Tag Archives | higher education

Economics 101

Note by , July 18, 2013

The higher-education bubble has touched off a scramble among politicians to come up with solutions to make college more affordable. So far, “affordable” higher education has meant pretty much the same thing as “affordable housing”: encouraging people to pile up unsustainable government-subsidized loans. To avoid the rise of these ruinous student loans, the state of […]

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The Humanities Are Dead, Long Live the Humanities

Note by , July 18, 2013

One of the consequences of the higher-education bubble—an enormous decades-long increase in college tuition—is the withering away of majors in the humanities, from 14% of all college majors fifty years ago to 7% today. After all, if you have to spend upwards of $100,000 for an education, you probably ought to choose a field where […]

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The University Utopia

Feature Article by , March 25, 2013

Three Paradoxes of American Politics, Part 2 Just after November’s election, I posed three paradoxes of American politics, asking why certain demographic groups make up reliable voting blocs for the left, even though the pro-free-market ideas of the right have so much to offer them. I have begun to revisit these paradoxes. In part one […]

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The Third Industrial Revolution

Feature Article by , February 20, 2013

We Are All Futurists Now, Part 1 I recently commented on an article about the economic rise of Africa. A more recent follow-up on that story puts the Africa boom in a very useful historical perspective. The rise of Africa’s long forlorn economies…represents the final phase of a global economic transformation that began over 200 […]

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Politics Is Boring

Commentary by , January 2, 2013

Annual Report from The Tracinski Letter This year, I’m starting a new tradition: an end-of year “annual report” discussing what I’ve done in the past year and what’s coming for next year, both in terms of the logistics of the newsletter and in terms of its intellectual content. This has, of course, been a big […]

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The Great Disappointment

Commentary by , December 31, 2012

Top Stories of 2012 Having dealt with the fifth and fourth biggest stories of the year in separate articles, I will now count down the top three stories, drawing on the extensive coverage I have given them this year. #3 • The Bubble-Bursters I almost selected as the third most important story of the year […]

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Higher Education in the Bubble

Note by , December 23, 2012

There is continuing controversy over whether there is a higher-education bubble, but higher ed has definitely been “in the bubble” for a long time, deliberately sealed off from any connection to its underlying economic value. Consider a report on recent attempt by several state governments to gather data on the earnings prospects of graduates from […]

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The Affirmative Action Scam

Note by , December 11, 2012

An article in The New Republic explains that the Supreme Court might be on the verge of definitively banning “affirmative action” at public universities—but it also describes the high-tech method these schools are already planning to use to subvert such a ruling. After Michiganders voted in 2006 to ban the use of racial preferences in […]

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The “Skills Gap” and the Education Bubble

Feature Article by , May 24, 2011

Originally published in TIA Daily. In early 2009, during the first few dreadful months of the Obama administration, I set out looking for signs of hope by taking an inventory of America’s remaining cultural reserves of strength. This included a look at what Americans turn to for their daily entertainment, particularly on television. I wrote […]

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