How Higher Ed Can Ace Civics Education
A need to reinvest in civics education has become a bipartisan refrain in recent years. While academics lament declining trust in our institutions and worsening political polarization, civics education has…
The Time for a Civil-Rights Audit Is Now
The best time for a university to perform a civil-rights audit was two full years ago, right after the Supreme Court announced its decisions in the Students for Fair Admissions…
The SAT’s Trust Fall
As the policy director for the Classic Learning Test (CLT), I’ve had dozens of conversations with lawmakers across the country about college entrance exams over the last year. Surprisingly, the…
The Case Against Online AP Testing
This May, Advanced Placement tests for 28 of 36 AP subjects were held entirely online. Going forward, College Board will administer most exams through Bluebook, the central testing platform that…
A Year at New College
It takes me about eight minutes to walk across the campus of the New College of Florida, where I just concluded a year as a visiting professor. There are rare…
Kill the Admissions Essay
In 2023, the Supreme Court rendered a 6-3 decision that effectively outlawed affirmative-action policies in college admissions, finding in favor of groups representing qualified students whose applications were rejected at…
States Are Taking Up Higher-Ed Reform
The Trump administration’s flurry of action on education reform creates space for states to chart their own paths. Efforts to abolish the Department of Education aim to “return education to…
GenAI Will Not Make Students Smarter
By now, most North Carolinians are at least somewhat familiar with Generative AI (GenAI). As tech journalist George Lawton explains, GenAI “uses sophisticated algorithms to organize large, complex data sets…
The Faculty Versus Academic Reform
Since the 1997 founding of Western Governors University (WGU), a private, nonprofit institution developed to pioneer so-called competency-based education (CBE), a growing number of colleges throughout the U.S. have explored…
Should Universities Cater to Retirees?
The U.S. population is aging. By 2034, the number of people over 65 will be greater than the number under 18 for the first time in United States history. At…