RealClearEducation Articles

We are living through a period of profound polarization. Trust is low. Civic friendship is frayed. Many Americans increasingly see one another not as fellow citizens, but as adversaries. By some measures, the United States is polarizing faster than any other major democracy. This is often described as a crisis of civility. That is true—but it is not the whole story. Beneath the civility crisis lies something deeper: a crisis of meaning. The data are striking. Nearly all incoming college students say they want meaningful work and a sense of purpose. But far fewer graduates report that...

In January, the Department of Education (ED) put out a new tool that tracks foreign financing of American higher education. For the first time, the American public has an unfiltered glimpse into the traditionally murky world of institutional finance, with a staggering $67.6 billion in foreign gifts and contracts laid bare. Qatar is the single largest source, having shelled out at least $7.7 billion to American universities. Over 95% of that money has gone to just six institutions: Cornell University, Carnegie Mellon University, Georgetown University, Texas A&M University, Northwestern...

Each year, roughly two million Americans borrow sums they may never repay to attend programs that a federal accrediting system has solemnly declared “high quality.” But while some will earn degrees that open doors, many will earn nothing but debt. The student who borrowed $60,000 for a master’s degree in a field that rarely pays more than $35,000 was not necessarily misled by a rogue college. She was, rather, betrayed by a quality-assurance system that measures office square footage and administrator credentials—but not whether graduates can pay back their loans. For...

Danville, Ill., is my hometown. Fewer than one in eight students there can read proficiently. Even fewer can do math at grade level.  Last month, hundreds of those same students walked out of class to protest Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).  That contrast, between academic performance and political mobilization, is not just a local story. It reflects a broader drift in public education across America.  Danville has produced its share of recognizable names, including Gene Hackman, Donald O’Connor, and Dick and Jerry Van Dyke. For decades, Chuckles...

A few weeks ago, I was reading about space with my daughter. Like many kids, she’s at that age where curiosity comes easily - where the world still feels open and full of possibility. Space, especially, has a way of capturing that imagination. The scale. The mystery. The sense that human beings can do extraordinary things. So I told her about Harrison Schmitt - Jack. I told her that he had walked on the moon as part of Apollo 17, the last mission to land humans there. That he wasn’t just an astronaut, but a scientist - a PhD geologist and teacher who helped us better understand...

Many believe that artificial intelligence lowers the academic bar for K–12 students by outsourcing thinking to machines. But evidence suggests that AI raises the academic bar.    That’s the conclusion of a report from the Burning Glass Institute and aiEDU that analyzes how AI is changing the way more than 1,000 labor market skills are used, and how that relates to 140 high school learning objectives from state standards. Its message: “The execution can be outsourced. The judgment cannot.” As AI becomes more capable of drafting text, summarizing information,...

Slowly, hesitantly, I’ve let the thought creep into my consciousness: what if AI is better than me at my job? I don’t think I’m about to lose my job (I’m a tenured professor, after all), and neither will you. But I have to wonder if maybe, just maybe, I need to rethink what my job really is. You see, I have embraced AI in my teaching, working hard to get my students to use it in academically legitimate ways: as a daily tutor and Socratic dialogue partner rather than solely for cheating as their “ghost writer.” So I was proud to read this comment in one...

Members of Gen Z are right to ask: What jobs will be left for them in the new AI world? After all, artificial intelligence already can draft reports, reconcile accounts, write code, and generate marketing copy in seconds--and it's improving fast.  But new technologies do not eliminate work. They change what kinds of work matter. AI excels at tasks that follow rules and patterns. Feed it enough data and a clear objective, and it performs quickly and cheaply. So, a better question for Gen Zers to ask is: What kind of education and training will hold its value when the tools we use...

America’s reading crisis isn’t news. But a legislative solution is—and it’s popping up in statehouses across the country. That’s a welcome development, given what the data shows about America’s students. According to the latest edition of the Nation’s Report Card, only 31 percent of fourth graders scored at or above proficient in reading, down four percentage points from 2019. Or put another way, almost 70% of the fourth graders in America can’t read at grade level.   The literacy malaise continues into high school. Reading...

Financial aid offices have only months to prevent avoidable disruption to graduate enrollment. Last summer’s reconciliation legislation, often referred to as the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB), reintroduced limits on federal lending for graduate and professional students. These caps will take effect for new graduate students during the 2026-2027 academic year. When they do, the financing structure that graduate programs have relied on for years will change immediately. For more than a decade, federal Graduate PLUS loans allowed students to borrow up to the full cost of attendance. Under...

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is now in the spotlight. Recent reporting has documented how the nation’s largest humanities funder has spent years channeling billions into academic projects explicitly oriented around “social justice.” The scale is staggering: a recent AEI study found that nearly 80 percent of disclosed private funding for the humanities, arts, and social sciences comes from just 25 foundations—and Mellon is the top giver by a wide margin, at more than $160 million in 2023 alone. During the 2010s, Mellon awarded nearly 5,000 grants totaling $2.65...

As the war against the Islamic Republic of Iran rages in the Persian Gulf, there’s another battle against the regime’s influence being fought a bit closer to home. The Iranian missiles and drones that are raining down on countries in the Middle East cannot yet reach our shores. However, there is no Iron Dome preventing Iranian money from landing in U.S. K-12 classrooms. Iran is the third-largest shareholder in an international multilateral bank that provides financial support to a network of U.S.-based private K-12 Islamic schools. Iran’s influence operation is substantial....

A growing number of colleges are experimenting with a new model for undergraduate education: the three-year bachelor’s degree. Last month, the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education voted to allow some public institutions to offer bachelor’s programs requiring just 90 credits rather than the traditional 120. Massachusetts isn’t alone. The first accredited three-year bachelor’s programs launched in 2024 at Brigham Young University–Idaho and Ensign College in Utah. In total, as many as sixty programs either already have or are working towards...

Walk into a college library today, and you will see something that feels almost old–fashioned: students sitting quietly together, reading, debating, and working through problems side by side. Laptops are open. Headphones are on. Some students are reading. Others are solving problem sets together or quietly debating a paper. At a moment when artificial intelligence can summarize readings, draft essays, and tutor students instantly, the most valuable resource in higher education may be something far simpler – a room full of human beings thinking together. As information becomes...

The second week of March is Civic Learning Week. It’s an annual observance marked by civics advocates with webinars, social media campaigns, and a big conference known as the National Forum, organized by the nonprofit iCivics. This year’s National Forum will take place in Philadelphia, as more than 600 civics leaders, educators, and students will gather to consider the theme of “Liberty and Learning: Civic Education at 250.” Indeed, this year’s Civic Learning Week is an even bigger deal than usual, as we celebrate the nation’s quarter-millennium...

School choice programs have exploded across the country in recent years, giving hundreds of thousands of families the chance to find an education environment that works for their children. From education savings accounts (ESAs) to scholarships and vouchers, states are beginning to move away from a one-size-fits-all approach to education. Today, roughly 1.5 million students benefit from private school choice programs nationwide, compared to just several thousand around the turn of the century. Yet even with this massive expansion, first-year application numbers and waitlists show us school...

At some point during 2020, wealthy adults decided that children would make excellent shock absorbers for our fears, our politics, and our institutional liability management. We closed their schools, confined them to screens, masked their faces, and then acted surprised when test scores collapsed, and mental health visits surged. I write this as a father. My oldest son missed his graduation, senior prom, and final track season, milestones no Zoom call can recreate, before going on to graduate from West Point. My youngest became withdrawn when sports seasons were cancelled, and neighboring...

Astrid arrived at her community college to pursue a nursing degree with a high school diploma, a part-time job, and a plan. She was told she needed two semesters of noncredit remedial math and English courses before taking classes that counted toward her credential. She never made it to the anatomy course. Astrid is not a real person, but her story is. She represents the unspoken student story of American higher education’s developmental—or remedial—education system. Strong Start to Finish reports that 40% of two-year college students and 25% of four-year students take at...

The Chicago Teachers Union spent years insisting it was financially transparent. The sudden release in January of previously hidden audits tells a different story — one that demands accountability.  It's taken five years, a lawsuit filed by its own members, and congressional involvement for CTU to provide the audits it’s legally bound to release to members annually. It could take even longer to understand how discrepancies in the data affect members. They deserved better. These documents were not shared as part of routine disclosure. They were produced under mounting legal...