Save Higher Education

Although I retired from university teaching two years ago, the state of higher education remains an important concern for me. It’s especially important to keep the health of that sector in mind not only because it was such an important part of my life, and the lives of countless friends and colleagues, but also because higher education has long been a contributing factor to the success and flourishing of our communities.

Recently, on 7 November, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and other organizations held a national Day of Action to highlight the many issues confronting colleges and universities across the country. In Fort Wayne, people used the day to hold a community teach-in that shared various perspectives on what is going on in higher education and explored ideas for how to save and improve it.¹ Though one should expect similar efforts in the months to come, it Is probably time to offer some thoughts on the subject.²

Structural challenges

Before getting to today’s politically informed assault on higher education, it’s important to recognize that the challenges facing colleges and universities have been around for some time.

For instance, during the last half-century, higher education has undergone incredible demographic shifts. Like the society at large, student populations became increasingly diverse across such categories as race, ethnicity, gender, and age. Moreover, faculty and staff observed increasing variance in student preparation for college-level study as well as in the academic and co-curricular needs of the student body. From time to time, since the 1960s, there have been repeated demands for increased awareness of diversity, the creation of new academic programs, and the institution of better accommodations for everyone affiliated with the university.

Not only have the backgrounds of students attending colleges and universities changed, but there are likely to be fewer of them as well. For example, the numbers of high school graduates in the United States is projected to reach a peak this year at around 3.8 million, with relatively steep declines looming in the decades ahead. Three of four regions in the U.S. will see declines ranging from 15-10%, with only the South expecting a minimal gain of 3%. Until recently, colleges relied upon international students to boost their enrollments. The numbers of international students rose from about 200,000 in the mid-1970s to over 1.1 million in 2024, and today constitute 6% of total enrollment.³

The ups and downs of enrollment have created fiscal pressures that sometimes push higher ed institutions to close their doors. Since 2004, for example, 861 colleges & universities have closed and, since 2020, 84 colleges have closed or merged. Projections suggest that another 80 colleges will close in the next five years, particularly if enrollments decline by 15%. In the last year, in ways that mirror changes in the retail and service sectors of the economy, hundreds of higher ed institutions have been cutting budgets, programs, and staff. For instance, it has been reported that the University of Chicago cut budget by $100 million, limited faculty lines, and let go 400 staff & administrative personnel. The University of Nebraska — Lincoln sought to cut $27.5 million from its expenditures, to reduce budgets in engineering and liberal arts programs, and to eliminate six degree programs.

To top it all, Americans generally have a poor opinion of higher education. According to a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center poll in mid-October, 7 in 10 Americans say that U.S. higher education is going in wrong direction. Other findings from the poll:

• About eight-in-ten adults (79%) say colleges and universities are doing a fair or poor job of keeping tuition affordable.

• About half of Americans (55%) give colleges and universities fair or poor ratings on preparing students for well-paying jobs in today’s economy.

• About 1/3 of those polled (32%) give colleges and universities a fair or poor rating in advancing research & innovation.

• Finally, less than half of the respondents (around 45%) say colleges do a fair or poor job of exposing students to wide range of viewpoints, of giving students opportunities to express own opinions.

Notably, decline in confidence in or approval of higher education is expressed by people aligned with both political parties. Yet, Republican officeholders and thought leaders have not been reluctant to demean higher education. A case in point is a 2021 speech by then-Senator J. D. Vance wherein he referred to professors as the enemy and called for conservatives “to honestly and aggressively attack the universities in this country.”

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A third of the way through … perhaps it’s time to try the crossword …

You’ll find the puzzle here (courtesy of Crosshare): Save Higher Ed.

Happy solving! And now, back to the post …

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Political challenges

While it may seem as if this political assault on higher education is something recent, it is important to remember that similar challenges arose at other times in our history. American society have seen several cycles of a recurring debate about the true purpose of higher education. Sometimes we claim that universities should stress the themes and approaches associated with classical or liberal education (i.e., encouraging rational thought and truth-seeking) while at other times we emphasize preparing students for vocations and careers (i.e., training people in the skills required by the contemporary economy).

Moreover, anti-intellectualism often manifests itself in American culture. Bookish and nerdy sorts are never the popular kids. Professors are ivory-tower intellectuals who are pompous and pedantic or absent-minded and out-of-touch. Colleges and universities often are portrayed as having permanently uneasy relationships with the communities in which they are located, though the reality is that town-gown tensions tend to ebb and flow. Every so often, political and cultural critiques of universities grab the public’s attention. Consider the publication of such books as God and Man at Yale by William F. Buckley, Jr. (1951), The Closing of the American Mind by Allen Bloom (1987), and The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt (2018). Though the details of their arguments vary, such critiques stress similar themes: Today’s students aren’t serious, and even if they are, their attitudes and beliefs are dangerous to the social and political order. Worse, those same students are being failed by university professors and administrations who either raise too much fuss or are too conformist, who actively challenge established truths or simply fail to support them. Though higher education is an incredibly varied sector, offering many different kinds of instruction to many different kinds of students, it is common to regard “our colleges and universities” (the phrase usually references elite institutions only) as hotbeds of atheism, anti-Americanism, elitism, and political protest — not to mention, sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

As we confront the current set of challenges to higher education, we should acknowledge that the American Right has long sought to change hearts and minds through both recruitment and confrontation on campuses across the country. From the Young Republicans and the Young Americans for Freedom to the Federalist Society and Turning Point USA, conservative organizations have actively opposed what they see as a liberal or leftist orthodoxy for quite some time. As movement conservatism took root and morphed into radical right orientations in the last few decades, prominent figures such as Dinesh D’Souza and Charlie Kirk (among others with less notoriety) have built careers by attacking the “enemy” on their own ground. Also, one can’t fail to mention the numerous organizations and institutions devoted to promoting right-wing ideologies in university-related settings — namely, the Bradley Foundation and Scaife Foundation, the Claremont Institute and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, Hillsdale College and PragerU.

The point here is that political figures in the Trump era have taken these critiques and efforts much further than ever before. At the federal level, in the past two years, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives has held hearings on “antisemitism” (really, permitting protests against the war in Gaza) at prominent universities. In the aftermath, several university presidents have been vilified with some either resigning or being fired. This year, the Trump administration froze or cancelled academic research grants (in both the sciences and the humanities), mandated that DEI programs and activities be eliminated, and sought to impose taxes on large endowments. Further, it extracted payments from universities in order to settle cases against them. Accusing universities of unlawful discrimination or other offenses against federal law (newly reinterpreted), the government found that some universities were willing to pay millions of dollars in fines or settlements — e.g., $500 million from Harvard, $ 220 million from Columbia, $60 million from Cornell — even if they simply wanted to restore vital research funding.

Beyond making accusations and imposing fines, the Trump administration has also sought to make universities reshape their curricula and transform their internal operations. Several universities have been asked to sign a “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.” The agreement conditions federal funding on universities agreeing to cap international student enrollment at 15%, freeze tuition for 5 years, demand standardized tests for admission, end DEI programs and initiatives, and shut down departments that “punish, belittle” or “spark violence against conservative ideas.” Fortunately, this offer was rejected by all but a few of the universities to which the proposal was sent.

At the state level, there have been similar efforts to impose conservative policies and orthodoxies on public universities. A few years ago, Florida Governor DeSantis transformed New College of Florida in Sarasota from an institution with a politically and socially liberal reputation into a bastion of conservative ideology. He appointed a new president and trustees who ended the school’s diversity initiatives, closed the gender studies center, fired professors, and fashioned a new core curriculum. Within the last week, the Board of Regents for the Texas A&M system required that faculty could not advocate “race or gender ideology or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity” unless the syllabus for the course had been pre-approved by university authorities

This year, in Indiana, Governor Braun and the legislature mandated that tuition be frozen, imposed budget cuts, and ended DEI efforts. Students across the state have found that supports for students of color or those with other needs have been eliminated — including multicultural centers and student organizations. In addition, more than 400 degree programs (nearly 20% of the total) at state institutions have been or will be soon removed from the curriculum. Not only have liberal arts or humanities programs been demolished, because they have been deemed inefficient or impractical, but the governor fashioned a makeover of Indiana University in Bloomington. Braun appointed a new president and a new board that would reshape the internal operations of the university, including limiting faculty autonomy. Soon, the Indiana Daily Student ceased publication, its faculty adviser was let go, and more recently, a social work professor was released from teaching a course on “Diversity, Human Rights and Social Justice” because a student complained about a visual image highlighting aspects of white supremacy. The state’s new law requiring professors to embrace free expression and intellectual diversity, and to refrain from comments on matters outside their fields of study, clearly results in a reduction of academic freedom.

Assessment

Why are these political challenges to universities, students, and faculty happening now? Quite simply, it’s a matter of the acquisition and exercise of political, economic, and cultural power. As a reactionary movement has finally gained the power it has long sought, its partisans are quite happy to pester their antagonists and to embrace a “New McCarthyism” that imposes conservative viewpoints on a host of institutions. Indeed, among the tenets of Christian perspectives such as “dominionism” or “White Christian Nationalism” is the need to capture educational institutions — one of the “seven mountains” or social spheres — as a prelude to evangelizing and purifying American culture.

More significantly, transforming higher education is a central feature of the “authoritarian playbook.” The basic strategy for an authoritarian ruler or movement is to take over universities, undermine expertise and alternative narratives, weaken opposition, and crush dissent. This has been the path to unchecked rule taken by several contemporary rulers. For example, in Hungary, Orbán forced closure of Central European University and took control of university budgets in order to align the schools with his government’s ideology. Erdogan in Turkïye similarly forced the firing of 1500 deans, reduced the autonomy of universities, and penalized anti-government speech. Here in the U.S., it has been documented that about 9% of the authoritarian actions that Trump has taken have been directed at educational or cultural institutions.

The challenges to higher education posed by our reactionary political climate, as well as a series of social and economic changes, are highly problematic. They represent an ideologically driven assault on higher education that mistakes caricatures for reality, that overlooks the actual sources of difficulty. They also deprive the sector of the very freedom, independence, and diversity that once made American colleges and universities the envy of the world.

To save higher education, we need to rebuff and replace the policies that restrict academic freedom, undermine university governance, reduce affordability, and destroy the supportive and vital environments that make learning exciting. Faculty, students, staff, and alumni — in partnership with the people who reside in university communities — need to tell the stories about what really is happening on campuses across the country. We need to reclaim the narrative so that everyone is aware of how institutions of higher education provide embody numerous approaches to teaching and learning, embrace a variety of cultures, provide life-changing experiences, and make innumerable contributions to the economy and society. We will also need to develop models, structures, and practices that will put higher education firmly in the hands of students and teachers themselves.

Let’s save higher education … before it’s too late.

1. I want to thank the other panelists for their informative presentations and for their help in organizing the “Let’s Save Higher Education” community teach-in.

2. Please accept my apologies for posting such a lengthy piece. It is an expanded and more detailed version of the presentation that I gave at the teach-in.

3. For additional data on high school graduates, see articles published in Higher Ed Dive and Education Week. Re international students, see data provided by the College Board alongside its Open Doors report.