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I was working in a public space when a nearby conversation caught my attention. One student told a colleague that she would be taking several difficult classes the next semester. He responded, “just use AI, and the classes will be really easy.” I sighed in disappointment. Approximately 80% of undergraduate students worldwide use generative artificial intelligence to help with their coursework. AI can be a powerful tool for students in higher education, but only if they have already developed the ability to read and write effectively and to think critically. These fundamental skills are best developed independent of generative AI...

FReepers just found this short on YouTube. Don't know what college it happened at or which prolife group this is. Point is a very unhinged, childish, embicle of a woman attacks the man because what he said offended her. This is the adults we are now dealing with. Yes the man called the police 🚓

The School of Civic Life and Leadership (SCiLL). At UNC, students hear this name in one of a few ways. One is “eww, that uber-conservative program that’s a waste of money and is trying to indoctrinate everyone.” A rare few respond with, “I haven’t heard of that.” But the vast majority just say, “oh…nice,” and immediately assume you’re a complete nerd. In all fairness, the last one might not be completely off. Yet none of these opinions completely describe the SCiLL program. SCiLL itself is intended to help students learn how to critically engage in civil discourse with people on...

The public exposure, resignation, and subsequent death of the British fabulist Jason Arday have reignited the longstanding (if not eternal) debate about the purpose of higher education in our society and whether it is fulfilling that purpose. On the one side, conservatives are frustrated because, to them, the Arday case is emblematic: universities today are overwhelmingly leftist; leftists dominate the humanities and liberal arts faculties, and leftists are rewarded for poor or even fraudulent scholarship simply because it reinforces the preexisting beliefs of their contemporaries and superiors. On the other side, progressives and other leftists insist that the pursuit of...

When the US Treasury Department sanctioned the transnational organization Masar Badil last week, Washington took a much-needed step toward thwarting terrorist activity and recruitment here in the homeland. **SNIP** SUPER-UW’s rapid development from rhetoric to violence began with Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack, which killed UW alumnus Hayim Katsman along with 45 other American citizens. SUPER-UW immediately cheered the killing of civilians and venerated those responsible, later inviting UW students to a an event celebrating the slaughter “as not only a victory for the resistance, but a scientific necessity.” In September 2024, SUPER-UW encouraged followers to learn about “defending the...

For the roughly 15 million college undergraduates in the United States, the benefits of pursuing higher education include better employment prospects, greater social mobility, and even longer-lasting marriages. Research released last year, however, finds that at least one important life outcome — political ideology — is heavily dependent not merely on the decision to attend college, but also on the particular subjects students choose to study. The paper, authored by Israeli academics Yoav Goldstein and Matan Kolerman, used survey responses from nearly 500 American colleges and universities to isolate the political impact of students’ choice of college majors. Those who...

Anybody who still believes in the liberal arts believes that higher education exists for a higher purpose than putting graduates in jobs. At the same time, even the truest believer has to grapple with the real harm done to graduates who can’t get the jobs they need to pay for that education. In the face of perpetually rising costs and ballooning student debt, it’s hard to keep the faith. One response is to decouple higher education from the liberal arts tradition and reduce it to professional preparation. Several state legislatures have recently passed bills pushing public universities to cut programs...

In 2009, an anonymous university support staff member wrote to C.K. Gunsalus—a prominent academic who specializes in the study of higher education administration—looking for advice and, frankly, a little bit of kindness. The staffer claimed that many of the faculty members at their institution, including a number heavily involved in campus activism, refused to treat them with any respect. Their collective attitude towards non-academics, even those who worked for the university, was akin to that reserved for “a servant or a child.” Gunsalus’ answer, which Inside Higher Ed published as an advice column, amounted to little more than word salad....

No state matches Florida in higher education reform. Its landmark Senate Bill 266, passed during the 2023 legislative session, abolished DEI offices. It also requires general education reform in state universities and colleges. Few reforms simply implement themselves. The rubber of implementation started hitting university roads in 2023. Florida’s Board of Governors (BOG), which oversees the entire university system, put forward a rule to remove Sociology 1000: The Principles of Sociology as part of general education reform. Final BOG approval came in early 2024. Then Florida’s college system removed Sociology 1000 from its 28 schools in April 2024. Beginning in...

Universities play—or should play—a critical role helping the next generation of teachers, legislators, judges, and voters understand how to live together in our constitutional republic. For many students, they represent the first opportunity to join with others to address a need or advocate for a cause, which is a freedom central to American liberty. But while the Supreme Court has mostly gotten free speech on campuses right, it has left freedom of association at risk. Congress should ensure that our taxpayer-funded public universities are modeling the constitutional values necessary to preserve the republic for the next 250 years. In 1831,...

The leadership of the “Student Intifada,” the National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP), has escalated its war against normalcy and decency in academia. Its incrementalist approach to taking over every campus (as it has haughtily claimed is inevitable) began with targeting students, moved on to targeting faculty, and has now put university presidents and trustees in its cross hairs. The following cases represent only a subset of their recent activities. Cornell University President Targeted The post-October 7 attacks against Jewish students are well-known and widely-documented. So too are efforts to isolate and stigmatize Jewish and Zionist faculty members. Only...

A point that has generated much discussion is the decline in confidence in and support for higher education. Over the last ten years or so, the percentage of Americans who say they have a high degree of confidence in our colleges and universities has fallen, while the percentage who say they’re skeptical about the value of higher education has risen sharply. Many in the higher education establishment have dismissed this as having no importance—merely the result of increasingly vicious right-wing polemics aimed at one of the nation’s great engines of “progressive” influence, they say. Nothing to be concerned about. Some...

Licensed Maryland clinicians can receive abortion training and a $4,000 stipend through the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s (UMB) “Reproductive Health Fellowship.” The fellowship offers a “comprehensive curriculum on abortion and reproductive health care,” a $4,000 stipend, an abortion simulation, and post-completion support “to actively deepen your knowledge in reproductive health and abortion care.” “Join Maryland’s next generation of reproductive health leaders in providing high-quality, trauma-informed abortion care,” the description reads. “Build your confidence and expertise in prescribing medication abortion while gaining valuable exposure to procedural abortion care.” “Upon completing the program, clinicians become part of a strong, supportive community committed...

Those of us in the majority of Americans who have been deprived of an excellent education have never had more opportunities to remediate ourselves.Many Americans have assumed that if you want a serious education in history, philosophy, or literature, you must go to college, preferably a highly rated one. The Harvards, Yales, and Princetons of the world have theoretically been where the classics were taught, great ideas debated, and intellectual life was supposed to flourish.That assumption is beginning to change, and not just because of headlines like “The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books.” The “academy” no longer has...

It’s now been three years since the United States Supreme Court declared that race may never be used as a “negative” or operate as a “stereotype” in higher education. While that landmark case, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, dismantled affirmative action in admissions, race still lingers as a factor in many other areas of higher education. One such area is financial aid—specifically grants and scholarships. The National Scholarship Providers Association estimates that 11% of all higher-education scholarships still contain eligibility requirements for race, ethnicity, or other demographic factors, even after SFFA. Race-based scholarships, though, are facing increasing scrutiny. Last...

Pro-life leader says garden could lead to serious health risks or abuse if students use plants Purchase College, a public university in southeastern New York, is home to a student-run “Reproductive Justice Garden” that features plants promoted because of their abortifacient properties. Social media posts by the student club appear to encourage people to use the plants in the garden for self-induced abortions — which one pro-life leader told The College Fix she fears could lead to serious health risks or abuse. The garden, which was launched in 2019 and revamped in 2024, is run by students who are part...

Shortly before Donald Trump’s second inauguration, I summarized for the Martin Center the possible reforms to collegiate accreditation his administration might adopt. I divided these conservative reforms into three broad groups: anti-DEI measures, outcomes-based reforms, and elimination of accreditors’ role as “gatekeepers” of Title IV tuition aid. The U.S. Department of Education recently concluded its “Accreditation, Innovation, and Modernization (AIM) negotiated rulemaking” process. The results are predictably less sweeping than Trump’s campaign rhetoric promised, but largely follow the lines he drew then and in his subsequent executive order. I will briefly summarize the newly approved rule changes under those same...

Education experts have written many excellent books and articles in recent years and made insightful presentations covering a range of important topics – admissions, curriculum, pedagogy, administration, and accreditation. The Martin Center itself has co-authored model legislation for general education. From different perspectives, many of these present well-reasoned arguments for the restoration of the Western tradition in general education. While there has been some recent progress, it has been gradual and halting. To move forward, I suggest we review three lessons from ancient Sparta. In 480 BC, Sparta and its allies were vastly outnumbered and overmatched by the invading Persian...

A graduation ceremony is one of the most formulaic events in higher education. The main event at a graduation ceremony is a student getting their five seconds in the sun as their name is called. Then they stroll across the stage to receive the diploma they worked so hard for. At the end, students throw their cap in the air, and then everyone snaps photos. Yet, every year a handful of universities botch the simple task of planning a graduation ceremony. The result is an unpleasant experience for attendees, unnecessary controversies, and sometimes wasted resources. With graduation season wrapping up,...

Gone are the days of university freshmen reading classical philosophers like Plato or contemporary pedagogues like Ta-Nehisi Coates. These days, incoming college students are lucky if they can get through Judy Blume’s “Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing.” According to a new “Survey of Adult Skills” conducted by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development — a forum for 38 high-income, predominantly Western countries — a not insignificant number of adult students enrolled in higher education are now reading and doing math at a level which, in a more functional society, would be alarming for a middle schooler. The survey,...