Category Archives: education

My Irony Meter…

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…is pegged. In their letter published in The Wall Street Journal‘s Friday Letters section, David Wippman and Glenn Altschuler of Hamilton College and Cornell University, respectively, object to comparisons of Harvard to Hillsdale College, even as they misleadingly mischaracterize the latter’s relationship with Federal dollars (writing that Hillsdale has for decades refused federal funding, when the fact is Hillsdale has never taken Federal dollars at any time in its 180 years of existence).

The letter writers acknowledge that Harvard’s taking Federal dollars makes it “vulnerable” to Federal pressure, citing supposed risks to Harvard’s research capacity. In truth, Harvard still could conduct effective research, were it to get serious about the bigots and terrorist supporters entrenched in its student and faculty and staff populations.

That brings me to the irony of their letter.

[I]t is absurd to compare this Christian college with 1,700 students and 170 faculty with Harvard, one of the leading research universities in the world with almost 25,000 students and more than 20,000 faculty and staff.

Actually, two: Wippman and Altschuler call out Hillsdale as an explicitly Christian college as though that were somehow important to their discussion, while ignoring Harvard’s more religiously and areligiously ecumenical bent—as though that does not matter at all.

The real irony though is that 1:10 faculty to student ratio at Hillsdale compared to that 8:10 ratio of faculty and staff to students at Harvard. Clearly one school is focused on actual teaching, while the other is focused on…nothing in particular, apparently, other than faculty and staff activism, antisemitic bigotry, terrorist support, and condoning when not actively encouraging the same in the student population. That only creates an environment where that vaunted research is merely an afterthought and a source of Federal largesse rather than a serious focal point for the institution.

Harvard’s Professoriate…

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…according to a supposedly conservative professor. James Hankins, a Harvard history professor, had some thoughts on how to cure Harvard of its wokeness. I have some thoughts on his thoughts.

Hankins’ basic idea is that Harvard should reduce its acceptance rate of Federal dollars and rely more on private funds from Harvard alumni.

[W]e should strengthen ties with loyal alumni who know and love Harvard. Alumni are loyal in part because they remember with gratitude the teaching they received as undergraduates. That makes them more closely aligned with the university’s real mission: to teach and to produce high-quality, unpoliticized research. Empowering alumni would carry its own risks, no doubt, but in my experience, they have a much sounder sense than politicians and government bureaucrats of what Harvard should be doing to help the country and itself.

This is naïve, and it misstates Harvard’s—any college’s or university’s—mission. That mission is to teach, full stop. They’re also ideal places to do research, including basic research, but even in an ideal world, research would come second to teaching, not be placed on par with it.

Withal, Hankins exposed the core of his error in a couple of ways.

My sense is that the great majority of my colleagues don’t care for campus political activism. As an out-of-the-closet conservative, I often find myself playing the confidant to my liberal colleagues. They sidle up and say, sotto voce, “Please don’t tell anyone I said this,” then proceed to unload their disgust with the latest activist outrages. They might have identified as leftists in their college years, but a frequent refrain I hear from them now is “this is not what the left used to stand for.”

That silence, that refusal to say out loud what they’ll say sotto voce, however fearfully, is the professors’ cowardice. These cannot be trusted to do any sort of unpoliticized research. They’ll bend to whatever their woke liberal masters tell them to do with whatever dollars come their way.

And this:

Faculty at Harvard for the most part are serious scholars and scientists who just want to get on with their work. They have books to write and papers to publish. … They resent it when activists create turbulence at department meetings and waste everyone’s time.

Faculty at Harvard openly favor their personal careers over doing a right thing. They resent having their quiet careers interfered with, but not enough to stand up and object out loud. This is the cowardice of immorality. This sort cannot be trusted, either, not with their writing, certainly not with teaching our children.

Hankins has successfully identified his colleagues as perfectly happy to sit on the sidelines, if not all the way up on their porches, in what they see as safety instead of taking a stand, doing a right thing.

Don’t take the Federal government’s—us taxpayers’—money? The question has another direction, also: the Federal government shouldn’t be sending our tax money to an institution like this in the first place.

Good for Them

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A number of universities are raising cash in large amounts, though not as large as suspended Federal government transfers to them, in their efforts to shield themselves from government pressure to rid themselves of antisemitic bigots and terrorist supporters among their student and professor populations.

Princeton University is issuing $320 million in bonds, while Northwestern secured $500 million and Harvard raised $750 million. Yale University, which has flown under Trump’s radar so far, is trying to sell billions in its private-equity holdings.

I say good for them.

These institutions are under no obligation to accept Federal dollars, and the government is under no obligation to send those dollars to them. So long as the institutions accept Federal dollars, though, the government gets to specify how those dollars get used, just as is the case with any other donor. No Federal dollars, no Federal strings.

Beyond that, though, with all of that money-raising—and the institutions are just getting started on this round—these institutions are demonstrating how little they actually need Federal dollars to carry out the various researches they cry so piteously are at risk from losing those dollars.

Even as these institutions “free” themselves from Federal strings, though, so long as they tolerate—condone, actually—those bigots and terrorist supporters, they are no fit institutions for our children’s post-high school education.

It’s true enough that colleges and universities can be highly useful centers of technology development and of basic research, including in areas critically important for our national security, and Federal dollars can be highly valuable impetus and support for those efforts. There are a plethora of such schools, though, that are not hotbeds of bigotry and support for terrorists; these are the schools who should be getting those dollars.

A Sort of Start on a Student Loan Fix

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Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon has proposed a series of steps to correct our nation’s student loan miasma.

• mov[e] roughly 1.8 million borrowers into repayment plans and restart collections of loans in default
• in some cases wages would be automatically garnished
• push colleges to be responsible and transparent

That last is especially curious. McMahon does not say how she defines “responsible and transparent,” nor does she say what constitutes her “push,” how hard she will push, or what consequences—concrete, measurable, and publicly accessible—she will apply for noncompliance, or how promptly.

These steps need to be taken, but by themselves they can be only stopgap, and they are wholly inadequate. What’s really necessary is to get the Federal government completely out of the student loan business: no Federal student loan guarantees, no Federal student loan-supporting programs whatsoever.

Because money is fungible, that must include drastically curtailing the range of student grants and scholarships originating from Federal programs. The same reasoning for getting rid of DoEd altogether applies to any sort of Federal involvement in education.

McMahon can do these things from within DoED while she’s setting the stage for Congress’ elimination of the Department (note: not merely defunding the department; eliminate it altogether). However, for the complete solution, Congress needs to act:

• statutorily require colleges and universities to publish the average, median, and range of income at the five years employment mark for their graduates in each of the major fields offered
• statutorily require student loans to be originated by private lenders or colleges and universities
• statutorily require colleges and universities to guarantee at least 50% of each loan granted their students
• statutorily allow current and future student loans to be discharged in “ordinary” bankruptcy proceedings

Only when private lenders and colleges and universities are the only ones with skin in this student loan game will those loans and their borrowers be carefully screened for repayment risk. That will prove optimal for the student borrowers and for us taxpayers.

Harvard Doesn’t Need the Money

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The Federal money transfers in the form of grants and contracts, that is.

Some thoughts on the matter:

The school’s fundraising machinery has swung into gear, sending several email blasts to alumni seeking gifts during what one solicitation called “a critical moment,” and many donors say they are stepping up their efforts.
At the same time, school leaders including President Alan Garber are focusing on conversations with the school’s heaviest-hitting donors as they seek to offset the Trump administration’s $2.26 billion federal funding freeze, according to people familiar with the efforts.

To the extent these efforts are successful, and early indications are that they are succeeding, this strongly suggests that Harvard has no intrinsic need of Federal—us taxpayers’—dollars. That’s eliding the more than $53 billion endowment with its 9.6% return on investment and roughly 5% year-on-year growth, net of disbursements from the endowment.

Some big donors…said Harvard, and not the federal government, should steer the school’s operations and priorities.

That, by itself is entirely true. However, just as private donors get to call the shots on how their donations must be used by the school, so it is with Federal dollars: the government gets to specify how its transfers are used by the school. Even more, just as those private donors have no intrinsic obligation to donate at all, so it is with the government—it has no obligation at all, intrinsic or otherwise, to send any money at all to the school.

Harvard can operate entirely freely if it does not accept Federal dollars, and Harvard has no obligation, intrinsic or otherwise, to accept those dollars.

Little donors illustrate another reason for donating to Harvard. Lawyer Jim Ehrman:

…I am convincing myself that I am making a statement in support of Harvard’s “No” to Trump.

This has nothing to do with the legitimacy, or lack, of the Federal government continuing to fiscally support, with its funding transfers, the school’s antisemitic bigotry and support for terrorist-supporters on its campus. This is, instead, centered on knee-jerk Never Trumpism.