Elite higher education in America—long unquestioned as globally preeminent—is facing a perfect storm.
Fewer applicants, higher costs, impoverished students, collapsing standards, and increasingly politicized and mediocre faculty reflect a collapse of the university system.
The country is waking up to the reality that a bachelor’s degree no longer equates with graduates being broadly educated and analytical. Just as often, they are stereotyped as pampered, largely ignorant, and gratuitously opinionated.
No wonder polls show a drastic loss of public respect for higher education and, specifically, a growing lack of confidence in the professoriate.
Each year, there are far fewer students entering college. Despite a U.S. population 40 million larger than 20 years ago, fertility rates have fallen in two decades by some 500,000 births per year.
Meanwhile, from…
