I’m Watching the Sacrifice of College’s Soul; The New York Times, July 14, 2025

 Frank Bruni, The New York Times; I’m Watching the Sacrifice of College’s Soul

"At dinner recently with fellow professors, the conversation turned to two topics that have been unavoidable these past few years. The first was grade inflation — and the reality that getting A’s seldom requires any herculean effort and doesn’t distinguish one bright consultant-to-be from the next. Many students, accordingly, redirect their energies away from the classroom and the library. Less deep reading. More shrewd networking.gr

The second topic was A.I. Given its advancing sophistication, should we surrender to it? Accept that students will use it without detection to cull a semester’s worth of material and sculpt their paragraphs? Perhaps we just teach them how to fashion the most effective prompts for bots? Perhaps the future of college instruction lies in whatever slivers of mental endeavor can’t be outsourced to these digital know-it-alls.

And perhaps a certain idea of college — a certain ideal of college — is dying...

I’m not under the illusion that college used to be regarded principally in such high-minded terms. From the G.I. Bill onward, it has been held up rightfully as an engine of social mobility, a ladder of professional opportunity, yielding greater wealth for its graduates and society both.

But there was a concurrent sense that it contributed mightily to the civic good — that it made society culturally and morally richer. That feeling is now fighting for survival. So much over the past quarter century has transformed Americans’ relationship to higher education in ways that degrade its loftier goals. The corpus of college lumbers on, but some of its soul is missing."

The Authoritarian Endgame on Higher Education; The New York Times, March 15, 2025

The Editorial Board, The New York Times; The Authoritarian Endgame on Higher Education

"When a political leader wants to move a democracy toward a more authoritarian form of government, he often sets out to undermine independent sources of information and accountability. The leader tries to delegitimize judges, sideline autonomous government agencies and muzzle the media. President Vladimir Putin of Russia has done so over the past quarter-century. To lesser degrees, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey recently have as well.

The weakening of higher education tends to be an important part of this strategy. Academic researchers are supposed to pursue the truth, and budding autocrats recognize that empirical truth can present a threat to their authority. “Wars are won by teachers,” Mr. Putin has said. He and Mr. Erdogan have closed universities. Mr. Modi’s government has arrested dissident scholars, and Mr. Orban has appointed loyal foundations to run universities.

President Trump has not yet gone as far to impede democracy as these other leaders, but it would be naïve to ignore his early moves to mimic their approach. He has fired government watchdogs, military leaders, prosecutors and national security experts. He has sued media organizations, and his administration has threatened to regulate others. He has suggested that judges are powerless to check his authority, writing on social media, “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”

Mr. Trump’s multifaceted campaign against higher education is core to this effort to weaken institutions that do not parrot his version of reality. Above all, he is enacting or considering major cuts to universities’ resources. The Trump administration has announced sharp reductions in the federal payments that cover the overhead costs of scientific research, such as laboratory rent, electricity and hazardous waste disposal. (A federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order against those cuts.) Vice President JD Vance and other Republicans have urged a steep increase of a university endowment tax that Mr. Trump signed during his first term. Together, these two policies could reduce the annual budgets at some research universities by more than 10 percent."