With a modernized society full of rapidly evolving medical technology, widespread use of computerized gadgets, artificial intelligence (AI), and a booming space industry, life in the 21st century has begun to feel more and more like a science fiction movie. What began as simply dreams—just beginning to take shape in the mid-1900s—has now become normal […]
Read MoreAuthor’s Note: This article is from my weekly “Top of Mind” email, sent to subscribers every Thursday. For more content like this and to receive the full newsletter each week, enter your name and email under “SIGN UP FOR OUR WEEKLY NEWSLETTER, ‘TOP OF MIND,’” located on the right-hand side of the site. National Association of […]
Read MoreOur socialist friends are writhing in dismay over what they claim is the abrogation of their free speech rights. Exhibits A, B, C, and D: graduate students at Columbia—Yunseo Chung from South Korea, Mahmoud Khalil from Syria, and Ranjani Srinivasan from India—and at Tufts, Rumeysa Ozturk from Turkey. The school on Morningside Heights seems to […]
Read MoreThe concept of “lawfare” is in the news constantly. The term describes a program, run mostly by political parties, that uses the courts to attack and tie up opponents—or to use the judicial system as its own government. It seems like a new practice in present-day politics, but its design goes back decades to one […]
Read MoreEditor’s Note: The following is an article originally published on the College Fix on May 2, 2025. With edits to match Minding the Campus’s style guidelines, it is crossposted here with permission. Capitalism is an “oppressive system” that is “incredibly difficult to survive,” a financial coach said during a recent lecture at Iowa State University. […]
Read MoreIn George Orwell’s Animal Farm, “some animals are more equal than others.” Orwell’s dystopian novel about the dangers and hypocrisy of Marxism was meant to serve as a warning. But Harvard University seems to be using it as a guide. As higher education has come under pressure from the Trump administration and increased skepticism from […]
Read MoreA century ago, student dormitories were supervised by faculty who lived in the buildings, a tradition that remains at Harvard, Yale, and elite prep schools such as Phillips Andover. The sheer number of veterans who arrived with the GI Bill after WWII forced most institutions to abandon this model—they just let the veterans run their […]
Read MoreLast week in RealClearEducation, Kenin M. Spivak argued that while Columbia University’s leadership and commencement ceremonies showcase a deep embrace of leftist ideology, student activism remains largely performative. Reflecting on his experience as both alumnus and guest at this year’s graduation, Spivak says that despite the dominance of DEI rhetoric and the praise for progressive […]
Read MoreSince the education debacle of 2020-22, much of the blame has gone to online or “digital” learning. Conservative commentators, in particular, often speak of online classes in sneering terms, as if they were primarily responsible for students’ learning loss, declining IQs, and the general “dumbing down” of higher education, among other harms. But is that […]
Read MoreIn Episode 5 of The Week in Science, Scott Turner, Director of Science Programs at the National Association of Scholars, offers a timely critique of the growing media narrative around a so-called “Trump brain drain”—the claim that scientists are fleeing American institutions due to MAGA-led funding cuts. Turner says that what is actually driving scientists away […]
Read MoreI thought that we had hit rock bottom with English pedagogy when the National Council of Teachers of English proclaimed in 2022 that “the time has come to decenter book reading and essay writing as the pinnacles of English language arts education.” Nope. There’s a new plague on the rise in English classrooms, and it […]
Read MoreEditor’s Note: The following is an article originally published on Law & Liberty on May 27, 2025. With edits to match Minding the Campus’s style guidelines, it is crossposted here with permission. American higher education is characterized by many forms of tuition discounts, often called “scholarships.” Some of them are based on distinguished academic achievement, but often […]
Read MoreThe Trump administration’s efforts to reform higher education have been met with increasing resistance from the higher education establishment. Indeed, arguably the most prestigious university of all—Harvard—sued the Trump administration in late-April for freezing over $2 billion in federal research funding because Harvard refused to comply with a list of conditions for the continued receipt […]
Read MoreEditor’s Note: The following is an article originally published on American Greatness on April 24, 2025. With edits to match Minding the Campus’s style guidelines, it is crossposted here with permission. On April 8, the Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC, did something unusual: it found and showcased bright spots in American higher education. Such hidden […]
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