Dartmouth's Beilock appears to be the best and only president of the Ivies and near Ivies in moving in the right direction. When the campus Left attempted disruption using Palestine she immediately called in the police and had faculty and students arrested and charged. While later the charges were dismissed, apparently some understanding was reached, because there have been no further serious disruptions of the academic environment. At other institutions, the leaders simply try to mollify the disruptors by giving them concessions, and in some cases even seem to be collaborating with the culprits in pursuit of an imagined revolutionary future. Somehow the Dartmouth trustees picked a person like Beilock and backed her up against the faculty grievance studies nuts, and it has had good results. Maybe trustees elsewhere will develop a spine, and instead of treating their appointment as a purchased social ornament, apply their often considerable skills to reform by picking better leaders like Beilock.
The emphasis on internships indicates (a) that students learn career skills on the job rather than in the classroom and (b) that employers don't trust academic credentials to identify new hires. Employers trust references from internship managers and especially prefer to hire applicants who have had internships within the firm.
Will entrepreneurs figure out ways to match talented youths to internships/apprenticeships in firms as a substitute for study at selective colleges?
And might entrepreneurs figure out ways to enable the mass of youths who attend non-selective colleges to get workplace training in firms instead?
Perhaps the "value added" of attendance at a selective college is intensive interaction with a smart peer group and the formation of peer networks. But the trade-offs are delay of adulthood (and family-formation); diminished interaction with adults; high cost; and curricular irrelevance to the workplace.
I’m reading about too many fatal sledding accidents after the recent winter storm, particularly among Gen Z. I would like to see more sledding safety courses added to the core curriculum at the university level. Perhaps also add some post graduate level courses to the mix where the burgeoning PhD students could publish their best empirical data in the most recognized journals? I took AP sledding in high school and it made all of the difference for me.
Hint: David Henderson worked in a quarry mine at some point during his career journey. His experience was completely outside of any credentialing institution, but if I recall correctly, he benefited immensely from the experience. I too was employed outside of the credentialed channels and that experience changed me forever. In short, go get a real job as opposed to something ordained from some gatekeeper in the alumni office.
Cooper Norris from Season 1 of “Landman” captures the passion and naivety of the entrepreneurial spirit perfectly. He opted out of his senior year at Texas Tech in order to learn the oil business from the ground up. I respect that over phony credentials every time.
I’m also stuck by the new corporate requirement from Cracker Barrel that its employees must eat their own food on corporate road trips. How oppressive must that must feel? I’m guessing that the alumni office never dreamed of such a scenario during their credentialing meetings.
That's a very 21st century story: Qatari oil money and woke female college administrators teaming up to bully Jews on an elite American college campus.
What is the strength of capitalism? It's not simply free trade. It's not just the ability to.use capital to create something. It's also the opportunity to try things without knowing if they will fail, barely survive, or prosper immensely.
It seems to me AK and too many other people want something more perfect from colleges than what we should expect within, and especially in preparation for, a free market economy.
I doubt many students are in grievance studies. Maybe not even double digits percent. College is what you make of it. Most offer plenty of technical skills opportunities such as programming, many have career training such as nursing, and one can also focus on pure "education" I'm the humanities.
What is more important, rote learning of basics to support higher level thinking, working solved problems to learn lots, or projects that build understanding? Yes. They all have value. They are all important but there's no perfect answer to what's the right mix. Nobody gets it right. Some come closer than others though.
Plenty of colleges have formal co-op programs, some required, some optional, but virtually every school has some kind of career counseling office that typically also helps with summer jobs. I went to a top twenty university and worked what was identical to a co-op job, in everything but name, at a national laboratory.
A few decades back there was a study of Harvard grads comparing stem majors and non-stem it humanities. Straight out of school the stem students had higher pay but mid-career the two distributions were near identical. Not everyone does as well as Harvard grads but again, college offers many different possibilities, no guaranteed, except maybe Dartmouth.
deLaski writes of what colleges should promise to " deliver to students by graduation." That "by graduation" irritates given that colleges currently measure themselves against a 6-year graduation rate standard. Six years. Incredible:
"According to the National Center for Education Statistics, just 41% of first-time full-time college students earn a bachelor’s degree in four years, and only 59% earn a bachelor’s in six years, driving up the cost of attending college significantly. Many of these students are left with the debt of a college education without the degree."
Of all the things that a college would like to promise to a matriculating freshman, somewhere near the top ought to a guarantee that all degree requirements will be able to scheduled and completed within three years. There is simply no good reason to drag it out longer.
"Accreditation is supposed to ensure that schools are not fly-by-night shams that collect student loan money and run, neither educating students nor conferring worthwhile degrees. But increasingly, that is what most colleges and universities do. In dishonest fashion, news reports often focus solely on 'for-profit' schools as risky; the Biden Administration, for example, forgave student loan debt for graduates of newer schools that went out of business.
But this is a diversionary tactic to distract Americans from the reality of the situation, which is that the mainstream institutions, the Big State University, are also producing ignorant, indebted graduates who later realize that college failed to prepare them for much of anything, while leaving them older and poorer. (Meanwhile, university administrators, staff, and faculty enjoy handsome salaries paid for by student loans. What kind of society does this to its young people?)"
Nothing would turn around this despicable situation faster than cracking down on the length of time university vampires have to suck the life out of students.
As I've said before, I'm still hard against the first and last blurbs. Universities are finishing schools, the ROI is making better people, not directly financial or trade skills. If you want everything being asked here, go to a two year technical or vocational college or enroll in an apprenticeship. We already see the negative and expensive bloat Arnold advocates in the medical sector with LPNs become four years degrees, CMAs becoming two year degrees, etc. We don't need to expand and encourage more wasteful credentialism.
If AUTX and Dartmouth want to become a trade school and offer a two year program in applied underwater basket weaving or applied economics, they can but then they need to quit calling themselves a university.
Sounds like a lot of blah blah blah in service to a failing attempt to maintain relevance and an unsustainable status quo.
The US is grossly over-invested in postsecondary education credentials mills due to industrial policy tax exemption. Some 10 percent of the US workforce is employed by tax exempt employers and as of fall 2024, some 4,114,069 (or 2.4% of a total workforce of 168.7 million) were employed in some 5,261 postsecondary institutions over 80% of which were tax-exempt.
With the US paying an unsustainable $1 trillion plus per year in interest on its ever-increasing debt, and with the US Supreme Court prepared to slash US federal tariff revenues by billions of dollars annually as it arrogates to itself the power currently exercised by the presidency in deciding when tariffs are appropriately imposed under federal law, the fundamental and most relevant question is whether the US’s current postsecondary industrial policy can be discarded in favor of more responsible and productivity-boosting alternatives.
In context, total US federal tax expenditures, which are revenue losses from special exemptions, deductions, and credits, are estimated at approximately $1.5 trillion to $2.2 trillion annually. Tax Code section 501(c)(3) provides tax exemption organizations that are “charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering national or international amateur sports competition, and preventing cruelty to children or animals.” One 2019 paper estimated the cost of the tax expenditure for 501(c)(3) at $2,489.2 billion in revenue and $151.6 billion in net income.
The original blather used to justify tax exemption for education was “fostering the productive and civic capacities of citizens” which is impossible to utter anymore with a straight face. But putting that aside, perhaps we should do cost-benefit analysis on the revenue raising options available to the United States to deal with its deficit spending problem.
Postsecondary education mills do about $1 trillion per year according to various estimates. Without tax exemption industrial policy let’s just guess that would shrink in half and the normal effective corporate tax rate of about 9 percent would bring in treasury revenue of about $45 billion per year. Added benefits would be decline in student loan debt burden/default, perhaps a decrease in the number of dirtball senators trying to buy university presidencies with earmarks for their alma maters (https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2025/12/12/waste_of_the_day_senators_earmarked_cash_for_their_former_schools_1151354.html ) , decrease in the number of under-employed graduates, decrease in the number of students who fail to complete a degree but incur debt nonetheless, and the opportunity cost of diverting millions of employees and students away from higher valued employment opportunities in the market. Against this we must place the purely hypothetical benefit that there may be some number of students who would not otherwise find a path to remunerative employment absent the tax exemption industrial policy.
So what are the tax collection alternatives to offset this $45 billion in lost treasury revenues? Well, the tariffs are very roughly bringing in about that amount, but as we have been trained to parrot, tariffs are a tax on consumers, unlike, I don’t know, sales taxes. We could raise corporate income taxes $45 billion and that of course would have absolutely no impact on the economy or workers salaries, or so we are apparently supposed to parrot faithfully. Or a carbon tax. Because consumers apparently do not consume any kind of carbon-generated energy. Or we could cut Medicare or Social Security benefits by $45 billion because that would have not impact on the economy either. Or we could increase the effective rate of individual income taxes because that of course would have no impact on consumers. OK. Enough sarcasm. But really, it does seem as if eliminating tax exemptions for postsecondary education is the least unpalatable alternative on the table in terms of raising revenues. Something needs to give, and if it is universities that have to go, well, there are a lot of worse things that could happen.
> with the US Supreme Court prepared to slash US federal tariff revenues by billions of dollars annually as it arrogates to itself the power currently exercised by the presidency in deciding when tariffs are appropriately imposed under federal law
That's their *job*, to review laws and regulations and actions for constitutionality.
Dartmouth's Beilock appears to be the best and only president of the Ivies and near Ivies in moving in the right direction. When the campus Left attempted disruption using Palestine she immediately called in the police and had faculty and students arrested and charged. While later the charges were dismissed, apparently some understanding was reached, because there have been no further serious disruptions of the academic environment. At other institutions, the leaders simply try to mollify the disruptors by giving them concessions, and in some cases even seem to be collaborating with the culprits in pursuit of an imagined revolutionary future. Somehow the Dartmouth trustees picked a person like Beilock and backed her up against the faculty grievance studies nuts, and it has had good results. Maybe trustees elsewhere will develop a spine, and instead of treating their appointment as a purchased social ornament, apply their often considerable skills to reform by picking better leaders like Beilock.
The emphasis on internships indicates (a) that students learn career skills on the job rather than in the classroom and (b) that employers don't trust academic credentials to identify new hires. Employers trust references from internship managers and especially prefer to hire applicants who have had internships within the firm.
Will entrepreneurs figure out ways to match talented youths to internships/apprenticeships in firms as a substitute for study at selective colleges?
And might entrepreneurs figure out ways to enable the mass of youths who attend non-selective colleges to get workplace training in firms instead?
Perhaps the "value added" of attendance at a selective college is intensive interaction with a smart peer group and the formation of peer networks. But the trade-offs are delay of adulthood (and family-formation); diminished interaction with adults; high cost; and curricular irrelevance to the workplace.
I’m reading about too many fatal sledding accidents after the recent winter storm, particularly among Gen Z. I would like to see more sledding safety courses added to the core curriculum at the university level. Perhaps also add some post graduate level courses to the mix where the burgeoning PhD students could publish their best empirical data in the most recognized journals? I took AP sledding in high school and it made all of the difference for me.
Hint: David Henderson worked in a quarry mine at some point during his career journey. His experience was completely outside of any credentialing institution, but if I recall correctly, he benefited immensely from the experience. I too was employed outside of the credentialed channels and that experience changed me forever. In short, go get a real job as opposed to something ordained from some gatekeeper in the alumni office.
Cooper Norris from Season 1 of “Landman” captures the passion and naivety of the entrepreneurial spirit perfectly. He opted out of his senior year at Texas Tech in order to learn the oil business from the ground up. I respect that over phony credentials every time.
I’m also stuck by the new corporate requirement from Cracker Barrel that its employees must eat their own food on corporate road trips. How oppressive must that must feel? I’m guessing that the alumni office never dreamed of such a scenario during their credentialing meetings.
https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/workplace/cracker-barrel-work-trip-travel-expenses-meals-25eaf050
It sounds to me like a good decision under the right circumstances.
* People who don't like Cracker Barrel food probably aren't as good at making it, and their dislike probably carries through their attitude.
* It provides feedback on both the menu and individual stores.
* It ought to be free, since it is required, but if one of their claims to fame is price, that's not as important.
* They should also eat at competitors to keep up to date with what other restaurants are serving.
That's a very 21st century story: Qatari oil money and woke female college administrators teaming up to bully Jews on an elite American college campus.
Love ‘grievance studies’
Nice contributions today and very common sense for ROI
What is the strength of capitalism? It's not simply free trade. It's not just the ability to.use capital to create something. It's also the opportunity to try things without knowing if they will fail, barely survive, or prosper immensely.
It seems to me AK and too many other people want something more perfect from colleges than what we should expect within, and especially in preparation for, a free market economy.
I doubt many students are in grievance studies. Maybe not even double digits percent. College is what you make of it. Most offer plenty of technical skills opportunities such as programming, many have career training such as nursing, and one can also focus on pure "education" I'm the humanities.
What is more important, rote learning of basics to support higher level thinking, working solved problems to learn lots, or projects that build understanding? Yes. They all have value. They are all important but there's no perfect answer to what's the right mix. Nobody gets it right. Some come closer than others though.
Plenty of colleges have formal co-op programs, some required, some optional, but virtually every school has some kind of career counseling office that typically also helps with summer jobs. I went to a top twenty university and worked what was identical to a co-op job, in everything but name, at a national laboratory.
A few decades back there was a study of Harvard grads comparing stem majors and non-stem it humanities. Straight out of school the stem students had higher pay but mid-career the two distributions were near identical. Not everyone does as well as Harvard grads but again, college offers many different possibilities, no guaranteed, except maybe Dartmouth.
Absolutely right. Leaving young people with debt and their parents with a bill is not doing your job.
deLaski writes of what colleges should promise to " deliver to students by graduation." That "by graduation" irritates given that colleges currently measure themselves against a 6-year graduation rate standard. Six years. Incredible:
"According to the National Center for Education Statistics, just 41% of first-time full-time college students earn a bachelor’s degree in four years, and only 59% earn a bachelor’s in six years, driving up the cost of attending college significantly. Many of these students are left with the debt of a college education without the degree."
(https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/19/just-41percent-of-college-students-graduate-in-four-years.html )
Of all the things that a college would like to promise to a matriculating freshman, somewhere near the top ought to a guarantee that all degree requirements will be able to scheduled and completed within three years. There is simply no good reason to drag it out longer.
At American Greatness today there is a piece by Teresa R. Manning (https://amgreatness.com/2026/01/30/depoliticize-the-necessary-first-step-for-trumps-reform-of-college-and-university-accreditation/ ) about accreditation reform. A top priority for meaningful accreditation reform ought to be a requirement for a 3 year graduation standard. As Manning writes:
"Accreditation is supposed to ensure that schools are not fly-by-night shams that collect student loan money and run, neither educating students nor conferring worthwhile degrees. But increasingly, that is what most colleges and universities do. In dishonest fashion, news reports often focus solely on 'for-profit' schools as risky; the Biden Administration, for example, forgave student loan debt for graduates of newer schools that went out of business.
But this is a diversionary tactic to distract Americans from the reality of the situation, which is that the mainstream institutions, the Big State University, are also producing ignorant, indebted graduates who later realize that college failed to prepare them for much of anything, while leaving them older and poorer. (Meanwhile, university administrators, staff, and faculty enjoy handsome salaries paid for by student loans. What kind of society does this to its young people?)"
Nothing would turn around this despicable situation faster than cracking down on the length of time university vampires have to suck the life out of students.
As I've said before, I'm still hard against the first and last blurbs. Universities are finishing schools, the ROI is making better people, not directly financial or trade skills. If you want everything being asked here, go to a two year technical or vocational college or enroll in an apprenticeship. We already see the negative and expensive bloat Arnold advocates in the medical sector with LPNs become four years degrees, CMAs becoming two year degrees, etc. We don't need to expand and encourage more wasteful credentialism.
If AUTX and Dartmouth want to become a trade school and offer a two year program in applied underwater basket weaving or applied economics, they can but then they need to quit calling themselves a university.
Sounds like a lot of blah blah blah in service to a failing attempt to maintain relevance and an unsustainable status quo.
The US is grossly over-invested in postsecondary education credentials mills due to industrial policy tax exemption. Some 10 percent of the US workforce is employed by tax exempt employers and as of fall 2024, some 4,114,069 (or 2.4% of a total workforce of 168.7 million) were employed in some 5,261 postsecondary institutions over 80% of which were tax-exempt.
( https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/TrendGenerator/app/answer/5/30 )
With the US paying an unsustainable $1 trillion plus per year in interest on its ever-increasing debt, and with the US Supreme Court prepared to slash US federal tariff revenues by billions of dollars annually as it arrogates to itself the power currently exercised by the presidency in deciding when tariffs are appropriately imposed under federal law, the fundamental and most relevant question is whether the US’s current postsecondary industrial policy can be discarded in favor of more responsible and productivity-boosting alternatives.
In context, total US federal tax expenditures, which are revenue losses from special exemptions, deductions, and credits, are estimated at approximately $1.5 trillion to $2.2 trillion annually. Tax Code section 501(c)(3) provides tax exemption organizations that are “charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering national or international amateur sports competition, and preventing cruelty to children or animals.” One 2019 paper estimated the cost of the tax expenditure for 501(c)(3) at $2,489.2 billion in revenue and $151.6 billion in net income.
The original blather used to justify tax exemption for education was “fostering the productive and civic capacities of citizens” which is impossible to utter anymore with a straight face. But putting that aside, perhaps we should do cost-benefit analysis on the revenue raising options available to the United States to deal with its deficit spending problem.
Postsecondary education mills do about $1 trillion per year according to various estimates. Without tax exemption industrial policy let’s just guess that would shrink in half and the normal effective corporate tax rate of about 9 percent would bring in treasury revenue of about $45 billion per year. Added benefits would be decline in student loan debt burden/default, perhaps a decrease in the number of dirtball senators trying to buy university presidencies with earmarks for their alma maters (https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2025/12/12/waste_of_the_day_senators_earmarked_cash_for_their_former_schools_1151354.html ) , decrease in the number of under-employed graduates, decrease in the number of students who fail to complete a degree but incur debt nonetheless, and the opportunity cost of diverting millions of employees and students away from higher valued employment opportunities in the market. Against this we must place the purely hypothetical benefit that there may be some number of students who would not otherwise find a path to remunerative employment absent the tax exemption industrial policy.
So what are the tax collection alternatives to offset this $45 billion in lost treasury revenues? Well, the tariffs are very roughly bringing in about that amount, but as we have been trained to parrot, tariffs are a tax on consumers, unlike, I don’t know, sales taxes. We could raise corporate income taxes $45 billion and that of course would have absolutely no impact on the economy or workers salaries, or so we are apparently supposed to parrot faithfully. Or a carbon tax. Because consumers apparently do not consume any kind of carbon-generated energy. Or we could cut Medicare or Social Security benefits by $45 billion because that would have not impact on the economy either. Or we could increase the effective rate of individual income taxes because that of course would have no impact on consumers. OK. Enough sarcasm. But really, it does seem as if eliminating tax exemptions for postsecondary education is the least unpalatable alternative on the table in terms of raising revenues. Something needs to give, and if it is universities that have to go, well, there are a lot of worse things that could happen.
You gave yourself away with this:
> with the US Supreme Court prepared to slash US federal tariff revenues by billions of dollars annually as it arrogates to itself the power currently exercised by the presidency in deciding when tariffs are appropriately imposed under federal law
That's their *job*, to review laws and regulations and actions for constitutionality.
"Arrogates to itself" my royal ass.
Plenty of times one could argue scotus "Arrogates to itself" but I agree this isn't one of them.