Writing for Real Clear Education, our Senior Fellow, Garland Tucker, writes about the state of higher education today:
This spring brought news of another record year of giving to American colleges. In 2017, donations to colleges and universities topped $43.6 billion. The surging U.S. stock market enabled renewed charitable giving by alumni. There were five gifts of $100 million or more. As usual, Harvard and Stanford led the pack with $1.3 billion and $1.1 billion respectively. The Wall Street Journal’s analysis showed that “much of the increase in giving last year can be attributed to alumni activity. Gifts from school graduates jumped 14.5 percent last year.”
This news prompted me to recall a watershed event from 67 years ago. In 1951, a young Yale graduate, William F. Buckley, Jr., shook the academic world with the publication of “God and Man at Yale.” In addition to launching the author’s national career and the 20th-century conservative movement, this bestselling little book forecast with remarkable accuracy the future of American higher education.
Read on for Garland Tucker’s assessment of the challenges with higher education today.
