The State Department–sponsored Open Doors report shows a 17 percent decline in new international students enrolling in American graduate programs this fall. The figure is eye-catching, but it is hard to see what its larger import may be, since the same report finds that total international student enrollment has declined by only one percent. More […]
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Public universities exist to serve the public. That simple fact should settle the question of whether course syllabi ought to be publicly available. When taxpayers pay professors, the core materials of their teaching—the books they assign, the standards they apply, and the goals they claim—should not be treated as private property. The University of North […]
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On December 9, the Trump Justice Department issued a rule updating its Title VI regulations under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The new rule eliminates disparate impact liability. This means that a program or decision-maker is no longer presumed guilty of racial discrimination simply because policies or decisions affect members of different racial or ethnic […]
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Within university hallways and faculty development workshops, one hears the same confession whispered with both shame and relief: “I feel like an impostor.” What was once a niche clinical observation has become the dominant framing for academic self-doubt. New professors are told that their uncertainty is a syndrome—a psychological malfunction that obscures their true capability. […]
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American higher education is unique: it is the only country where colleges and universities devote vast resources to undergraduate athletic contests against rival schools. American Colleges Literally Invented Football and Basketball Not only are the American obsession with football and basketball part of the collegiate scene, but the colleges literally invented the sports. The last […]
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Editor’s Note: The following is an article originally published by the College Fix on December 9, 2025. It is crossposted here with permission. An Indiana University humanities course teaches students about the health consequences of “mass incarceration,” while having students watch a movie that portrays white people as violent. “Survive, Breath, Thrive, Black Health and the Humanities” is 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. In 1968, Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich released The Population Bomb, confidently predicting that “hundreds of millions of people will starve to death” in the 1970s because human […]
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Traditional educational models provide rigid pathways for students to follow. Classrooms teach students to solve problems conventionally and focus on achieving a standard outcome rather than emphasizing innovative methods. Furthermore, students are encouraged to focus on getting the answer right rather than exploring how critical thinking and problem-solving evolve the process. This leads to a […]
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Editor’s Note: The following is an article originally published by RealClear Education on December 3, 2025. It is crossposted here with permission. Higher education provides more stories that deserve public attention than Aesop had fables. But like Aesop’s accounts of loquacious animals, the incidents on campus often have a pungent moral. I have written from time to time […]
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At this time a couple of years ago, it looked as if one of the Biden administration’s most dangerous student-loan forgiveness schemes was unstoppable. The Supreme Court had struck down an earlier attempt, but the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan appeared to rest on firmer legal ground. Now, with the recent reconciliation bill […]
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Editor’s Note: On November 10th, the Phoenix, the student newspaper of Sarah Lawrence College (SLC), published an open letter signed by more than a dozen Jewish faculty and staff. The letter, dated November 2nd, responds to the federal scrutiny SLC and other campuses have faced over anti-Semitism following the events of October 7 and the […]
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Editor’s Note: The following is an article originally published by the College Fix on December 5, 2025. It is crossposted here with permission. Federal law enforcement deported a Chinese University of Michigan researcher who pleaded guilty to her role in bringing in a crop fungus to the United States. “Yunqing Jian, a citizen of the People’s Republic of China, […]
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Fall 2025 brought big news in the small world of Arkansas academia, taking up many inches of newsprint in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette (ADG) and other outlets. The University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR) terminated a newly hired law professor who reacted to Charlie Kirk’s assassination by declaring that she would “not pull back […]
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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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Hundreds of volunteer hours, prestigious internships, and groundbreaking cancer research. For decades, this was what it seemed high school students needed in addition to straight A’s and high test scores to be accepted to good colleges and universities. But the tide is changing as the number of applicants declines, with many institutions lightening the admissions […]
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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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