THE DUMBING DOWN OF THE SAT CONTINUES. Pretty damning: “[T]he ACT and CLT correlate with the old SAT better than the current SAT does.”

WHY DOES AMERICAN HIGHER ED WORK SO POORLY? A review of Rich Vedder’s latest book, Let Colleges Fail. At this rate, we may have little choice but to watch a lot of them fail.

IS HARVARD DOOMED? I more or less say “Yep!” in a long article on Greg Lukianoff’s Substack, The Eternally Radical Idea.  (Greg asked me to expand on my weirdly popular “Harvard is unironically doomed” X thread.)

BRUCE GILLEY ON A YEAR AT NEW COLLEGE OF FLORIDA. “The fact is, we just don’t know how this will play out. The safest bet is that there will never be any public university in the United States whose faculty is even remotely politically balanced, much less intellectually diverse.”

‘DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS STAYS WOKE.’ Enjoy trying to figure out the description of the book “The Virgin Mary and the Neutrino.” No using ChatGPT!

FINANCIAL AID FRAUD IS A BIG PROBLEM. “[F]inancial-aid fraud remains quite easy to commit and is rising at an alarming rate.” Yeah, it probably was easy right until this guy blew the whistle on it. Dangit, how come I always learn about the good scams only after it’s too late?

‘KILL THE ADMISSIONS ESSAY.’ “A longstanding college-application genre is hampering the pursuit of merit.”

Yup.

DEI ADVOCATES: WE WILL DIE ON THE HILL OF “PUTTING STUDENTS FIRST.” How about “Ye shall know them by their fruits?” How’d all that DEI jazz work out?

COLLEGES USING DEI TO BUILD A NEW ‘ELITE.’ “IQ over 145. SAT score of 1580. Valedictorian. Varsity athlete. Student-government leader. Dozens of AP classes… [R]ejection after rejection after rejection. No scandal. No black mark. Just a long, rather brutal silence from the institutions that claim to champion excellence.”

GOOD NEWS: SOMEONE’S STILL DOING ACTUAL COLLEGE. In an abortion discussion, “the students exceeded my expectations. They were willing to share their own positions, admit when they weren’t sure of things, and disagree without rancor.” The fact that it is entirely reasonable for this to exceed expectations is a grave condemnation of campus life today. Glad that UNC is giving the old ways a shot at its School of Civic Life and Leadership.

CAN CATHOLIC COLLEGES HELP STAVE OFF CIVILIZATIONAL COLLAPSE? Depends on the college. For example, I wouldn’t count on DePaul…

ARE YOU AN AI ALARMIST OR ACCOMODATIONIST? I’m a bit of both when it comes to education, but I think having an infinitely patient tutor for those who do want to learn could be a huge blessing.

SHAPING SOULS TO STAY AFLOAT. AI is going to be coming hard for educators’ jobs. Is humans teaching actual virtue the way to maintain some utility (and solvency)?

SHOULD GRANTS SUPPORT INDIVIDUAL SCIENTISTS, NOT TEAMS? “The creativity, curiosity, perseverance, and skills, observational as well as cognitive, of the scientist are, in fact, the main factors in the success of basic science… Sadly, government science agencies now make no effort whatsoever to assess these qualities as part of the grant-proposal process. This was not always the case.” We can certainly do better than whatever we’re doing now.

A BADLY NEEDED WAKE-UP CALL TO COLLEGE PRESIDENTS: “Forget what happened during Trump 1.0. Things are very different this time around. Those calling the shots have concluded that Democrats are going to keep running the Obama-Biden playbook, so the only recourse is to respond in kind—that anything else is akin to unilateral disarmament.”

As I said in an unexpectedly popular X thread yesterday, places like Columbia are headed for bankruptcy and destruction unless they start dramatically changing their behavior, right now.

FEDS TELL MED SCHOOLS TO STOP DISCRIMINATING. Seriously, can all these institutions please just stop engaging in racial discrimination? Just judge people as individuals. You have admission and hiring processes to allow for precisely that. Until they can make this happen, nobody has any reason to believe anything they say.

THE GREAT UN-WOKENING MEETS THE CAMPUS RESISTANCE: On carbon neutrality at Duke, in this case, but expect plenty more.

MARK BAUERLEIN ON HOW ENGLISH PROFS SHOT THEMSELVES IN THE FOOT. I wanted to take Shakespeare in college. I couldn’t–too few open courses on that, plenty on fringe weirdness. Now English majors are endangered.

“WHY DO COLLEGES MAKE PEOPLE UNHAPPY?” These people can ruin literally anything.

“OUR DEPARTMENT’S FINAL MISSION.” From Secretary of Education Linda McMahon.

THE RATIONAL BASIS TEST IS AN UNCONSTITUTIONAL KLUDGE. So argues Clark Neily for Cato, and the argument is not crazy at all. In fact, I am a little embarrassed it hadn’t occurred to me before.

WHY JOHNNY [WON’T] READ, COLLEGE EDITION. Man, my kids are so doomed.

WHY AREN’T COLLEGE PRESIDENTS SAYING MORE ABOUT TRUMP? There are reasons, good and bad, but the article overlooks the fact that many of them know their power is built on a throne of unlawful discrimination and censorship.

WHAT IS GOING ON WITH UNITED HEALTHCARE? Billionaire Bill Ackman is over here doing deep dive journalism that the media won’t do. The way United Healthcare is acting about its rep calling a doctor out of surgery to hassle her about coverage is weird, any way you slice it.

COLLEGE CLOSURES: A BLESSING IN DISGUISE? I’d love to see a few conservative billionaires pick up some campuses for cheap. The demand for a place where people can just be “normal,” 80s-90s-type college kids is far greater than the supply.