Saving Higher Education From Itself

Some problems, like a fallen tree limb breaking a window, are evident from the moment they occur. But others, like termites undermining a building's structural supports, may not be exposed until the damage is catastrophic. The problems afflicting American higher education are more like termites. Throughout the last decade, the public has come to sense that something is wrong in academia. Gallup found that between 2015 and 2023, the percent of adults with a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in higher education fell from 57% to 36%. Many who had lost confidence had their suspicions confirmed by campus reactions to Hamas's massacre and kidnapping of Israelis in October of last year. On- campus celebrations of mass rape and murder exposed a deep rot at the heart of the academy more conclusively and dramatically than hundreds of books or papers ever could.