Tag: higher education
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Student loan forgiveness was regressive and progressives won’t admit it
Broad student loan forgiveness disproportionately benefited higher earners. Here’s why progressives’ reluctance to acknowledge the math undermines their own goals.
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Parent PLUS loans are predatory and the government is the predator
Parent PLUS loans approve almost anyone, charge punishing rates, and trap families in debt they can’t discharge. Call it what it is: federal predatory lending.
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Legacy admissions are affirmative action for the rich and we keep pretending otherwise
Legacy admissions give a measurable advantage to children of alumni at elite colleges. The defense is increasingly hard to take seriously after recent court rulings.
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Tenure is the only thing keeping universities from becoming corporations
Tenure is criticized from every direction, but it remains the structural feature that keeps universities from operating purely as market entities.
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The everyone should go to college mandate did more damage than good
Pushing every student toward a four-year degree inflated tuition, hollowed out trades, and saddled non-completers with debt. The data is hard to ignore.
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College rankings are a scam universities pay to participate in
U.S. News rankings shape billions in tuition decisions, but the methodology rewards spending and gameable inputs. Several elite schools have already pulled out.
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STEM hype has produced a generation of mediocre engineers
Two decades of pushing every kid into STEM produced enrollment numbers, not excellence. The result is a labor market drowning in average engineering talent.
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The university as we know it won’t survive the next twenty years
Demographic decline, cost inflation, and credential alternatives are converging. Most US colleges are unlikely to look like themselves by 2045.
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PhDs are an exploitation pipeline and the academy knows it
Doctoral programs run on cheap labor, vague timelines, and dim job prospects. Universities have the data and keep the pipeline open anyway.
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Affirmative action ending will hurt students it was supposed to help
The Supreme Court ended race-conscious admissions in 2023. Early data on enrollment shifts suggests the costs land hardest on the students the policy aimed to help.