A generation ago Charles Sykes wrote a controversial, provocative, but I think 90 percent correct book, ProfScam. I think a better than decent case can be made for a new book, a sequel if you will, called CollegeScam. Professors are not the only ones engaged in using higher education for personal power and glory.

“Is College Too Easy?” is the headline of a superb story by Daniel de Vise on page one of today’s Washington Post. In it, de Vise presents in substantial detail data from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) that show students study relatively little. Average total time on all academic work amounts to about 27 hours a week, the story says.

Since the typical student is in class at best 32 weeks a year, the total annual hours spent “learning” is on average about 864 (27 x 32), less than one-half the time the student’s parents are spending on their jobs, partly …

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For all the lip service about universities being “market places of ideas” and havens for unpopular thoughts, three stories over the last week or two drive home the reality that there is a clamor by many  in the academic community for either ideological conformity or resistance to “interference” from the Real World that feeds it.

Naomi Riley puts up a blog that said what I believe many people in higher education have long believed but were largely afraid to say: Black-studies programs in the United States are weak academically; moreover,  employers have apparently not clamored for black-studies graduates, and enrollments are stagnant or falling in many institutions. Ms. Riley did not spend a lot of time researching the issue (which, in her defense, is not terribly unusual with blogs), and she could have eased the uproar a good deal by noting that academic weaknesses are not…

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Charles Miller, chair of the Spellings Commission, reminded me the other day that that panel in its report referred to the federal financial aid system as “dysfunctional.” I think I (as a member of the commission) picked the word and Charles seized upon it. More than five years have passed, and the system now has been promoted to “uber dysfunctional.”

Let me outline seven problems or “sins” with the program, some of which I outlined earlier in a piece for National Review Online.

1. The low interest rates (3.4 percent currently, and likely to continue) on federal subsidized Stafford loans are set by the political process, not market forces. Loose Federal Reserve monetary policy along with irresponsible lending by such government subsidized agencies as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac contributed hugely to the housing bubble and 2008 financial crisis, and federal student loans…

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Greed arguably ranks high on the list. (Photo by Flickr/CC user Muffet)

My  colleague Roy Boyd and I were complaining about the latest excesses in intercollegiate athletics (ICA) at our school (Ohio University), when Roy opined that a large number of the seven deadly sins were involved. Upon further reflections, I think all seven of those sins have been part of the ICA scene in recent years.

I will use a slightly updated (from Biblical times) list of the sins as used by Dante in the Divine Comedy, very close to what I understand to be the official doctrine today of the Roman Catholic Church regarding such matters.

1. Lechery or Lust: Of course, the Penn State scandal seems rooted in lust,  but so are many others. Football coaches have been sacked at several schools (e.g., the University of…

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Even his critics will acknowledge that Barack Obama is a shrewd politician with a pretty good ability to measure the nation’s mood. Unfortunately for him, the nation’s mood is not particularly good, and as an incumbent seeking reelection, his poll numbers are consequently not very robust. Moreover, he lacks the warmth of personality of say, a Ronald Reagan or a Bill Clinton. Despite costly efforts at economic stimulus, the economy is performing, at best, in a mediocre fashion. His signature legislative victory, Obamacare, is not liked by a clear majority of likely voters and may soon face the humiliation of being found…

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For several years, I have predicted that someone would try to begin an elite, high-quality for-profit university, a school that would be qualitatively extremely good but would operate on a for-profit basis. Now I read that some heavy hitters (e.g., former Treasury Secretary and Harvard president Larry Summers) are actively planning such an institution. Unfortunately, I understand that this effort is directed towards online learning, and while I think having quality online instruction is truly a worthy goal, I am wondering if the next step is possible: for-profit, extremely high-quality, residential colleges.

Why might such an institution succeed, provided it is well-capitalized and the investors accept the fact they will have to wait a few years to reap gains?

1. The number of relatively bright, hard-working, and moderately affluent kids wanting to get a superior education exceeds …

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Three things in the past year have radicalized me regarding college sports and the need for revolutionary change. First, of course, are the scandals on top of scandals. Some appear to involve morally indefensible actions by respected adult leaders—the Penn State scandal of course, but also other less sensational but morally dubious acts, such as the one leading to the recent sacking of the football coach at the University of Arkansas. Second, Taylor Branch in his magisterial Atlantic Monthly article detailed a history of growing avarice, greed, corruption, etc., showing that the NCAA is arguably an evil enterprise only modestly morally superior to, say, Mexican drug cartels. Third, a great new book, Tainted Glory, by a colleague and friend of mine, David Ridpath, who is a sports-administration professor at Ohio University, is a case study in corruption at one school, Marshall…

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Here is arguably the most startling statistic you have heard this year: It is likely that there are at least as many adult Americans with student-loan debts outstanding as there are living bachelor’s degree recipients who ever took out student loans. That’s right: as many debtors as degree holders! How can that be? First, huge numbers of those borrowing money never graduate from college. Second, many who borrow are not in baccalaureate degree programs. Three, people take forever to pay their loans back.

Let’s do the math. Recent data suggest there are about 40 million holders of student-loan debt. The New York Fed in a study puts the number a little lower, but estimates by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) suggest a somewhat higher figure. There are, give or take a million, roughly 60 million college graduates. Yet a good proportion, somewhere around one-third, of…

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My friend and American Enterprise Institute colleague Alex Pollack had a brilliant column in the Wall Street Journal on March 14 that unintentionally speaks importantly to one of the many scandals surrounding higher education: our students are weak in core knowledge about the development of our civilization.

More specifically, Pollack said an even cursory glance through history would tell you that the recent European financial crisis and threatened Greek debt default are hardly surprising—history is replete with scores if not hundreds of other examples. Governments use their sovereign and coercive powers to pressure people to buy their bonds. For example, our system of national banks created in the National Banking Act of 1863 resulted in considerable part because of Treasury Secretary Salmon Chase’s desire to peddle bonds to finance the North’s effort in the Civil War. Banks were…

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State-university presidents have complained for years that their schools are slowly being privatized. They are right. For example, real per capita state-government appropriations for higher education (adjusting both for inflation and population growth) fell 19 percent from fiscal year 2008 to 2012. From the mid 1970s to today, according to Postsecondary Education Opportunity, the proportion of our personal income going for state appropriations for universities has fallen well over 40 percent (from about $10.50 per $1,000 in personal income to under $5.90).

State university presidents argue that this has contributed importantly to rising tuition fees, and to a decline in the resources of public schools relative to private ones. They also point out this has implications for quality, noting that the number of state universities in the list of top schools on the US News & World Report…

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