Richard Vedder is Distinguished Professor of Economics Emeritus at Ohio University, a Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute, and a board member of the National Association of Scholars.
For years, I have been writing about the deficiencies of the federal student loan programs, but I thought diminishing returns were setting into my harangues—everything important had been said. But don’t underestimate the deleterious effects of disregarding the rule of law, the crassness of political ambitions, and the manifest stupidity of some of President Biden’s […]
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Author’s Note: The following is based on a more comprehensive paper titled “Slavery Revisited: Time on the Cross at 50,” published in the Spring 2024 edition of the Independent Review. Most serious works of scholars are respectfully evaluated by modest numbers of colleagues and occasionally play a small role in determining the prevailing interpretation of […]
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If there is an annual event that most clearly demonstrates the importance of merit and skill on American college campuses, it is the March Madness surrounding the NCAA basketball championships. The public, whose support of higher education is sharply waning in light of increasing collegiate inanities, intensely roots for favorite schools and players. In higher […]
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Throughout most of the nearly seven decades in which I have had an intimate association with American higher education, I have pondered the question: “Who really ‘owns’ the universities?” Several groups claim at least partial control on many campuses, hence the oft-cited term “shared governance.” But to avoid chaos, some specific individual or group has […]
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We are approaching the beginning of the two most important months in athletics in a sports-crazed nation. Between now, approaching February 11’s Super Bowl—where even speculation about the appearance of one of the player’s girlfriend is generating huge attention—in Las Vegas and April 8’s National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) Basketball Championship game in Phoenix, Americans […]
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Like ancient Rome, American universities have not fallen or declined in a day—or even a year. But as good of a date as any to measure the beginning of the decline is 2011. Enrollments started falling that year and since then they have fallen by roughly 15 percent. The ratio of college students to the […]
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As stated previously, if I were dictator for a day, I would empty the Maryland Avenue headquarters of the U.S. Department of Education (ED), have the Air Force bomb it out of existence, and after the Corps of Engineers removed the rubble, I would give the land to the Smithsonian Institution for an expansion of […]
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The reputation of American universities, already precariously low, hit a nadir with the testimony of the presidents of three iconic American universities, Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and University of Pennsylvania (Penn) before the Committee on Education and Labor of the U.S. House of Representatives. Borrowing from Victor Davis Hanson, to these schools, the […]
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It seems to me that Texas always likes to try to outdo everyone else—think of outsized political personalities like Lyndon B. Johnson. Maybe the state has something of an inferiority complex that it thought it could remedy by adroitly using its massive oil revenues. Two large direct beneficiaries of those revenues are the University of […]
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For two centuries after the founding of Harvard College in 1636, there was grotesque gender discrimination in American colleges and universities: there were no female students. Even in 1950, there were far more than two men on American campuses for every woman. But by the late twentieth century female enrollment had surged, coinciding with the […]
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Arguably, American universities in many ways resemble somewhat unruly and disrespectful adolescents—they want to be comfortably sustained by their adult parents/financiers, but their increasingly deplorable behavior needs firmer adult supervision. Hence “outsiders” are becoming assertive, be it major donors to elite private schools or politicians at schools importantly dependent on government subsidies, especially our state […]
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In July, five college presidents resigned in a week—one for each workday. Some ran small to mid-sized eastern colleges and universities: Seton Hall University, Thomas Jefferson University, and the Berklee College of Music. Others led large research powerhouses: Stanford and Texas A&M universities. Only one, Marc Tessier-Lavigne of Stanford, had been in office for more […]
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When the Supreme Court struck down the Biden administration’s plan for massive student loan forgiveness ($10,000 to $20,000 for 98% of borrowers), I said to friends, “Biden will sneak in most of what he wanted in other ways.” Specifically, I thought he would continue the extremely generous income-repayment scheme that he and Education Secretary Miguel […]
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Picking up on the ideas of Karl Marx and German historian-economist Werner Sombart, Joseph Schumpeter, in his 1942 classic Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, suggested that in a vibrant, private, competitive market economy, firms are constantly being created and destroyed. Businesses who miscalculate—those who fail to adequately meet the needs of their customers or utilize new, […]
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College and university presidents, along with their often-compliant governing boards, have presided over a decline in academic freedom during the past decade, as so-called DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) bureaucracies have multiplied in size and power. Mandatory diversity statements, cancel culture, trigger warnings, and bias response teams evidence this decline. It has come with a […]
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In my judgment, E. Gordon Gee is the dean of American university presidents. If you had visited West Virginia University (WVU) 40 years ago, Gee would have been president. The same is true if you visited today. But in the four-decade interval, Gordon also headed two other flagship state universities: the University of Colorado and […]
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Some states are known for being innovative or expressive in outsized ways, with governmental policies that are often bold, and business entrepreneurship that is similarly spectacular in its magnitude. For example, among states with a liberal-progressive tradition, California is seldom dull and ordinary. Similarly, among states with a more conservative-libertarian orientation, Texas and Florida often […]
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James Moore’s recent epistle in this space, “The Rise of the Pseudo Faculty,” has jolted my aging brain to suggest an economist’s view on why college and university faculty have lost clout in their institutions over time. But first, a little history. If you asked a professor on an American campus 100 years ago, “Are […]
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Colleges and universities seem obsessed with race and other social “identities.” Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) bureaucracies are often powerful on campus, and college staffs are sometimes required to swear fealty to “diversity” in order to secure and maintain employment. Yet polling data suggest a majority of the public opposes evaluating people at least partly […]
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The United States has been considered a truly “exceptional” place because it excels in so many ways. It has the biggest output of goods and services. It has had the most powerful military presence on the planet for many years. Its technological advances have been the greatest of any nation. And, more relevant to this […]
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I recently read in the Wall Street Journal that Stanford University had more administrative staff and faculty than it did students. Specifically, there were 15,750 administrators, 2,288 faculty members, and 16,937 students. The paid help of 18,038 (administrators plus faculty) outnumbered the customers (students) by 1,101. That gave me an idea for a stunning administrative […]
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I always thought that William Shakespeare was a bit too harsh when, in Henry VI, Part 2, he said “Let’s kill all the lawyers.” Given the antics of our nation’s leading law schools and the American Bar Association (ABA), however, perhaps Shakespeare was onto something when he penned those words over four centuries ago. In […]
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The latest brouhaha in higher education arose when New York University fired an organic chemistry professor teaching huge numbers of students, Maitland Jones, Jr. The headlines are revealing: “Top Med School Putting Wokeism Ahead of Giving America Good Doctors” proclaimed a column written by Dr. Stanley Goldfarb (former dean of the University of Pennsylvania School […]
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I have taught about the economic history of the United States and Europe over the last seven decades, beginning in the 1960s and extending into the 2020s. I believe all educated Americans should have a decent understanding of American economic exceptionalism, how over the course of four centuries the area known as the United States […]
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Most American colleges and universities are fiercely resistant to major change. The staff, especially administrators and senior faculty, think they “own” the institutions and enjoy their dominant role. Yet enrollment data and public opinion polls show that Americans increasingly take of dim view of our colleges and universities. Some think the only way to effect […]
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Like many other followers of the higher education scene, I weighed in on the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness program last week, concluding that it was bad for America. In one iteration, I listed seven words beginning with the letter “I” to describe the policy action: illegal, inflationary, immoral, inequitable, irresponsible, irrational, and idiotic. This […]
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As I have mentioned in a couple of books and numerous media epistles, late in life the great economist Milton Friedman told me he wasn’t sure whether universities should be subsidized or taxed by governments. This was a change in position: In his Capitalism and Freedom (1962), in which he generally argued for a very […]
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There are two absolutely minimal essential resources for universities to exist: faculty, who provide the most important services educational institutions provide, and students, who are the customers that universities traditionally serve as part, and sometimes nearly all, of their mission. Yet at many schools, the faculty constitutes only a modest minority (perhaps one-fourth or so) […]
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Next to the Nobel Prizes, possibly the most prestigious and lucrative awards given to American academics are the annual so-called “genius” awards from the MacArthur Foundation. Last week, the foundation announced 25 awards, totaling well over $15 million. I found it curious that only three (12%) of those recognitions went to white or Asian males, […]
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Editor’s Note: National Association of Scholars Board Member Richard Vedder originally published this piece with Forbes on January 7, 2021. It has been removed from the Forbes website. Minding the Campus proudly republishes Professor Vedder’s article, slightly reformatted for the length preferences of our site. The National Association of Scholars, the publisher of Minding the Campus, […]
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