Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce, and the Classroom That Learned Nothing

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s engagement was always going to make headlines. When one of the world’s most famous women says “Yes!” to an NFL star, the cultural churn is inevitable. Social media exploded, entertainment outlets fed the frenzy, and for millions of young Americans, it felt like a major life moment. That’s all well and good. What isn’t good is how a professor at the University of Tennessee responded: he canceled class to stage a “viral teaching moment.”

Matthew Pittman, an advertising professor, told his students that Swift’s engagement was reason enough to pack up early. A video captured the chaos:

@independent This is the moment a professor cuts his class short after hearing the news of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s engagement. Associate professor Matthew Pittman, who teaches at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, is filmed breaking the news of the couple’s engagement during his class on Tuesday (26 August). Sharing the images of the celebrity couple’s engagement to his class, Professor Pittman says: “Due to this information, I can’t focus, you can’t focus, get out of here.” The class is then dismissed. #taylorswift #swifties #swiftie #lover #trump #traviskelce #engagement ♬ original sound – Independent

Pittman later admitted the stunt was intentional, predicting the announcement would be “the most shared post in the history of social media.” For this, he was celebrated as a campus folk hero. But it was not clever, not pedagogical, and certainly not serious. It was one more signal to the public that higher education has lost its bearings.

This matters because higher education is in real trouble. Public trust in colleges and universities has cratered. Gallup shows confidence at record lows across the political spectrum. Families are asking why tuition bills continue to rise while civic literacy declines. Professors, once seen as guides and mentors, are increasingly viewed as performers and ideologues. And when professors chase clout—whether by canceling class for protests or, now, for a pop star’s engagement—they confirm every suspicion that universities are unserious places, more interested in spectacle than in students. They have become performative, not formative.

It’s also not cheap. Students pay thousands of dollars for each course, parents take out loans, and taxpayers subsidize it all. To dismiss class for the sake of a stunt is not just frivolous; it’s wasteful. In a moment when Americans are questioning whether higher education is worth the cost, professors cannot afford to give the impression that the classroom is a stage.

The irony is that Swift’s engagement could have been used as a real teaching moment. In a biology or demography class, it could prompt questions about fertility and family formation. Do celebrity marriages affect social behavior? Is there a “Taylor bump” in baby names or birth rates? These are real lines of inquiry. How about a language or literature class looking at her lyrics and work and how it has evolved in terms of relationships and conceptions of love and commitment? In a politics or sociology class, the engagement could have sparked a conversation about marriage itself. Swift embodies the modern cultural script in which marriage is treated as a capstone—something one pursues after career success and self-actualization—rather than as a cornerstone of early adult life. That distinction matters, especially for young people deciding what adulthood should look like. In anthropology or religion, the discussion could have examined ritual. Even in an age of radical individualism, America’s most famous couple chose to affirm a profoundly traditional institution. What does that tell us about the staying power of marriage?

[RELATED: When Taylor Swift Gets Engaged, Class Dismissed—What That Reveals About Campus Culture]

Handled this way, the moment would have stretched students to think about institutions, culture, and society. It would have been memorable for decades. Instead, students learned nothing. They got a laugh, a clip for social media, and the knowledge that their professor wanted attention more than he wanted to teach.

Some will argue that celebrity distractions are nothing new. Elvis drew frenzied fans in the 1950s. The Beatles made teenagers skip school in the 1960s. America has always idolized its celebrities. But what’s different today is that professors now validate that frenzy instead of countering it. Universities once prided themselves on providing perspective, anchoring students in knowledge while the culture swirled around them. Now, too often, faculty join the stampede. When a professor treats a pop star’s engagement as a cause for abandoning class, he sends the message that education is secondary.

That choice has civic consequences. Professors are not simply hired to fill time. They are entrusted with the formation of citizens. When they treat their classrooms like stages, they don’t just waste tuition dollars. They fail to prepare the next generation to grapple with the realities of family, community, and culture. At a time of loneliness, institutional decline, and civic fragmentation, that failure carries a high price.

Higher education cannot keep doing this. Its credibility is too fragile. Its costs are too high. Its civic purpose is too important. Professors can either reinforce public suspicion by indulging spectacle, or they can restore trust by showing that even pop culture can be a lens into serious questions. Taylor Swift is a cultural titan; her life events shape the imagination of millions. That makes them worthy of analysis, not dismissal. A serious professor could have seized that opportunity. Instead, we got a stunt.

So what did students walk away with that day? Not perspective, not insight, not wisdom. Just a viral video and a reminder that their professor cared more about being liked than about teaching. Contrast that with the students who might have walked away thinking about marriage, culture, and institutions. Those students would have carried the lesson for decades. That is what higher education is supposed to do. And every time professors trade that mission for applause, they cheapen the craft of teaching and erode the trust that universities desperately need.

Taylor Swift’s engagement will fade from the headlines soon enough. But the classroom that learned nothing is the story that sticks. Students don’t need professors as influencers. They need them as guides. The choice for higher education is stark: educate, or entertain. The more it entertains, the less it matters.

Image: “Taylor Swift at the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards” by iHeartRadioCA on Wikimedia Commons