The Current Thing: Harvard
What I think as a libertarian
As you know, President Trump has frozen some government funds that were supposed to go to Harvard. You need not care what I think about this, but in case you do, here goes.
As a libertarian, I want to see the decision to freeze funds based on due process, not the President’s peeve. And I do not want the government micro-managing the affairs of a private university. So I would not support Mr. Trump in this case.
But I cannot muster up any sympathy for Harvard’s faculty and administration. They want to be left alone to practice racial discrimination in admissions and hiring, and to let the Palestinian “cause” be used to intimate Jewish students.1 And they act as if government funding is some natural right. If colleges think that they can now pose as champions of free speech, the only appropriate response is to laugh bitterly.
The orthodox libertarian would say to get the government out of higher education altogether. Neither provide funding nor engage in supervision. I might not want to go all the way in the orthodox direction, but I would go pretty far.
The standard reply is that universities provide a public good. I question this. The higher education lobby is one of the most powerful lobbies in this country.2 The motive for any lobbying is to secure private benefits, not to provide public goods.
To me, the Woke preaching and anti-Israel protests are negative externalities, not public goods. Admitting a wealthy Nigerian student instead of a middle-class Asian-American is Harvard’s idea of fairness, not mine.
Research has a positive externality, but I would not defend the current system. It involves too much overhead, cronyism, conformity, fads, and disciplines that are not really science. With little or no accountability for results. I would prefer to see much of the funding going to: prizes; support for young researchers; and institutions other than universities.
I have said before that we send too many people to college. That is not a Harvard issue, but it goes along with my libertarian preference to drastically reduce government spending on higher education.
I would prefer to see broader and deeper cuts to government spending on higher education. But if Mr. Trump wants to demonize Harvard, and vice-versa, maybe we should just pass the popcorn.
To me, the Palestinian cause would be freedom and capitalism for the Palestinian people, with any international aid going for, well, aid. Of course, the UN’s idea of the Palestinian cause is tunnels and weapons located in hospitals and teaching children to hate Jews. But no matter how hateful the cause, if you speak for it peacefully and without threatening Jewish students, speak to your heart’s content.
Depending on which AI you ask, higher ed is in the top 7 or the top 15 of all sectors in terms of lobbying expenditure
Any university that depends on $2B (or $9B) for its sustenance is no longer a private university. Instead it's a wholly-owned subsidiary of the federal government, and Trump has as much right to order them around as he does any other federal agency. If Harvard wants to run its own affairs and live by its own customs and courtesies, then it needs to give us our $2B back.
I'm pretty much in total agreement. I really don't like the President personally micromanaging the affairs of a university. Especially Donald Trump, who, in my view, is often largely motivated by a desire to punish his enemies or those he feels threaten him.
On the flip side, even most "private" universities are recipients of direct grants and contracts from the Federal government and they receive indirect support from things like tax exempt status and FAFSA loans.
Universities should not simply be given a pass and allowed a completely free hand to operate as they choose but in general it seems like they are. There should be some review and accountability. Many in the public still have a very romantic view of the university and assume everything they do must be golden. In reality, there is a lot of waste, excessive overhead, superfluous courses not teaching anything meaningful, distortive affirmative action, campus activism arguably promoted by staff, and even a lot of original research is useless. There are some studies that should not be conducted in the first place. This is all in the USA where accountability and approval is still relatively good by global standards. A lot of what colleges do is wasteful, produces negative externalities (extreme political views) and wouldn't pass a simple cost benefit analysis test.
I don't think it's up to the President to personally try and manage how a university operates, what courses it offers, and what studies it conducts even if I happen to agree with the current President that some campus activism espouses immoral or incorrect views. I don't necessarily want a progressive POTUS taking action against universities for failure to address campus evangelism or religious activites. I'd rather have more thorough reviews by people "closer" to the institution and with more insider knowledge who can help optimize the size and scope of the university system.