Your Cart is Empty
Mark Schneider
American Enterprise Institute
Last November, a faculty report from UC San Diego showed that over the past five years, the number of freshmen placed in remedial math had increased thirtyfold. Reactions ranged from sober warnings about declining readiness to claims of a collegiate “math horror show.” In response, some commentators argued that treating the findings as a problem reflected a culture-war misunderstanding about equity, student success, or what colleges “really do.”
That reaction entirely misses the point. The UC San Diego report exposed something far more consequential. American colleges are failing at one of their core economic functions: They are no longer acting as credible gatekeepers for employers.
Comments will be approved before showing up.
Violating the First Amendment will cost you. Universities and other public institutions are learning this lesson the hard way as the dust settles on a series of lawsuits brought by university faculty and staff who were punished for their comments about Charlie Kirk’s murder last September.
If Johns Hopkins University wanted to signal its seriousness about creating an alternative to the left-leaning orthodoxy that permeates higher education, it couldn’t have done better than the recent hire of economist Peter Arcidiacono.
House Republicans have now formally backed President Donald Trump in fulfilling his campaign promise to dismantle the Department of Education, voting Wednesday to advance 10 bills that would codify the White House’s efforts to disperse numerous education programs and offices to other federal agencies.
