1. Harvard is by no means “wrecked.” In 2023, as in every other single year, Harvard along with MIT had the best and most interesting job market papers in economics. That isn’t about to change. I see good evidence that Harvard remains excellent in many other fields as well. Perhaps the humanities are in trouble there, I don’t know enough to speak to that.
2. There is still a lot else wrong about Harvard, especially at the level of undergraduate education and pressures for peer conformity. And academic pressures placed on faculty, and lack of freedom of speech, and inconsistent standards at the administrative level, depending on the particular issues at stake in a disciplinary case. On all those issues, Harvard gets poor marks, much poorer marks than my own George Mason University. That shouldn’t be the case for what is supposed to be “America’s best university.”