professional...

9 YEAR OLD HOMESCHOOLED GENIUS FROM NEVADA. Hard not to love this kid. Good parents make the best teachers.

Every year, postsecondary institutions of all kinds distribute hundreds of billions of dollars in student financial aid across the United States—not to mention the tens of billions in aid allocated by state governments and institutions of higher learning themselves. Such aid ranges from loans with well-below-market interest rates to flat-out grants (such as Pell Grants), the lion’s share of which are propped up by taxpayer dollars. Since the end of the Second World War, America has invested heavily in higher education, for good reason. But a recent spike in financial-aid fraud is syphoning taxpayer dollars away from their intended purpose:...

It has saddened to me watch Harvard, a university that I love from which I have greatly benefited, self-immolate through gross mismanagement, poor governance, and ideological capture that have occurred over the last 15 or so years, and that have been brought into clear focus beginning on October 8, 2023. When a day after the launch of the Hamas attack on Israel, 33 Harvard student organizations held the victims “solely responsible” for the acts of the terrorists while their extraordinarily barbaric acts were still underway, I realized that something had gone profoundly wrong at my alma mater. Further investigations on...

In 2023, the Supreme Court rendered a 6-3 decision that effectively outlawed affirmative-action policies in college admissions, finding in favor of groups representing qualified students whose applications were rejected at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. But, as he often does, Chief Justice John Roberts left a loophole. It allows colleges to continue their discriminatory admissions policies if they desire, and Roberts made sure to point at it in the decision. He stressed that universities can still take into account “an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.” It...

At one time, most Americans (and virtually all academics) would have agreed with the famous saying, often attributed to Voltaire, “While I disagree with what you say, I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Over the last several decades, that has dramatically changed. Many academics now seem to embrace the opposite view—something like, “Since I disagree with what you say, I will do everything possible to silence you.” Is that an exaggeration? You won’t think so after reading Nicholas Wolfinger’s new book, Professors Speak Out: The Truth About Campus Investigations. Wolfinger, a sociology professor at the...

The Trump Administration has delivered a significant blow to Harvard’s wallet with a move that will likely get challenged in court. As The New York Post reported, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem moved to kick out thousands of foreign students enrolled at Harvard University by terminating Harvard’s international student program. She explained this was the administration’s way of holding the Ivy League school accountable for its violent, Anti-Semitic, and pro-China activities. “This administration is holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus,” Noem wrote on X. “It is a privilege, not a...

The Trump administration is, for the first time since the emergence of the full-blown DEI regime in higher education, looking closely at what that movement has produced and where it runs counter to educational and political norms. The administration is using its authority to pressure colleges and universities to move away from practices that are not in conformity with those norms. This has led to bitter complaint from the advocates of DEI ideology. In a recent Inside Higher Ed article, writer Sara Weissman ponders the “DEI Hills Higher Education Is Willing to Die On.” Naturally, DEI advocates want people to...

only God can judge the human heart, the extent of understanding & the level of freedom & consent The above words were entered by George Pell into his prison journal on May 22nd, 2019. Lest We Forget a great Man of God.