“Higher education in the U.S. faces a crisis: Its credibility is under attack”
The public is increasingly skeptical of university-trained experts and the test-score-based meritocracy that dominates America’s upper middle class.
In a mass democracy, the public accepts elite privilege only when it benefits average citizens. But the 21st century has brought a litany of elite failures: inaccurate intelligence about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, regulatory failures that permitted the Great Recession, mismanagement of the pandemic leading to unnecessary deaths and devastating losses for small businesses and students, and the worst inflation since the early 1980s. It’s no wonder much of the public rejects elitism. In retrospect, the populist revolt was inevitable.
