Each year, the College Board releases a Trends in College Pricing and Student Aid report, an invaluable resource for analysts and policymakers. Here are highlights from this year’s report, with an emphasis on findings that run counter to the conventional wisdom. There were some large changes in federal aid over the past year. In particular: […]
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In September, political activist and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was assassinated on Utah Valley University’s (UVU) campus while debating students. His death drew widespread media attention, with many offering condolences to his family, while others reacted with open hostility. Among leftist extremists, his killing was celebrated as a “deserved” consequence of his conservative, […]
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New York University (NYU) School of Law reportedly reinstated a previously cancelled Federalist Society event focused on free speech, following criticism from right-leaning groups. The event, featuring Jewish constitutional scholar Ilya Shapiro, was originally set to occur on October 7, 2025, in commemoration of the genocidal attacks on Israel by Hamas two years prior. Shapiro […]
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Immediately after Charlie Kirk’s assassination at the hands of a deranged LGBTQ cult member, college professors across the country came out of the woodwork to mock Kirk’s death, accuse him of “hate speech,” and suggest he had it coming. Many were fired for their social media posts and public rants. Now dozens of those fired […]
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I recently stumbled across a LinkedIn meme that perfectly captures how students today inflate even the smallest accomplishments with corporate jargon. In it, a young man proudly announces he’s gotten his driver’s license—but on LinkedIn, of course, he rebrands it as the most respected exam evaluating one’s operational mastery of “fuel-based transportation systems.” It’s a […]
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Author’s Note: This article originally appeared in my weekly Top of Mind newsletter, which goes out to subscribers every Thursday. Sign up to receive it directly in your inbox. I am back from Mexico—and grateful to be home. I spent my final days there miserably sick and am still not fully recovered. So, again, I’m not […]
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The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) has released new polling data that offers one of the clearest snapshots yet of how students think about speech after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Between October 3 and 31, 2025—just weeks after Kirk was shot and killed while speaking at Utah Valley University—FIRE surveyed […]
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Editor’s Note: The following is an article originally published on the Virginian-Pilot on November 20, 2025. With edits to match Minding the Campus’s style guidelines, it is crossposted here with permission. The University of Virginia (UVA) is being executed by a circular firing squad. On Nov. 12, Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger wrote the rector and vice rector […]
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Many within higher education have been watching the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) models with amazement. And fear. Some fears are existential: AI will kill us all. Some are academic: AI will facilitate student cheating. And some are financial: AI will displace well-paid and, until now, secure tenured jobs for faculty by rendering faculty and […]
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Author’s Note: This article originally appeared in my weekly Top of Mind newsletter, which goes out to subscribers every Thursday. Sign up to receive it directly in your inbox. I write to you this week from the Sierra Madre Occidental mountain range. The air is cold here, but the scenes are spectacular. I’m without my usual […]
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Thanksgiving is a time for celebrating traditions, sharing a meal with friends and family, and—if you’re on the left—reciting somber land acknowledgements about “Indigenous Peoples” before passing the mashed potatoes. American universities have been issuing land acknowledgements for more than a decade. These statements, meant to recognize the supposed ancestral claims of “Indigenous Peoples” displaced […]
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Our American Revolution series now has its own home on Substack. What began as a special project of the National Association of Scholars—hosted on Minding the Campus—has grown into a full-fledged historical series worthy of its own platform. The new Substack will serve as a dedicated archive, collecting all past essays and providing a permanent […]
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Harvard wants the world to know it is taking open inquiry seriously again. Last week, the Harvard Gazette ran a glowing report announcing that the university is “building momentum on open inquiry.” It showcased new workshops, training sessions for teaching fellows, dialogue exercises for first-year students, and online modules imported from the Constructive Dialogue Institute—all […]
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As the education system has failed to impart even basic financial literacy to young Americans, the financial-trading company Robinhood is promising to fill the gap. In September, Robinhood launched its new Money Drills initiative, aimed at bringing financial education to college students. The program was designed “with student athletes” in mind, targeting young athletes who […]
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While students on America’s college campuses are locked in intense debates over gender-neutral pronouns and inclusive bathrooms, they seem far less attuned to the national crises that will define their futures: the soaring national debt and a collapsing social safety net. The national debt continues to grow largely unnoticed by students. The U.S. debt now […]
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I spent a week in Manhattan just before Zohran Mamdani got elected. It was clear to me that the tide was moving in his favor. Despite all the hustle and bustle and robust capitalism of the place, New Yorkers have been moving to the left for decades. Cultural Marxism and its alliance with radical Islam […]
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I got dressed up for a conversation with Teresa Manning to discuss the many crises currently swallowing American education. We start with President Trump’s higher-education compact—its promises, its limitations, and its enforcement power, which hovers somewhere between “symbolic” and “nonexistent.” From there, Manning and I move into the growing national-security risks tied to foreign student […]
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Helen Andrews hit the nail on the head when she argued that wokeness is the rampant feminization of American society. Her recent and widely read piece in Compact captured what many Americans sense but struggle to name. Yet questions remain: Will the great feminization continue, and for our purposes, how did educational institutions set it […]
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A recent TikTok scroll session led me into a rabbit hole of videos covering the case of University of Virginia student Otto Warmbier. In December 2015, he traveled to North Korea as part of a guided tour with a private Chinese travel company that marketed to college students. One month later, he was arrested at […]
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Relief but caution is the order of the day, counsels the Harvard Crimson’s Megan Blonigen and Jona Liu: “Harvard’s Funds are Back. Can Its Scientists Trust the Government Again?” The real question for Harvard’s scientists should be: Do we want the funding back? The answer to that question should be “no.” For several decades, our […]
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Editor’s Note: The following is an article originally published on RealClear Education on October 29, 2025. With edits to match Minding the Campus’s style guidelines, it is crossposted here with permission. In an online discussion about educational testing, an exasperated education professional interjected that the whole discussion was moot. Had there ever been even a […]
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Henry Knox was only 25 years old when he convinced George Washington to trust him with retrieving nearly 60 tons of artillery from Fort Ticonderoga and getting it to Boston before the winter was out. A Boston bookseller turned self-taught artilleryman, Knox had already shown in the siege lines that he possessed the combination of […]
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