A BRAVE VIEW FROM THE ACADEMIC WORLD:  Will this scholar's voice be silenced?  From College Fix: 

To restore Americans’ low confidence in higher education, colleges should dismantle the diversity, equity and inclusion bureaucracies and showcase their potential to transform students’ lives, one contrarian political scientist argued in the wake of a poll that found the nation’s confidence in higher ed has plummeted.

“The DEI machines must be dismantled, and litmus and loyalty tests must immediately end,” Samuel Abrams, a political scientist at Sarah Lawrence College, told The College Fix in an email.

Colleges “need to demonstrate why investing in a degree is worthwhile and how they truly transform and help students achieve particular goals,” said Abrams, a fellow with the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

According to the latest Gallup poll results, published earlier this month, just 36 percent of the sample of Americans polled this year said they have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education.

The results are based on random-sample telephone interviews conducted June 1 through June 22 of about 1,000 adults across America. In 2015, 57 percent of Americans said they had confidence in higher education; in 2018, 48 percent said they did, previous surveys found.

The latest results represent a 21-percentage point drop in confidence in higher education over the last eight years.

“This is the second consecutive year of record lows,” Gallup education researcher Zach Hrynowski told The College Fix via email, adding no gains have been made in institutional trust since the early 2000s.

To change course, colleges must not only dismantle DEI but also “sign the Chicago Principles and accept that the bedrock of higher education is viewpoint diversity and debate,” Abrams said in his email.

The results are based on random-sample telephone interviews conducted June 1 through June 22 of about 1,000 adults across America. In 2015, 57 percent of Americans said they had confidence in higher education; in 2018, 48 percent said they did, previous surveys found.

The latest results represent a 21-percentage point drop in confidence in higher education over the last eight years.

“This is the second consecutive year of record lows,” Gallup education researcher Zach Hrynowski told The College Fix via email, adding no gains have been made in institutional trust since the early 2000s.

To change course, colleges must not only dismantle DEI but also “sign the Chicago Principles and accept that the bedrock of higher education is viewpoint diversity and debate,” Abrams said in his email.

The Chicago Principles, adopted initially by the University of Chicago in 2014, call for a commitment to “free, robust, and uninhibited debate.”

Additionally, higher education institutions must also “showcase their values to Americans,” Abrams wrote.

“They need to demonstrate why investing in a degree is worthwhile and how they truly transform and help students achieve particular goals,” he said.

“Higher education does so much, but many schools are terrible at illustrating just what they do to help students and the communities in which they are located and they could do a lot better.”

Another professor consulted by The Fix emphasized the considerable value of colleges has been obscured by “understandable” criticism.

“There’s a constant drumbeat of criticism against higher ed, accusations of indoctrination, reverse racism, and ideological conformity,” Peter C. Herman, professor of English at San Diego State University, told The Fix.

“All of which are valid,” Herman said.

COMMENT:  Read the rest.  It is well worth it.  I hope Professor Abrams will be permitted to survive at Sarah Lawrence, one of the most liberal schools in the country.  What is encouraging here is that some academics are starting to speak out against the wrecking of higher education by the political left.  One of the results of this leftward surge is that many families are doubting the value of college.

We have, as a nation, had serious debates in the past about higher education.  The legacy news magazines, TIME and Newsweek, often participated in these debates, many of which were held in the 1950s.   And their participation was thoughtful.

We are starting to see some new ideas come from the current debates.  One idea is circulating – we reported it here – proposes that students eligible for federal college loans instead be permitted to apply for grants to start small businesses, avoiding college altogether.  Not a bad place to start. 

July 26, 2023