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Jia Cheng Shen
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: In his editorial “What is a Princeton degree really for?” written this past spring, Joel Ibabao ’27 treated a Princeton education as a private asset meant to be optimized for one’s own gain. This approach correctly recognizes that “finding oneself” at college can only take precedence over positioning oneself on the job market if financial security is a given.
But these personal considerations — finding yourself or achieving economic security — should not be the only ones. What Ibabao misses is that a Princeton education is aided immensely by the generosity of the University endowment and broader social compact between the federal government and society at large. Those few of us privileged to come out with those elite degrees, thus, are deeply indebted to the public.
Jeffrey M. Jones
Gallup
Excerpt: Americans’ confidence in higher education has increased, with 42% saying they have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in it, up from 36% in each of the past two years. At the same time, the share with little or no confidence has declined from 32% a year ago to 23% today.
This represents the first time Gallup has measured an increase in confidence in its decadelong trend. Confidence in higher education remains well below where it was in the initial Gallup measure in 2015, when a majority of 57% were confident.
David A. Bell
French Reflections, Substack
Excerpt: Five years ago, amidst the protests that followed the killing of George Floyd, three hundred of my Princeton colleagues signed a remarkable letter, addressed to the university’s top officials. It decried the university administration’s “indifference to the effects of racism on this campus,” and “the mechanisms that have allowed systemic racism to work, visibly and invisibly, in Princeton’s operations.”
Five years later, the charge has again been made that “Princeton has, in fact, entrenched a system of racial discrimination and segregation.” But this time it comes not from progressive faculty, but in an essay by the right-wing activist Christopher Rufo.
Jay Greene
The Daily Signal
Excerpt: While the Trump administration tries to rein in the political excesses that foster civil rights violations and undermine the reasons for publicly subsidizing higher education, Princeton President Chris Eisgruber has doubled down on universities’ political activism.
As a leader of the “Resistance” opposing President Donald Trump’s efforts, Eisgruber believes that universities should have the autonomy to operate as they please, including by using their endowments to advance whatever political agendas they favor.
