Commentary: What Happens if We Hold College and Nobody Comes

September 26, 2024 1 min read

Jonathan Turley
Jonathan Turley’s Blog

Excerpt: In the 1930s, Bertolt Brecht asked “What if they gave a war and nobody came?”  As someone who has been a teacher for over 30 years, I find myself increasingly asking the same question as trust and enrollments fall in higher education. There has been a precipitous decline in enrollments across the country as universities worry about covering their costs without raising already high tuition rates. From 2010 to 2021, enrollments fell from roughly 18.1 million students to about 15.4 million.

There is also an increasing view of higher education as an academic echo chamber for far left agendas. For many, there is little appeal in going to campuses where you are expected to self-censor and professors reject your values as part of their lesson plans.

Click here for link to full article

Leave a comment


Also in National Free Speech News & Commentary

‘We Lost Our Mission’: Three University Leaders on the Future of Higher Ed

November 18, 2025 1 min read

Ariel Kaminer, Sian Beilock, Jennifer L. Mnookin and Michael S. Roth
New York Times

Excerpt: It’s an eventful moment in American higher education: The Trump administration is cracking down, artificial intelligence is ramping up, varsity athletes are getting paid and a college education is losing its status as the presumptive choice of ambitious high school seniors. 

 To tell us what’s happening now and what might be coming around the corner, three university leaders — Sian Beilock, the president of Dartmouth; Michael Roth, the president of Wesleyan; and Jennifer Mnookin, the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison — spoke with Ariel Kaminer, an editor at Times Opinion.

Read More
McMahon Breaks Up More of the Education Department

November 18, 2025 1 min read

Jessica Blake
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: The Education Department is planning to move TRIO and numerous other higher education programs to the Labor Department as part of a broader effort to dismantle the agency and “streamline its bureaucracy.”

Instead of moving whole offices, the department detailed a plan Tuesday to transfer certain programs and responsibilities to other agencies. All in all, the department signed six agreements with four agencies, relocating a wide swath of programs.

Read More
Judge indefinitely bars Trump from fining UC over alleged discrimination

November 15, 2025 1 min read

Associated Press/NPR

Excerpt: The Trump administration cannot fine the University of California or summarily cut the school system's federal funding over claims it allows antisemitism or other forms of discrimination, a federal judge ruled late Friday in a sharply worded decision.

Read More