BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL It’s hard to imagine how deeply the policies of the Trump Administration will affect America’s colleges and universities. As a group, these institutions are already undergoing substantial disruption. The old financial models under which most higher education institutions operate no longer work. The current path for many of them is not…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL There are a number of reasons why higher education no longer enjoys the level of status and prestige that it once did in American society. Public perceptions that confuse sticker price and the cost of attendance, the unwillingness or inability of many American families to share the financial burden incurred by…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL Swirling around the debates over the high sticker price of higher education is a deeper conversation about the broken financial model that most colleges and universities continue to use to pay their bills. While the largest universities have more options based on the scale of their endowment, fundraising prowess, and research…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL Every solution offered by a college or university faces a pending crisis in a different way. Wealthy institutions have the resources to weather challenges by kicking the can down the road, often for decades. That’s why it is significant that Harvard University last week issued a warning about its financial constraints…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL In a thought-provoking essay in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Derek Bok, president emeritus of Harvard University, wrote eloquently about the failure of American higher education to provide civic education to college students. Mr. Bok noted: “Political apathy is not evenly distributed throughout the population.Very conservative and very liberal voters are…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL One of the more interesting and at times alarming changes in American higher education is the redistricting of public college systems in various states. The most active discussions – some of which produced radical change – have been in states like Vermont, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Maine, New Jersey, and Wisconsin. In Vermont,…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL As reported last week by Ashley A. Smith in Inside Higher Education, one of the most interesting developments in higher education is how the growing concern over high tuition sticker prices is playing out in state and national politics. Much of the discussion is a good-hearted effort to make college more…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL Scott Jaschik recently interpreted the findings from the 2017 Survey of Admission Directors, sponsored by Inside Higher Education and Gallup and drawn from a sample of 453 admission directors. While the full discussion of these findings is too complex for this space, the general conclusions, especially those specific to enrollment patterns,…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL The Boston Globe recently reported on the decision by record numbers of international students to choose Canada when pursuing their higher education goals. Reporter Laura Krantz noted: Some reasons are longstanding – fear of gun crime in the United States and cheaper tuition up north. But the 2016 election, and with…
BY JONATHAN MARKS Guest blogger Jonathan Marks teaches political philosophy at Ursinus College. John Villasenor, Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute is only the latest commentator to worry aloud about our college young, who don’t understand or value freedom of expression. A survey he conducted contains familiar bad news. A majority of respondents holds…