December 17, 2024
Make America Smart Again: The Jeopardy Test for Graduation
President-elect Donald Trump has signaled his intention to try to abolish the Education Department, long considered wasteful in a nation where public education is provided locally. If he were to succeed — a long shot, to be sure — state and local education overseers would have to step up to ensure quality education. On this front, the news is not promising….
December 17, 2024
Letter to the Department of Government Efficiency on Possible Reforms to the US Welfare System
December 17, 2024
Industrial Policy and Deficits: Dark Clouds for Democratic Capitalism
Democratic capitalism is a system that marries liberal democracy and free-market capitalism. This union creates tensions, and requires balancing competing aims. But this tension is healthy, not destructive — provided that democracy and capitalism are properly balanced, each sphere reinforces the other. Over the long term, capitalism requires liberal politics; and democracy will not maintain…
December 17, 2024
States Should Drop Accreditation Requirements for New Colleges
Key Points Read the full pdf. Introduction Accreditation is a major barrier to higher education reform. In a bid to reduce the agencies’ power over state universities, Florida and North Carolina have passed laws requiring public colleges to periodically change accreditors.1 Florida Governor Ron DeSantis spoke for many policy-savvy conservative leaders when he declared that you…
December 14, 2024
Why the Riskiest Situation NYC Foster Kids Can Face Is Visiting Their Birth Parents
Between 2020 and 2023, there were 2,154 cases of substantiated abuse and/or neglect of foster children in New York City. When New Yorkers read that statistic — taken from a recent City Comptroller’s audit of the Administration for Children’s Services — they might be shocked. Indeed, it might confirm their prior assumptions about how terrible foster care…
December 13, 2024
Economics & Data-Driven Inquiry
At the behest of New College Florida and the Global Freedom Initiative, AEI scholar Kevin Corinth joined a distinguished group of scholars and practitioners for the Symposium on Ideological Capture of Universities and Institutions to discuss the ideological capture—or politicization—of America’s educational, professional, and political institutions. Dr. Corinth, along with co-panelists Veronique de Rugy of the Mercatus…
December 12, 2024
Which Men Cheat Least? Republican Husbands, Especially ‘Religious Wife Guys’
Republicans have an infidelity problem. If your only impression of Republican marriages was ripped from the latest headlines, this would seem to be a reasonable conclusion. But the picture appears different when we look beyond the headlines at the lives of ordinary Republican men. It turns out that Republican husbands, especially religious ones, are less…
December 11, 2024
The Often Overlooked Link Between Drug Use and Family Decline
Who are the victims when it comes to “deaths of despair”? Recent research has focused on the racial makeup of these tragedies — drug overdoses, alcohol-related deaths and suicides. According to a recent study, the number of Black people and Native Americans in this category has been growing while the number of white people has…
December 11, 2024
US Students Best Other Nations—in Achievement Gap Growth
US scores on the 2023 Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) are another sign not only that American students are losing ground in math and science, but that the achievement gap between high-performers and low-performers has grown dramatically. As I wrote a couple days ago, these trends started well before the pandemic and are…
December 11, 2024
Some College Graduates Are Taking Lower-Paying Jobs
The promise of higher education is to equip students with new ideas and skills that will help them land higher-paying jobs. For many students, this dream comes true—but that is not what happens across the board. As college degree attainment has risen over time, many graduates find themselves taking jobs that traditionally belonged to those…