Over a mere two days recently (May 14-15), the major daily news outlets serving higher education, Inside Higher Ed and the Chronicle of Higher Education, reported the following:
- Data collected by the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) reveals that state-government support of universities rose by a minuscule inflation-adjusted 0.8 percent in the last year, an actual decline after adjusting for enrollment or income growth;
- Penn State University has announced plans to close seven campuses;
- The U.S. House of Representatives appears poised to make sharp reductions in federally guaranteed student-loan support, for example capping support for graduate and professional students and forcing colleges to share in losses from students defaulting on their loans;
- Congress seems poised to sharply increase current federal endowment taxes for applicable private schools, expanding the number of affected schools beyond 50;
- A study reveals that inflation-adjusted compensation for faculty members fell over three percent over the decade 2013-2023, while rising by four percent for higher-education staff, further indicating the increased collegiate domination by bloated administrations and the downplaying of core academic functions;
- Financially shaky Bastyr University in Washington said it wanted to sell its main campus in order to get funds to operate.
Higher education is paying a very high price for allowing leftish ideological predilections to dominate policy decisions on college campuses, putting the achievement of certain perceived social-justice goals ahead of a merit-based promotion of the core mission of discovery and the dissemination of knowledge and ideas—truth and beauty.
