See Thru Edu is a project of the Texas Public Policy Foundation
Thomas K. Lindsay, Ph.D., Editor in Chief and Director, Center for Higher Education, Texas Public Policy Foundation
Leftist groupthink dominates academic departments, conservatives are easily weeded out before tenure – mostly through the hiring process itself – and even many (if not most) tenured dissenting professors live “in the closet” to avoid the social and professional consequences of public disagreement on key cultural or scientific issues.
High default rates are in part the product of low graduation rates at many colleges. “Approximately 70 percent of borrowers who default on their loans withdrew from college before completing their program.”
Social life must come second to learning as costs spiral out of sight for most Americans. It is important that students and faculty preserve a focus on education instead of fancy amenities built in order to attract more gifted students.
Scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress show that only 18% of the students are proficient in history, and less than a quarter are proficient in civics, and they remind us that “citizenship is a skill that must be taught over time with the same devotion we give to reading, math and the pursuit of scientific knowledge.”
What if you could save tax-free for education no matter your child’s age, without limits on how much you could save, or what educational expenses are allowable? What kinds of opportunities would open up for students of all ages with that kind of flexibility? You could use the funds to prepare for college or for job training later in life.
It’s easy to blame sheer greed for colleges raising their prices at breakneck speeds . . . but it would be wrong to conclude they’re doing it only because they’re hopelessly money-grubbing. No . . . colleges often have to furnish expensive amenities, dorms, etc., to compete for students.
Colorado’s Bias Incident Reporting system will become a wet blanket thrown over free speech on campus. Eventually, it will probably be challenged on First Amendment grounds, but even if it falls, look for the people on campus who really believe that speech should be controlled rather than free to come up with something else.
The overall problems in higher ed dwarf proprietary schools, and no amount of anti-profit zealotry will change that. So let’s stop obsessing over what should be sideshows.
“If over the past three decades car prices had gone up as fast as tuition, the average new car would cost more than $80,000.”
Everything we know about where the higher education mission is headed today tells me that the notion of the student as a customer is becoming dominant in this trade-off and a big part of me is pained by the fact that, for example, the humanities and liberal arts are the losers, and with them, the pursuit of learning for its sake.
