Kerby Anderson

The conflict between Harvard University and the Trump administration has been in the news. Victor Davis Hanson uses this news story to ask an important question: “Do Elite Universities Really Wish to Fight the Federal Government?” In his commentary, he unveils a half dozen problems at universities that might cause American taxpayers to reconsider how much money should be given to them.

The first problem is well-known. “Over the past half-century, tuition has generally risen at twice the rate of inflation.” A major reason for this is the fact that the student loan program is run by the federal government. “Colleges counted on an ensured stream of tuition money and so raised their prices inordinately, given federal guarantees.”

Unfortunately, the percentage of students who have defaulted on their loans, along with those currently late on their payments, is increasing. That is why he suggests that universities with multibillion-dollar endowments should guarantee their own student loans. They would “have a financial interest in seeing their own students graduate in four years, get jobs, and pay back their alma mater promptly and fully.”

A second problem is the lack of any intellectual diversity on campus. “Some recent studies have found liberal professors outnumber their conservative counterparts by a 10-1 margin, especially in the social sciences and humanities.” There are conservatives and Christians with PhDs in the market, but they are excluded because of political bias. College students rarely get to hear “the other side” of an argument because professors with those views are essentially banned from campus.

These are just two of the concerns documented by Victor Davis Hanson. Tomorrow, I will discuss a few of the others he mentions.