In Section A of Part II of this blog, I discussed how colleges can best ward off direct attacks, threats, and governmental demands from the administration and forces of MAGA. In Section B, I turned to longer-range approaches colleges can take on their own initiative to reduce their vulnerabilities, address problems, and regain public trust. In that section, the focus was on clarifying for themselves and the public the deeper purposes and role higher education aspires to and on committing to some requirements in the humanities and social studies as a function of those purposes.
In the last section below, Section C, the focus will be on how colleges can address some problematic operational issues and prominent politicized complaints.
Section C: Self-Examination of Practices
Tuition costs, grade inflation, and admissions practices have been among the major operational challenges for colleges. Even more complex have been the politicized complaints largely targeting DEI programs, discrimination issues, and lack of viewpoint diversity. Together, they have significantly contributed to a decline in trust, more so among Republicans as we discovered in Part I of this post.
But before assessing some of these major complaints and issues, it is important to realize that the declining trust in colleges can be exaggerated. The most recent in-depth survey of attitudes about higher education concludes with questions directed only to those who have at least earned an associate’s degree (https://poll.qu.edu/pollrelease?releaseid=3958&utm). When asked whether getting a degree was personally worth it despite the costs, the responses were overwhelmingly positive at 78%, and at 89% for those in the 18 – 34 age group, representing the most recent college students.
Those who answered yes were then asked to respond to four provided reasons they might have for their answer: (1) more money earned, (2) more or different career paths or job opportunities, (3) the quality of their education, and (4) the quality of their social connections, networking and personal development. The percents of those who ranked each of the reasons as major or at least not minor were respectively as follows: 83, 83, 87, 70.
Colleges should take some heart from these responses of graduates. That 83% felt the degree was worthwhile financially and career-wise is notable, but even more so is that the highest percentage for what made the degree worthwhile was the quality of education. And the fact that 70% agreed that personal development and networking also made the college experience worthwhile speaks much to its value beyond curriculum and career.
These results run counter to the negative narrative that now besets college education. Such views need more prominence because they come from those who have actually experienced college. Colleges should capitalize on these voices in their messaging.
Also worth mentioning here is another recent survey in which employers expressed their views of U.S. colleges. Very high percentages of these hiring managers and executives had strong confidence in colleges; believed they are helping students develop skills that support constructive dialogue across disagreement in the workplace; thought they should help students be informed citizens; and believed they were worth the cost (https://www.aacu.org/research/the-agility-imperative). It would be beneficial if employers would work with colleges on a signed letter attesting to their positive views, which colleges could then use to help dispel the current negativity.
Operational issues
Tuition costs
Complaints about this are pervasive, are voiced equally by Republicans and Democrats, and have caused many to question the overall value or payoff for a college degree. But how justified is the outrage?
It is true that in the last 30 years private college tuitions have about doubled when adjusted for inflation, rising on average 6% annually. Among major reasons for the increase are non-teaching staff growth for student services, diversity initiatives, federal and state compliance issues; significant increases in the salaries of higher-level administrators; and improved campus amenities and facilities.
However, these statistics, while true, are quite misleading. Students on average are now actually only paying on average 43% of the sticker price because of the increases in financial aid and grants (excluding loans). The price, adjusted for inflation, actually paid by the average student in 2025 has thus actually declined over the last few decades. The wealthier parents are paying the high sticker prices, which are generally set to offset at least some of the tuition aid. Even the inflation-adjusted price that in-state students actually pay on average at public universities is 50% lower than 15 years ago.
However, even if colleges decide to advertise this fact to parents, it may not quiet the criticism that college tuitions are too high. Although median middle-class household income has increased slightly over the last 30 years, as adjusted for inflation, most of that gain has been due to the increase in 2-earner households and been eaten up with childcare and health expenses. Wages for them have been stagnant, and many of them are struggling. Is further price-reduction of tuitions possible? There may be some areas in college budgets that could be trimmed; but in my experience as a head of an educational institution, significant cost-cutting cannot be done without harm to the school’s mission, offerings, and status.
In point of fact, colleges are actually facing a budget crisis. One in three private ones will be showing a deficit this year, and one in five public ones. Declining trust in colleges, sticker shock, uncertainty about the value of a degree, and the cost of discounted tuitions are contributing factors. But the biggest and scariest one for all colleges but the most prestigious or heavily-endowed ones is the projected significant decline in the population of college-age students. That trend will put many colleges at financial risk, particularly the smaller liberal arts colleges (https://www.npr.org/2025/01/08/nx-s1-5246200/demographic-cliff-fewer-college-students-mean-fewer-graduates). The reality is that colleges have barely begun to think of how to secure their long-term survival. Some will close or merge. My hope is that securing survival will not lead to abandonment of their missions and the liberal arts.
Grade inflation
Colleges have been beset by an epidemic of grade inflation, a trend that starts in high schools or even before (https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-11-05/grade-inflation-high-school-college-education). At some colleges, A’s have become the typical grade, which has rendered GPAs of students an unreliable measure of their level of achievement. This trend raises questions about course rigor and fairness, contributing to at least some loss of trust in the higher education system. Higher grades are not correlating with higher achievement; and in fact, can be a disincentive for student effort and achievement.
Some have blamed the system of student evaluations of professors, on the view that handing out high grades better ensures good reviews. Whatever the cause, this trend does not further the credibility and trustworthiness of colleges. Although the complaint may not be wide-spread, it is in the interests of colleges curtail this trend. Some have started to look for solutions. Harvard has set a quota for the number of A’s per course. Yale has adopted a better, although only an interim approach of appending to each grade a student receives the average grade received by everyone in the class. In that system, an A grade in a course where everyone, say, received an A would provide an idea of what the grade meant: in this case, virtually nothing.
Admissions issues
Applicants are accepted to a college before they are notified of their financial aid offer, causing them to put a non-refundable deposit on a safety school before they can evaluate aid packages from all the colleges that admit them. It would be a more professional approach for colleges to work together to eradicate this problem and also eliminate inconsistencies in the way they explain their aid packages to accepted applicants.
Also, applying students are often unclear whether their record will qualify for consideration, especially at the more selective colleges. In the recent Yale Report, it was suggested that for sake of transparency, it set and publicize a minimum standard of academic achievement that merits consideration for admissions. This would give clarity to applicants, but I am not sure such a definitive minimum standard would be easy for colleges to set.
Lastly, now that the Supreme Court has ruled that qualified applicants cannot be admitted on the basis of race or ethnicity, but supposedly only on the basis of merit, there are increasing complaints that admitting qualified students on the basis of legacy or athletic skills is an unfair practice. As commonly noted, legacy students will by and large be from white families. Perhaps this practice should be ended.
On the other hand, I think there is a case to be made that such practices are not unfair. They certainly give colleges more flexibility to shape the makeup of an entering class. Unless their mission is only to admit the very best and brightest, there is an advantage for colleges to admit students with a range of academic abilities, and not just students who score at the top, just so long as all students are deemed qualified, based on the assessment that they will meet graduation requirements.
For one thing, having a student body with such a range reflects the mix of people graduates will encounter in their workplaces and life. Moreover, as a head of a PS – 12 school, I found that the brightest students not infrequently can glide by on their native intelligence, but fail to challenge themselves to fulfill their potential. Those with lesser native intelligence, on the other hand, can be hungrier to learn and, in the process, surpass expectations.
Such an approach to admissions allows schools more flexibility to shape the make-up of an entering class, including the advantage of admitting qualified siblings, children of alumni, and gifted athletes. To me, it seems unduly restrictive that colleges can no longer take purposeful steps to admit a racially-rounded entering class that is qualified. There have been negative consequences. Among the most selective colleges, underrepresented minority student enrollment declined 15% in the 2 years since the Supreme Court ruling, with black enrollment declining by 26% (https://www.chronicle.com/article/this-is-how-colleges-have-responded-to-the-end-of-race-conscious-admissions).
Politicized Complaints
These Issues here been generally defined by MAGA forces and have thus gotten much public attention. On the political slogan level, there is, not surprisingly, much distortion and misunderstanding. On the other hand, some scholars have grappled with clarifying the deeper and more nuanced aspects of these issues, but there has been a reluctance by faculty to address any of these issues because of the MAGA origin of the accusations and complaints. That is a mistake. In what follows, I will briefly try to clarify some of the issues and identify which ones might merit attention and a modification of practices.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI) and Discrimination
DEI programs have probably been the major target of the administration, with the goal of disallowing any special services for minority students, even scholarships designated by a donor for students of a particular race. MAGA forces aim to prohibit to the extent possible any mention of the idea that disadvantages to minorities are systemic. Moreover, they have emotionally charged the atmosphere by arguing that any measures to advantage a minority represent reverse discrimination, in effect disadvantaging the white majority.
There are a number of factors that have driven diversity programs over the years, not just in the colleges but in the independent schools where I worked. The original one was the goal to have a diverse school community, to serve a population that is more reflective of the country’s ethnic and racial mix. Such a goal, so belatedly adopted, helped these educational institutions more completely fulfill their role of serving the American public and molding future citizens. Besides, surveyed students report that they value and prefer a school community with significant cultural and ethnic diversity (https://www.bestcolleges.com/research/students-divided-on-affirmative-action/ and https://www.niche.com/about/enrollment-insights/class-of-2023-fall-senior-survey/).
Eventually, more formal DEI programs were implemented to serve the increased numbers of students from groups that historically faced systemic barriers, discrimination, or underrepresentation because of race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender. Their overall goal was to ensure members of these groups become an integral part of the school community and have the tools to thrive. This is an important consideration since many of them are first-generation college students with little knowledge of how to navigate the system and/or in danger of feeling isolated because of being a member of a minority in a mostly-white setting. Things can go wrong.
A blanket dismissal of the goals of diversity programs would be a tragic mistake. But that is what the administration and forces of MAGA seem determined to do on political and legal grounds.
Having volunteered in two organizations that prepared and guided first-generation college students, most of whom being from ethnic minorities, I can attest that DEI programs do fulfill an important ongoing need. This does not mean that those who benefit from the programs are not qualified for admission as so many seem to think. Colleges do not and should not admit students who are deemed incapable of successfully completing their programs and graduating.
A blanket dismissal of the goals of diversity programs would be a tragic mistake. But that is what the administration and forces of MAGA seem determined to do on political and legal grounds. However, for better or worse, the only firm, legally-established prohibition against special services for minorities was set by the Supreme Court in its anti-affirmative action ruling. College admissions cannot consider race a plus factor or set racial quotas.
What MAGA has tried to do is use that Supreme Court ruling to prohibit any college service being exclusively used for any particular race. Executive orders, memos, DOJ guidelines have tried to saddle DEI programs with charges of discrimination and illegalities. Some of these legal maneuvers have been thwarted by the courts. Some court cases are still pending. However, to repeat, except for the Supreme Court ruling, none of the “legal” pronouncements used by the administration have the force of law behind them at this point; but they hang over colleges as a constant threat of being sued and taken to court. To make matters worse, some red states have passed laws limiting or eliminating DEI programs.
This situation is a nightmare for colleges, with no clear path forward. According to The Chronicle of Education, more than 300 colleges have dismantled or scaled back their diversity programs. Many more, though, are still trying to figure out how to continue the programs without running afoul of accusations of illegalities by the administration. To navigate this problem, colleges will need significant legal advice, preferably working together on solutions when possible and appropriate.
In reconstituting their diversity programs, however, they should take this opportunity to reframe them to avoid making the same mistakes that beset some of them in practice. Diversity and inclusion should ultimately relate to everyone whether from a minority or not—and that includes whites. All groups complement the community’s mosaic, and in a thriving community groups support each other. In some DEI programs, too much emphasis is on the unique identities of minorities and not enough on what everyone has in common as a human being.
Blame and exclusivity work against inclusion and community, and serve no one. Colleges should work to nurture in students the moral perspective of promoting the common good and eschewing the disadvantaging of any group.
Furthermore, discussing the sociology of how minorities in the US are disadvantaged in comparison with whites can be educational and informational. But it is educationally unsound and politically unwise if the discussion leads to an exclusive focus on minority students as victims/oppressed and casting or confronting white students as victimizers/oppressors and making them feel guilt or shame, as sometimes may happen. Blame and exclusivity work against inclusion and community, and serve no one. Colleges should work to nurture in students the moral perspective of promoting the common good and eschewing the disadvantaging of any group. Such approaches have the additional potential advantage of helping colleges defang Trump administration complaints.
The role of Jewish students in some DEI programs can shed light on how these programs can go astray. Sometimes those students are not invited to form a DEI group. Of course, they qualify as a minority; but they are sometimes excluded because they are white or associated with Israel, which can find itself being identified as a colonizing country. Even if that is one’s perspective on Israel, blocking Jewish students from DEI participation is totally unacceptable. They are no more responsible for colonizing than Muslim DEI participations for harsh strictures on women in Muslim countries. Jewish exclusion does have the effect of turning DEI into politicized entity.
It is true that the administration seems also exclusively concerned about discrimination against Jewish people, whites, and Christians. This is for political reasons. Nevertheless, DEI programs and participants should have been sufficiently attuned to discrimination issues not to engage in or be complicit in any threatening actions against Jewish students when the Gaza demonstrations broke out on campuses. Again, it is important for faculty and administrators involved in these programs to ensure that diversity be seen as a good for everyone in the community and that it be an aid in ensuring that students learn from each other and understand differences.
Viewpoint Diversity
Complaints of the administration and MAGA forces on this topic range from the idea that Republican views are not treated with the same weight and respect as Democratic ones to the idea that colleges should favor or teach MAGA views only. We can see the more extreme latter view in the legislative attempts in red states to dictate curriculum. In what follows I only address faculty teaching and research issues, not outside speakers invited to campus by student organizations.
MAGA’s accusations of prejudice against its views are mostly based on registered Democrats being predominant among professors, the majority of college graduates voting Democratic, anecdotal personal stories of professors making MAGA students feel uncomfortable, and students protesting against conservative speakers. Even if a link between party affiliation and prejudiced teaching could be factually proved, it would also mean that Republican affiliation would be biased. And if there is a problem with the objectivity of professors, balancing the ratio between Democrats and Republicans would solve nothing; it merely forecasts prejudice from two perspectives. In point of fact, the effect of college teaching on student voting habits is not factually clear (see, for example, https://www.chronicle.com/article/is-the-diploma-divide-really-a-gender-gap?).
While viewpoint diversity is what MAGA claims colleges are failing to maintain, this catchphrase is vague and misleading (https://www.aaup.org/academe/issues/fall-2025/seven-theses-against-viewpoint-diversity). The goal of classroom discussions, teaching, and scholarship is to arrive at truth, defined as what best fits the evidence. In the process, credible opposing views are discussed and determined not to fit sufficiently with that evidence. Nevertheless, at least in theory, any conclusion is subject to challenge and eventual rejection once new contravening evidence arises or a new review of old evidence calls into question the original conclusion.
In many cases, then, teaching alternate viewpoints as equally valid would be counterproductive although sometimes there is value in discussing why they are not valid. Professors should not be granting equal validity to flat earth perspectives, the idea that human life is 6,000 – 10,000 years old, or the denial of global warming. What would be more open to legitimate divergent views, for example, is the timetable and effects of global warming, and especially what policies should be adopted to counteract it.
The idea that the founders wanted to establish Christianity or some branch of it as a national religion is another view that simply does not merit equal billing with the opposing idea that religious freedom was endorsed and state-established religion was rejected. The evidence is overwhelming. The founders had no interest in perpetuating the religious wars that had wracked Europe for centuries. This does not mean that they did not find religion to be a force for the good. As they saw it, religion supported self-restraint and civic virtues, qualities needed for successful self-government.
The popular level on which the so-called viewpoint diversity problem is discussed is, therefore, clearly misleading and superficial. This does not mean, however, that politics in a broader sense is not influencing teaching and academics.
As entities devoted to the pursuit of truth, universities should not be teaching something as valid by virtue of its being a position of any political party. Evidence supporting truth must emerge from independent scholarly research. The research may lead to a conclusion that a political party may hold, but basing one’s views on a party’s position is wrong and needs to be called out if or when it occurs. It is probably rare that professors will actually base their assessments solely on such positions. More worrisome in this regard are the systematic attempts to control public university curricula by red state legislators and politicians.
The popular level on which the so-called viewpoint diversity problem is discussed is, therefore, clearly misleading and superficial. This does not mean, however, that politics in a broader sense is not influencing teaching and academics. Understanding the political sphere in that sense leads us to delve into the underlying structures of power operating in a society. This, I think, is at the heart of the concerns. [For a cautious and substantive treatment of this frustratingly complex aspect of the complaint, see the recent study organized by Vanderbilt and Washington University, “Report on the State of Scholarship in the Humanities and the Humanistic Social Sciences”: https://cdn.vanderbilt.edu/vu-wpfsx/wp-content/uploads/sites/51/2026/06/State-of-Scholarship-Report-final.pdf. This report has also faced criticisms. Jonathan Kramnick, an English professor at Yale, has recently written a fair assessment of its limitations (https://www.chronicle.com/article/who-gets-to-judge-the-humanities).]
Starting in the 1960s, particularly with the influence of French philosophy and postmodernism, scholars in the humanities and social studies began to analyze society through the lens of the underlying power structures of race, class, and gender. Such analysis reveals how these structures exert control. As the above-referenced report notes, much of the research on these matters was beneficial. It opened up the literary canon to non-Western works and exposed the normative assumptions on which groups in power justify their status and stabilize the social order in the interests of the powerful as opposed to the interests of groups who are marginalized by the powerful. It critically exposes reality underneath the surface of things.
One outcome of this approach MAGA strongly objects to is the view that systematic racism exists against blacks or other groups in this country. In reality, there is abundant scholarship that highlights the legacy of centuries of slavery and Jim Crow laws and provides the evidence for the current existence of systemic racism in housing, health care, judicial sentencing, employment, and education (https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2021). MAGA’s objections are so strong that at Texas Tech, the “El Paso campus medical faculty, for instance, can no longer say ‘disparity’ to describe differences in health outcomes” between whites and blacks. Talk about politicizing education! And what is the alternative view? Black people totally merit and cause their status? God wills it? It is purely coincidental? These are not credible evidence-based positions.
On the other hand, this does not mean that there are no causal realities outside the systemic racism theory. For example, although the poverty rate of blacks is higher than poor whites, the inability to rise from poverty to a significant degree is on average not going to happen for either poor whites or blacks. Class is also a cause. Reliance on one theory to explain everything can be limiting.
This limitation of theory, however, does not invalidate the structural analysis of power relations, but it suggests such theories do not capture all aspects of reality. One of the values of literature, for example, is to widen our empathy for others as it portrays moral consequences for actions, expands our understanding of the messiness of moral choices, and offers a variety of possible ways to invest life with value or a variety of perspectives from which one can approach moral dilemmas and issues. The danger is that once a literary work is viewed solely through the lends of social power relations of the society portrayed, the moral dimension of literature is diminished because characters are just caught up playing out power dimensions. When moral thinking becomes relative to one’s position in the power structure, it loses an essential part of its validity: an independent, disinterested agent.
Social justice is one component of the moral dimension that has become highly contentious in research, teaching, and politics. MAGA virtually rejects any mention of it as the politics of the left or wokeism. In addition, some social scientists argue for non-political reasons that such moral references cannot be part of objective analysis because moral pronouncements are seen in essence as subjective statements. For different reasons, both of these positions are wrong.
This diminishment of the moral function of literature, however, has nothing to do with MAGA’s politicized complaints about a decline in the integrity of research; but to the extent that this diminishment occurs, it should be of concern to Humanities Departments. A steady diet of treating literature only through the power lens of race, gender, and class robs students of appreciating literature outside that lens; and when that occurs, it can contribute to the decline of interest in the study of the humanities.
Social justice is one component of the moral dimension that has become highly contentious in research, teaching, and politics. MAGA virtually rejects any mention of it as the politics of the left or wokeism. In addition, some social scientists argue for non-political reasons that such moral references cannot be part of objective analysis because moral pronouncements are seen in essence as subjective statements. For different reasons, both of these positions are wrong.
At the risk of oversimplifying, I would argue that social justice references refer to real world realities. The moral dimension is what is shared by human beings by virtue of their vulnerability, lack of self-sufficiency, and need for community living. At the most basic level, they need the moral dimension to remain safe and preserve themselves. What is immoral in that context is abuse of others. What social justice calls attention to is whether social arrangements or structures are such that people are, in fact abused by them and suffer disadvantage at the hands of others. This is an aspect of justice that all of us as human beings should be concerned about. If researchers of social structures find such disadvantage as a result of their research, calling out such arrangements as contrary to social justice in their teaching or research does not make them woke/fake moralists or invalidate their research.
So far, then, we have not found a practice that in itself would justify MAGA claims that teaching and research has been politicized in way that invalidates the research. There are, however, two ways this can happen.
First, teachers and researches can approach a topic with the desire to prove, say, a situation of social injustice, and then do the research to prove that point. Or they can ignore research results that conflict with their political commitments or those of their peers. This abuse of the scholarly process can occur in complex, subtle, and even unconscious ways, as discussed recently by Rebecca Tuvel, philosophy professor at Rhodes College (https://www.chronicle.com/article/rebecca-tuvel-was-canceled-it-was-the-best-thing-to-ever-happen-to-her).
Second, structural theory model can lead scholarly research astray when any of its practitioners deny the possibility of objective knowledge on grounds that all human knowledge fundamentally relies on subjective choices, goals, or the interests of people who occupy a distinct social position in the power structure rather than on evidence. Such a view completely undermines the search for truth. It is true, of course, that absolute knowledge is not possible for human beings, but a good-faith effort to arrive at a conclusion that has the preponderance of the evidence to support it is what sustains scholarship and the search for truth. It is also true that the seeker can be led astray by his or her prejudices, interests, and assumptions; but again, the important thing for the seeker is to be aware of this possibility and make good-faith efforts to avoid it.
Any theory that does not allow sufficient freedom to seek for evidence and truth in a disinterested way denies the possibility of scholarship (and also moral choice, as noted previously). Such a view will leave any researcher free or compelled to submit ideas that just mirror his or her interests or political perspectives. A theory must allow the possibility of the individual to grapple with the reality that lies behind the fog of power relations and interests.
Scholarship can thus be politicized and invalidated in both of the above ways, and there is some evidence that this is occurring in some academic discourse in classes and publishing. However, this characterization of the problem is on a far different and more complex level than the broad sloganeering complaints of MAGA. The real problem here is not something that politicians, legislation, or government mandates can solve; and their intervention will create more serious problems. Rather, it is the responsibility of colleges, faculties, departments, scholarly journals, and academic subject-specific associations to monitor the situation and apply corrective measures as appropriate.
Concluding Postscript
The picture that emerges from this two-part blog is that colleges are facing multiple issues—financial, legal, and curricular threats from the government, loss of public trust, budget deficits and decline in college-age population, and questions about mission, purpose, relationship to job preparation and financial gain, and politicization of scholarship on left and right. None of these issues can be ignored. I have tried to lay them out for a general audience and suggest some ways forward.
I feel some anxiety for the future, but we can’t lose hope. It is certainly not an easy time to be faculty or administrators at a college, for it is ultimately up to them to figure out how best to navigate these and other challenges like AI. It is, however, a task we should all be hoping they succeed in. Bluntly stated, our future does depend on an educated citizenry, just as our founders believed. We have been fortunate in this country to be able to take pride in many of the aspects of our university system. The fact that it has attracted so many students from abroad speaks for itself. May we be able to look back in some non-distant time in our future and marvel at how well our system weathered the storm, righted the ship, and became an even greater source of pride than it had been.
A clear and persuasive distillation of so many issues we are facing!