Government intervention into the market for postsecondary education has ruined it, sending costs soaring, quality plunging, and providing a base for leftist incursions against the free society. Can it be reformed?
In today’s Martin Center article, Robert Wright of American Institute for Economic Research argues that we can’t reform higher education, but that it’s possible to build a competing system of institutions that would provide no-frills, non-politicized education. He says, “Americans have long told themselves that the quality of their universities were key components of democratic safety and economic prosperity. Such claims were cited to justify the billions of dollars of public subsidies that taxpayers pour into America’s universities each year, including the over $100,000 per baccalaureate degree conferred to elite public institutions. What have taxpayers received in return? Not enough!”
After surveying the mountains of waste and perversity in our higher-education system, Wright suggests an alternative: “Professors could and should own their universities in partnership because they essentially are their universities. They are the ones who create value by contributing to, or at least staying abreast of, the latest developments in their fields and sharing knowledge with their students.”
Impractical? Maybe not. Wright points out that facilities could be bought or leased fairly inexpensively and that there are lots of scholars who are disaffected with their current (or former) employment in “woke” universities who might be very enthused about teaching in a truly academic setting.
Wright concludes, “All that is needed now is for qualified scholars to organize new universities – perhaps as professional partnerships that lend tuition to their own students—and start trying out pedagogies and institutional designs capable of producing high quality graduates who can think for themselves.”