March 11, 2024
Taking On the College Cartel
The venerable economist Milton Friedman once said, “Only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real change.” That’s the impulse behind Winston Churchill’s admonition (later famously echoed by Obama’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel): “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” Well, welcome to the world of American higher education. Crippling tuition, bloated bureaucracies, huge rates of…
March 11, 2024
Louisiana’s FAFSA U-Turn Signals That “College-for-All” Has Peaked
Fifteen years ago, AEI’s ever-prescient Charles Murray argued in Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America’s Schools Back to Reality that too many students were going to college—that “college-for-all” loomed too large in K-12 schooling, distorted our priorities, and had fueled the neglect of career and technical education. That take was noxious to education advocates, philanthropists,…
March 11, 2024
Why Educators Often Have It Wrong About Right-Leaning Parents
Three decades ago, John Gray’s mega-hit book, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, sold 15 million copies. The premise was simple: When we see the world in different ways, it’s easy to misunderstand or talk past one another. That insight applies emphatically in today’s very online world. In polarized times, it’s all too easy to…
March 8, 2024
State of the Union – Biden’s Housing Proposals Would be Harmful, Not Helpful
President Biden in his State of the Union pitched a raft of proposals with the stated purpose of lowering costs for homebuyers and increasing the supply of rental units. As has been the case with dozens of housing acts passed by Congress over the last 75 years, hold onto your wallet when the federal government says it…
March 8, 2024
Jason Kelce, Family Man
In his tear-filled farewell speech, Jason Kelce brought his 13-year NFL career to a close by underlining what really mattered in life: marriage and family. The longtime Philadelphia Eagles player, who made the NFL Pro Bowl in each of the last five seasons after getting married to his wife, Kylie, in 2018, said in his retirement speech: It’s…
March 7, 2024
Jamaal Bowman’s Voting Rights Hypocrisy
Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York, best known for pulling a fire alarm in the Capitol, has made voting rights a signature issue. A member of the uber-progressive “Squad” led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bowman has even engaged in a hunger strike and been arrested while protesting the Senate’s failure to suspend the filibuster rule to…
March 7, 2024
Proven Results: Highlighting the Benefits of Charter Schools for Students and Families
In 2002, I became a fifth-grade teacher at the lowest-performing public school in the South Bronx, New York City’s lowest-performing school district. A mere 16 percent of PS 277 students could read at grade level. The first charter schools were just opening up in the neighborhood back then; there were virtually no alternatives to the…
March 7, 2024
Growing Congressional Dysfunction Will Worsen Our Fiscal Problems
Few were surprised when deposed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) retired in December. While Republican leaders tend to exit quickly after losing committee gavels or leadership posts, the additional departure of other respected senior lawmakers in both parties is damaging legislative capacity on the Hill. Congress is losing the sort of policy-making veterans it needs to craft and pass important legislation. Their reasons for leaving vary and often include Congress’s general inability to pass needed legislation. That dysfunction is evident…
March 6, 2024
College or Trade School? How About Both?
For too long, our debates on post-secondary education have taken a binary form: either “college for everyone” or “learn a trade.” But in an era when career trajectories are no longer linear, and when technology is rapidly and unpredictably evolving, the ability to adapt and acquire new skills is essential. What we need instead is a…
March 6, 2024
It’s Time to Scrap the Federal Student Loan Program
It may come as a surprise, but the Biden administration has effectively abolished the federal student loan program. Well, at least if a “student loan program” is understood as one in which students borrow money and then eventually repay it. That program has been replaced by a perverse entitlement in which students borrow taxpayer funds,…