On Tuesday, Hampshire College became the latest academic institution to announce its closure. There was a time when such failures were rare occurrences. That trickle is turning into a torrent, but the media and academics are missing a critical part of the lesson. There is no greater example of how academics are killing higher education than the death of Hampshire College.
President Jenn Chrisler stated in an announcement that “The College no longer has the resources to sustain full operations and meet our regulatory responsibilities. We want to assure you that Hampshire’s board made its decision only after exploring every possible alternative.”Well, not “every possible alternative.”The college was founded to advance a progressive agenda and pedagogy, including a shift to narrative evaluations rather than grades. It has been one of the most woke colleges in the nation.
In my book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I write about how this generation of faculty and administrators has destroyed higher education by prioritizing political and social agendas, purging the faculty ranks of conservatives and libertarians, and creating a culture of viewpoint intolerance.
Schools like Hampshire College wrote off half of the country and offered indoctrination over education. Students were offered little more than woke credentials with few marketable skills or demonstrated abilities with their degrees. By removing the “anxiety” of grades and rigorous academic standards, the college became a comfort zone rather than a learning zone.
As reported by sites like The College Fix, the faculty heralded its woke agenda on climate change and combating racism.
The New York Times article mentions little of Hampshire’s woke agenda and curriculum, noting that many colleges have been closing. It is the same shrug that one sees in higher education.Surveys show that public confidence in higher education is at a record low.The school slogan, “To Know Is Not Enough,” captured that institutional purpose. Yet, it was also not enough to know that your college was failing to get you to reexamine your culture and curriculum. The problem with the academic echo chamber is that many professors would rather their institutions fail than abandon their agenda and bias.
University professors, if anything, are doubling down with the selection of a far-left activist by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and a continuation of their biased faculty hiring practices.
Many families are unwilling to be the captive audience of an institution that maintains an orthodoxy taught almost exclusively by liberal faculty.
I take no joy in the failure of schools like Hampshire College. It is a tragedy of the academic culture that has taken hold of higher education.
Let’s not forget that Bernie Sanders’ wife Jane somehow became the president of Burlington College, and steered it into financial ruin.
I love guys who think they’re as smart as this Turley guy thinks he is. Keep the entertainment coming!
I dont think i’m smart, but i know you are stupid. Beahahahahahahaha
You don’t know that. But I know he’s a genius.
How many of these colleges are closing because people are leaving the states where they are located? Private colleges get a great number of their students from the state where the college is located. Many people are fleeing these states because of high taxes and liberal,policies.
“The college was founded to advance a progressive agenda and pedagogy, including a shift to narrative evaluations rather than grades. It has been one of the most woke colleges in the nation… Schools like Hampshire College wrote off half of the country and offered indoctrination over education. Students were offered little more than woke credentials without few marketable skills or demonstrated abilities…I take no joy in the failure of schools like Hampshire College.”
Where is the problem? That seems a lot more like a free market working as it is supposed to, than some kind of existential crisis – students and their families rejecting a woke BS education that provided nothing of value. And I take great comfort, delight, and yes, joy, in seeing free market justice delivered on woke idiots. There needs to be a lot more of that happening, including all of the other colleges like Hampshire taking a dirt nap.
/|\ I Don Wannatono wrote this /|\
My first boss as a college prof came from industry — Western Electric. He told me everyone should be able to answer three questions: 1) Who are your vendors? Who are your customers? How do you add value in the exchange between them? Colleges more and more can’t answer one of those questions.
There’s some comfort to the graduates of these failing colleges the world is in need of woke sanitary engineers (aka garbage men/women).
The waste removal entity ’round here is all AV and AI.
Dear Mr. Turley, X at 8:08 a.m. hit the nail on the head when they mentioned “a shrinking population of college age students”. The statement surprised me as X is exposing the liberals’ weak argument regarding abortion. This is one of the many terrible results of the unfettered access and promotion of the abortion issue. To think of the 60 plus million children sacrificed on the altar of abortion, how many of these may have gone to the various closed universities mentioned by X? I believe one day all of the “old folks” who encouraged abortion will be handed a pill and told, “we are an inconvenience, cannot afford us right now, we are interfering with their life… take the pill and die. Since you no longer contribute to society, the society as a whole will be better without you.” Isn’t that what is thought in regards to aborted children?
The economics of raising children has been a losing proposition made by “the invisible hand”. A major oversight of capitalist theory as explained by Adam Smith and the Chicago School is how the system brings children on-board as enthusiastic, well-prepared contributors of market value. These economists thought that would just take care of itself. But back then, older teens could earn enough in agriculture or factory work to marry, nest (start their own household), and reproduce.
Middle-class, educated couples nowadays don’t become financially secure enough to achieve these milestones until their early-to-mid 30s. Below the middle class, it’s out of reach.
I don’t think your approach — coercing young women into impoverished single parenting by their early 20s — is going to help much. We know it creates a gutter culture where young men don’t mature and evade responsibility.
Instead, conservatives might begin thinking about a new economic model of multi-generational finance that encourages young marriages stemming from first love, gradually builds a young couple’s financial emancipation over the next decade, and eliminates the economic penalty of childraising. Because, the “invisible hand” described by theoreticians like Milton Friedman doesn’t care about children being born.
What I’m suggesting is a new economics of family formation that results in early 20s women already in secure marriages and WANTING to have babies, knowing it won’t be held against them to combine career-building and mothering. It rewards young men for making a family commitment, and not so much those that don’t.
This challenge is ours to solve as conservatives (who understand culture and economics better than progressives).
Your comment that a family at a young age “creates a gutter culture where young men don’t mature and evade responsibility” is all on the parents. I was 21 when married, 23 first child, 26 purchased first home and 27 with 2nd child. We struggled (Jimmy Carter years) yes but we made it because we were brought me up to be responsible. My wife stayed home with the children and tried to run a small day care. Her doing so enabled our children to grow up and be just as if not more responsible.
Due to the failure of the rest of my generation, I believe your suggestion of the older generation helping the younger with a family instead of providing them with a basement is a good idea. It was difficult when we were younger as our professions did not generate a lot. The sale of a house in CA. changed that and we do what we can responsibly keeping in mind we have 10-30 years to go.
The other aspect to all of this lies in the so called “Great Society Act of 1964/5 pushed through the democrat congress by LBJ. It was designed specifically to keep the blacks and other minorities on the democrat plantation. One of the greatest senators to ever sit in that body, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D(NY) spoke forcibly against the bill predicting, accurately, the very situation we have today. Loss of the nuclear families among minorities, out of wedlock births and the “gimme” culture. One of the first results from the law came when the administration of the program called AFDC, Air for Families with Dependent Children, ruled that if the family had a father in the house then there was no financial assistance available. This led directly to a sharp increase in the divorce rate especially among black families. The net result was the “baby momma” culture. More babies meant more money. Fortunately the trend is reversing as more and more minority people are realizing just how bad the situation was and they are walking away from it.
In my opinion no matter how many or what the government programs are, it is still the parents and individuals to take responsibility and evaluate if the programs are good or not. Again back to basic responsibilities. That being said, through the programs offered, a generation of give me, and I deserve it, are now raising a generation of the same. I encountered it with one of our kids until we set him straight. Now he “sees the light” at 40 and is being responsible with his partners 2 kids in helping bring them up.
As to schools, well they have dug the hole for the students and themselves, in not changing to offer positive educational programs that are useful to society.
Today another organization is adding to the government programs, NGO’s so the government has some deniability and can pretend there is no waste or corruption.
pbinca,
Well, the good news is while the overall American birthrate is down to 2.1, among conservatives it is 2.4. The birthrate of liberals is 1.6. They are literally non-breeding themselves out of existence. Colleges such as Hampshire, not offer students anything of interest or value, like forced indoctrination, will find themselves with much lower enrollment and if they do not offer students what they are interested in and ditch the woke ideology, they will fail. Just like Hampshire.
And you forgot to mention that only 41% of college freshmen are male – who’ve been degraded, demeaned, harassed, and humiliated every time they raise their hands or speak under the indoctrination process endorsed by the Department of Education since 1979.
Precisely. C. Everett Koop, former Surgeon General of the US was a gynecologist. He stated that there was no medical reason to abort a healthy pregnancy. Yet now the libs and others worship at the altars of Moloch and Ba’al offering the unborn as their sacrament. Ewe all suffer from the loss of those children. How many Einsteins, Mozarts, Salks etc could have been born but were killed for the convenience of the woman.
These things just don’t happen. Signals are ignored for years? What steps had they taken? What had they tried to starve off this crash? When was their last good year? What were they not willing to change? What ideas had they dismissed? Were these academics simply bereft of ideas?They were tax exempt so they didn’t have that pressure. Were salaries and benefits eating them alive? Was the land worth more than they could resist? Had they taken on too much debt to build monuments to themselves? Many of the employees will move onto other institutions and spread the disease. Ironic that the top tier universities have billions in tax free endowments that they claim are restricted while so many other institutions are starving for funds. You would think that the candy Marxists at Top Tier U would share the wealth and help smaller institutions in need. But when it comes to their own money the Top Tier are the most grasping and rapacious and stalwart of all capitalists.
In a free market this is called creative destruction. Oversupply of liberal dominated education. Not needed if they all are teaching the same thing.
Very sad, but not surprising – this ideology and its policies were never going to be sustainable on any level, in any way. I suppose we can only hope that object lessons are learned and we can reverse course while there’s still time, and it will be, as with immigration, the epic ripping off of a band-aid for generations that have only known comfort and relative privilege. I don’t know how society reabsorbs so many of the people in question; we are in for some tough times ahead, I think, one way or another.
James,
“how society reabsorbs so many of the people in question”
Perhaps that is why so many young people are embracing the idea of socialism? They got sold on the idea of getting a degree in wokeism ideology and now that it has been proven to be a failure, saddled them with useless degrees and student debt, rather than stopping and taking a moment of self-reflection they just might of made a bad call, they lash out at capitalism.
What the Hampshire College failed to understand is that they are in the educational marketplace, which is just another business. Either produce something of value or perish. This seemed to be beyond the comprehension of Hampshire’s faculty and administration.
This is nothing new in any business. For example, it was folly to invest in the harness business just as the automobile industry was emerging. But it happened. As well it was a lack of business rigor to continue investment in the photographic film, physical encyclopedia, typewriter, and travel agency businesses as they died.
The woke agenda is much like a theology but without a church. It has little chance of survival, even in colleges.
To gdonaldallen: excellent analysis! I also think that in some instances alumni have become disillusioned with these schools and no longer contribute.
Adios Amigos. Another One Bites the Dust.
I’m sure there is a message in there somewhere but I have yet to find it or care.
I attended Amherst College in the 70’s. Amherst College at that time did not have, while Hampshire College did have, a film and media department. Today, Amherst College does have a film and media department.
https://www.amherst.edu/academiclife/departments/film department.
Media is everywhere.
Seems Turley forgot to mention that this is not the only college that closed due to financial and economic pressures. Contra Turley’s claim that this college failed because of ‘woke’ indoctrination this is also an issue with conservative colleges. A few examples,
The King’s College (New York, NY): This high-profile Christian liberal arts college officially dissolved in late 2025 after a multi-year financial crisis. Like Hampshire, it cited an inability to secure the necessary resources to sustain operations. Its failure was marked by a massive fundraising shortfall—raising only $178,000 toward a $2.6 million goal—and the loss of major conservative donors like Richard DeVos.
Birmingham-Southern College (Birmingham, AL): A 168-year-old private Christian institution, it closed in May 2024 after failing to secure a $30 million state loan. The college suffered from declining enrollment, falling from 1,500 students in 2010 to just 731 by its final year, and operated at a deficit for eight of its last ten fiscal years.
Limestone University (Gaffney, SC): A private Christian university that announced a sudden closure in 2025 after a failed $6 million emergency fundraising effort. It had struggled for years with persistent enrollment declines and clear signs of financial distress.
St. Andrews University (Laurinburg, NC): A private campus with religious roots that closed in May 2025 due to “insurmountable financial challenges”.
Hampshire is no different. It didn’t close due to its ideology as Turley claims. It’s an issue that is plaguing multiple small colleges including private Christian colleges. If those are also closing does it mean they are also failed due to Christian indoctrination?
Data indicates that these closures are part of a wider trend affecting small, private, tuition-dependent colleges regardless of their political or social mission.
A shrinking population of college-age students has led to record-low enrollment for many small schools. At least 612 of 868 recently graded colleges rely on tuition for more than half of their core revenue, making them extremely vulnerable to even minor enrollment drops.
Students are increasingly moving away from traditional liberal arts toward STEM and vocational programs that offer more direct paths to high-paying careers.
Keep in mind that “liberal arts” does not mean liberal or woke either. There are many private Christian and very conservative that focus on liberal arts as their core with theological courses.
Turley once again is baiting his oblivious readership into a liberal-bash-fest because he mentioned….woke indoctrination.
I’m honestly surprised he waited until the third paragraph to put a plug in for one his books.
Good list, thanks for the info. Of course, woke COULD be one of Hampshire’s problems, but most of these schools are crazy expensive and often badly managed regardless of woke or not.
I’m here for the liberal-bash-fest.
Go woke go broke
X/George: I regret that you have learned so much since coming to the good professor’s blog. One of your most significant examples of learning from, and emulating, others on this site is your recent tendency to invoke the tactic of saying, “Turley forgot to mention…” or “Turley omitted the fact that…”
May I respectfully remind you that you forgot to mention a few facts about Hampshire’s structure and curriculum, catering to a very esoteric student population, which may clearly affect its marketability and enrollments in an economically-competitive world:
(1) Hampshire College took down/removed the American Flag from its campus after the 2016 presidential election. Its president at the time indicated an effort to placate students who were offended by what the flag stood for. Pronounced local outcry.
(2) Hampshire’s structure and curriculum continued to evolve from traditional academic subjects to political and social justice courses, even allowing its students to create their own curriculum/agenda, -with NO CORE REQUIREMENTS.
(3) Its president, Jennifer Chrisler, is a former promoter and executive director of a national LGBTQ+ organization and is married to another female.
Perhaps, X/George. just perhaps, you left out some facts that others (with college-aged children) might consider important.
https://www.hampshire.edu/news/hampshire-college-transform-curriculum-and-student-experience-around-contemporary-challenges
Lin you keep making the same mistake Turley did. By focusing on ideology instead of the real reason for the school’s demise. Finance.
The primary cause of the closure was an inability to refinance $21 million in bond debt. The college breached its debt covenants in 2025, and bondholders set a mandatory “tender date” for September 2026. Without refinancing, the school faced a technical default and immediate acceleration of the full principal—a burden it could not meet.
Hampshire’s enrollment dropped from 842 in 2024 to 747 in 2025 (an 11% decline), missing its admission target by nearly half. This is not a “woke” failure but part of a national trend: The King’s College (Christian) and Birmingham-Southern College (Methodist) closed for the exact same reasons
Shrinking demographics: Fewer college-age students nationwide.
Tuition dependency: Small schools lack the massive endowments of “elite” universities to survive even minor enrollment drops.
Did those Christian schools fail because they focused too much on religious doctrines and theology. No. The Hampshire school did not fail because of its woke or student dictated curriculum. I didn’t omit anything. Nice try Lin.
No, I believe Yours is the “nice try,” (another adopted tactic, n’est ce pas?)
It’s a circular argument, George. What are the reasons for Hampshire’s “inability to refinance $21 million in bond debt?”
All I said was that you appeared to have left out some considerations.
Further:
Here is a list of successful SMALL, private Christian colleges. It kinda defeats your isolated mention of King’s and Birmingham-Southern. https://www.niche.com/colleges/search/best-christian-colleges/
Also, you probably need to look at a list of several SMALL, SUCCESSFUL private colleges in Massachusetts that compete with Hampshire, including well-known Williams, Wellesley, Wheaton, etc.
Gee, there must be some other reason for Hampshire’s failures….
I repeat, Perhaps, X/George. just perhaps, you left out some facts…..
thanks anyway.
Lin. You do not know that a circular argument is. You stated, “ What are the reasons for the inability to refinance?” as if it’s a mystery. The reasons are public and documented, not circular.
Hampshire’s enrollment dropped 11% from 2024 to 2025, creating a “doom loop” where declining revenue makes lenders see the school as a high-risk investment.
The college breached terms on its 2012 and 2016 bonds, leading to a “mandatory tender” (a demand for immediate repayment) that it could not meet.
Banks do not refinance $21 million in debt for institutions with negative cash flow and dwindling assets.
You, a lawyer, should know that.
The New England region has a “supply vs. demand” crisis due to birth-rate decreases and shifting student preferences toward larger research institutions.
Mentioning Williams or Wellesley to critique Hampshire’s failure is like comparing a local startup’s bankruptcy to the success of Apple; the scale and resources makes the comparison meaningless. You completely ignored the other private conservative colleges I pointed out that suffered the same fate for the same reasons as Hempshire. It’s not about ideology. Turley wants to make it seem like it is because he’s pushing a false narrative. Thank you for your consideration.
X, looks like you missed the whole point. SOME, yes SEVERAL very small, NE private colleges are having NO problem raising funds and endowments, while others cannot. Must be for some other reasons than the reason for “national decline” that you mention. Get it? Think context and comprehension, Professor X.
Anonymous, you’re hilarious. It doesn’t matter if it’s several very small colleges. Hampshire was one and several other colleges of similar size and reliance on tuition that also failed for the same reason. Conservative colleges. It had nothing to do with ideology and that is the only relevant point.
Clearly, you didn’t get it because you definitely suffer from reading comprehension and context. Your need to make a snide retort makes you look lame.
“EXPOSED: America’s ‘Woke’ Colleges Face FINANCIAL COLLAPSE as Enrollment Plummets”
https://nextnewsnetwork.com/2026/02/01/exposed-americas-woke-colleges-face-financial-collapse-as-enrollment-plummets-ml3unbcl
“We cite as well a Boston University teaching guide on the ‘hidden curriculum,’ where the authors suggest it “may not be fair or even valid” to hold marginalized students to such expectations as doing the readings, arriving to class on time, participating in class discussions or using “standard English.” It is not difficult to see how these sensibilities undermine standards.”
” We cite in our article a 2020 statement by the president of Brooklyn College on the “structural obstacles” faced by students of color; the statement references a drive to raise funds for “professional development” for faculty with the “highest racial disparities in outcomes and the highest D/F/W rates.” https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2023/08/29/behind-declining-standards-higher-ed-opinion
Want more, georgie the ‘hilarious’ one?
“Manhattan Institute Releases Statement Urging Defunding of ‘Woke’ Universities”
https://mindingthecampus.org/2025/08/01/manhattan-institute-releases-statement-urging-defunding-of-woke-universities/
“Colleges Went Woke; Now Many Are Going Broke”
https://themooremoney.com/colleges-went-woke-now-many-are-going-broke/
When not relying on AI, try your touted left-wing Google searches (search results independently rated as left/progressive-leaning)
Here’s some more bedtime reading for you, X
“From broke to woke to broken: How the humanities lost their way”
https://www.joannejacobs.com/post/from-broke-to-woke-to-broken-how-the-humanities-lost-their-way
“Being “Woke” Means Going Broke For Mills College”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardvedder/2021/04/12/being-woke-means-going-broke-for-mills-college/
Here, X,
“Get Woke, Go Broke: Evergreen State College Is Down To 300 New Enrollments” https://www.dailywire.com/news/get-woke-go-broke-evergreen-state-college-down-300-emily-zanotti
“Universities are in for a painful lesson: go woke, go broke” https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/29/university-donors-oxford-pitt-rivers-go-woke-go-broke/
I wonder who George thinks that anonymous is….??? LMAO
I stand by my comment on circular logic and argument.
Thanks anyway.
And don’t forget Amherst, Smith and Mt. Holyoke.
Lin,
Thank you for pointing out those facts. Seems Hampshire admin got highjacked by the wokeism ideology, not only alienated some 50% of possible student enrollments but also alienated the local community. For all their wokeism polices, the college still failed. With the exception of a very small minority, the rest of the students were not buying what they were selling and opted to go somewhere else.
Upstatefarmer, this had nothing to do with ideology. None. Several conservative Christian colleges suffered the same fate. If we are to follow Turley’s logic those colleges failed because of their focus on theological and conservative ideology that is useless in today’s fast paced business world, right? Turley’s claim is mere BS to get the MAGA crowd to bash liberals. That’s it.
X/George: You wanted to advise me that private, conservative, Christian colleges were also suffering. You cited Birmingham-Southern as an example. You chided me for being a lawyer who should know better.
I thought you might be interested in this:
“Birmingham-Southern [BSC] will likely know their fate this week. They have asked Alabama lawmakers for $37 million to stay open. If they do not get an influx of cash, they will close in May.
“BSC has been on the woke train for years. Their homecoming festivities featured a drag show just this past fall. A few years ago, a Christian group was kicked off of campus, only to be let back on after a group of influential donors threatened to pull donations.”
https://www.tigerdroppings.com/rant/politics/go-woke-go-broke-college-edition/107161830/
Also, you might be interested in this:
“Being labeled as ‘woke’ can cost Christian colleges students, money”
https://www.freep.com/in-depth/news/education/2022/07/30/wokeness-christian-colleges-enrollment-politics-hillsdale/9627765002/
thanks anyway, George/X
Bwahahahahahahahahaha my guess is you wont see George again on this little thread. What a fvckstick he makes of himself every time he tries to be the instant google expert on a subject.
Sooooooo funny and sooooo typical.
Seems George conspicuously failed to post his incessant whining about Turley in the Swallowell thread. Coincidence???
How does it feel George, to be a douche and everyone knows it?
Turley is pointing to the right problem, but I think the deeper issue is not just “education” or even “wokeness,” it is formation.
Colleges like Hampshire are not neutral spaces where you just pick up some knowledge and a credential. They are 24/7 formation pipelines. They shape how students see themselves, how they see the country, what they think politics is for, and what kind of life they imagine for themselves. That is happening all the time, in what gets taught, what gets rewarded, and what you are not allowed to say.
If you look at Hampshire through that lens, the problem is not only that it was “one of the most woke colleges” with weak traditional standards. The problem is that the formation it offered did not aim at producing citizens who are capable of self‑government. It aimed at producing activists, clients of the state, and highly credentialed dependents. That is a very different product.
And here is where public money comes in. When we use tax dollars and government‑backed loans to send kids into this pipeline, we are not just funding “access to education.” We are paying to form a certain kind of human being at scale. If that formation leaves graduates less able to govern themselves, less able to argue in good faith, less able to tolerate dissent or carry responsibility for the common good, then what exactly are taxpayers buying.
In my view, that should be the threshold test. If a college cannot show that it is forming students into citizens who have the capacity for self‑government, then it has no legitimate claim on public funds, whether direct subsidies or federal loans. Private donors can support whatever formation they want. The public should only fund institutions that actually help sustain a self‑governing republic, not hollow it out from within.
Olly, in a market-based education system, the value of “formation” is determined by the student and the employer, not the taxpayer. If a student pays for a “24/7 formation pipeline” because they value that worldview, they are exercising their right as a consumer. If the market (employers) eventually decides those graduates lack “marketable skills,” the college will naturally lose reputation and tuition revenue, leading to its closure—exactly what happened to Hampshire. This is the market working as intended without needing a “threshold test” from the government.
You’re suggesting the government should decide which types of “citizens” are worthy of funding. From a free-market perspective, this is central planning.
That taxpayers shouldn’t fund “activists” assumes that higher education is a public utility meant to produce a specific national “product.” A free-market proponent would argue that federal loans and grants are portable vouchers given to individuals. Once that money is in the hands of the student, it should be treated like a private choice. Restricting where that money goes based on the “type of human being” produced is an infringement on the student’s liberty to choose the “formation” they desire.
You’re right that Hampshire’s closure shows a piece of the market working. Students and employers stopped buying what it was selling, so the revenue dried up and the institution failed. No argument there.
Where I think your frame misses something is that you treat “formation” like a purely private consumer good. It isn’t.
When the government creates and guarantees the loan system, it is not a neutral bystander. It is picking winners. It is absorbing risk that no private lender would touch at this scale, and it is doing that in a sector where the “product” is not just skills, it is the kind of people a republic will have to live with.
If this were truly a free market, you would not have federal loans, Pell, and tax subsidies propping up the whole thing. You would have private lenders deciding, program by program, whether the formation on offer is likely to produce someone who can repay. Instead, we socialize the risk, then pretend the choice is purely individual once the check is cut.
So I am not saying the state should design the “one approved type” of citizen. I am saying that if the state is going to underwrite an entire industry of human formation, it has a duty to ask what it is buying. Every other public expenditure is judged on its relation to the common good. Here, the common good of a constitutional republic is citizens who can actually practice self‑government.
Private buyers can pay for whatever worldview they want. But once you involve tax dollars and federal credit, you have already left pure market territory. At that point, saying “no public underwriting for institutions that consistently form people away from the capacity for self‑government” is not central planning. It is basic accountability for a public investment in the most powerful formation system we have.
I get what you’re saying Olly, but I will have to disagree. Defining “capacity for self-government” is not a neutral act. What one administration considers “forming citizens,” another might consider “indoctrination”.
Using funding as a “threshold test” creates a system of regulatory capture, where colleges must align their curriculum with the current ruling party’s ideology to survive financially.
A free-market view argues the public interest is served by competition and diversity of thought, not a state-approved “product”.
If the state filters which worldviews are “legitimate” to fund, it creates a government-backed monopoly on thought, which is the antithesis of a self-governing republic.
A true market solution would be to remove the government guarantee and allow private lenders to assess risk. Lenders would naturally favor programs that produce high-earning, responsible graduates without the state having to define what a “good person” looks like. But we both know private lenders are very risk averse and relying on them would produce only loans a bank would finance based on the degree a student chooses. It limits liberty and freedom of choice.
Federal aid (like Pell Grants) is intended as portable vouchers for individual students.
Treating this aid as a “public investment” for forming citizens focused on self government gives the state a “duty” to judge a student’s personal formation. It turns a student’s education into a state-managed service rather than an exercise of individual liberty. It is indeed a form of central planning.
I think our real disagreement is not about markets, it is about what this kind of regime actually needs in order to stay a republic.
People in this country are free to become any kind of person they want. That is liberty. But when we move from personal liberty to government action, laws and tax dollars, we are not in a neutral zone anymore. We are deciding what the public is paying to produce at scale.
For a constitutional republic, there is one civic type the system is designed for. Not one religion or one party, but one kind of citizen, someone who can actually practice self‑government, live under law he did not personally write, argue from facts, tolerate lawful dissent, and carry duties as well as claim rights. E pluribus unum is not a lifestyle brand. It says, out of many kinds of people, you still need one civic people, or the whole thing comes apart.
That is why I keep coming back to formation. Formation is not a theory I invented. Every society is forming its people all the time. Families, schools, media, tech, law, all of it is always shaping what kind of human being walks out the other side. We are not arguing about whether formation should happen. It already does. We are arguing about what kind of citizen this republic needs, and what government should or should not be paying to form.
You are right that once the state starts judging “good citizens,” it can get abused. I am not asking for a party line or a list of approved opinions. I am saying this: the minute the state creates and guarantees the loan and grant systems, it is no longer a neutral referee. It has already decided this sector matters for the public, not just for private consumption. That makes it a public investment, whether we like that language or not.
In a pure market, private lenders would eat the risk and decide which programs produce people who can repay. But that is not our world. We socialize the risk, then insist the choice is purely private. At that point, asking “what are we buying with public money” is not central planning, it is basic responsibility.
My standard is simple. Public dollars should not be used to steadily form people away from the capacity for self‑government. Private money can fund any worldview it wants. But if taxpayers are footing the bill, the one thing that money should never do is help destroy the very kind of citizen this constitutional order needs in order to survive. From my view, everything else we measure is downstream from that.
Olly, your idea of formation is based on a flawed argument.
The government’s interest in student aid is economic and access-based, not formative. The goal of the Higher Education Act was to ensure that a student’s “merit” (their ability to succeed) wasn’t limited by their “means” (their parents’ bank account).
You treat student aid like a procurement contract. In reality, it is a voucher-style subsidy for the individual. The “public investment” is in the attainment of a degree (which increases tax revenue and reduces social safety net reliance), regardless of the specific worldview formed during that degree.
Government-backed student aid is content-neutral by design. This is a hallmark of a liberal republic, not a failure of it. By providing the funds but remaining neutral on the major, the government protects the freedom of conscience.
Your formation” standard would require a massive, centralized bureaucracy to judge which curricula produce “self-governing citizens.” You claim this isn’t “central planning,” but you cannot have his “simple standard” without a government body auditing the “formation” of every student. You are inadvertently arguing for the very “party line” you claims to oppose.
In addition, your view that public dollars shouldn’t fund people being formed “away from the capacity for self-government”—is a direct threat to the First Amendment. In a republic, “self-government” includes the right to explore ideas that the current government might find “destructive.” The government’s role is to fund the infrastructure of education, not to curate the outcome of the student’s mind.
You assume there is a consensus on what “destroying the kind of citizen we need” looks like. To a secularist, a religious college might “destroy” self-government; to a religious person, a secular college might do the same. ( does that make sense to you) By demanding the government pick a side, you are asking the state to abandon its “neutral referee” status—the very status that prevents the “regime” from becoming a “tyranny.”
You keep conflating the mechanism of payment with the ownership (formation) of the person.
On paper, I know the talking point, student aid is about access and earnings, not formation. But in the real world, you cannot pour that much public money into the main adult‑shaping system in the country and pretend you are not funding formation.
Every serious thinker on either side of the spiritual fence admits people are always being formed by their environment. Dewey, no Christian at all, says education from birth “is continually shaping the individual’s powers, forming his habits, training his ideas, and arousing his feelings.” A Christian like Richard Foster says if we stay passive “we are always being formed” in the likeness of whatever surrounds us. Same basic point. Anything that touches people at scale is doing formation, all day, every day.
So when the government taxes the whole country, borrows in their name, and then pushes billions into one particular network of institutions that shape how young adults think, feel, and live, that is a formative act whether the statute admits it or not. If they truly believe their role is “economic and access‑based, not formative,” then they are openly saying they will throw public funds at a system that is obviously failing in multiple ways and refuse to ask what kind of citizens it is actually producing. That is not neutrality. That is negligence.
Olly, this discussion ahould not be taking place. The government should not be providing scholarships or underwriting loans.
Olly, the above was mine.
Olly, this is your flaw,
“ I am saying that if the state is going to underwrite an entire industry of human formation, it has a duty to ask what it is buying.”
This is incorrect.
Federal student aid, such as Pell Grants and Stafford Loans, is designed as a portable voucher. The funds belong to the individual student to “spend” at the institution of their choice. In a true market, the state provides the means for access, but the consumer makes the choice.
The government has no mandate to audit the ‘formation’ of its citizens. By demanding to know ‘what it is buying,’ the state shifts from a neutral financier to a central planner that dictates which educational choices are valid. In a free society, federal aid functions as a portable resource, not a procurement contract for a specific type of person. When the government conditions eligibility on a ‘formation’ test, it effectively hijacks student autonomy to manufacture a state-approved citizenry. True self-government is not something the state buys or builds; it is something citizens cultivate for themselves through the exercise of their own free choices.
You keep talking as if we were in a “true market.” We’re not.
In a true market, the state doesn’t tax everybody, pile up debt, and then build a giant, subsidized loan and grant system that only works through institutions it licenses and regulates. Once the state does all that, it is not a neutral financier. It has already decided this particular formation system matters enough to underwrite with public risk.
Calling the aid “portable” doesn’t change that. Food stamps are portable too, but nobody pretends the government has no interest in what kind of food ecosystem it is propping up. “Portable” just means the individual makes the final choice inside a field the state has already defined and funded.
And it is absolutely absurd to say government has no mandate to care about the formation of its citizens. If the systems we publicly fund are forming people who are ignorant, apathetic and dependent on the state, who exactly is going to push for change. We would never say to a neighborhood ravaged by drugs, “Well, unless the addicts demand a different product, the dealers have no reason to stop.” But that is what your logic does. It treats the largest formation pipeline in the country as if it is none of the public’s business what it produces, so long as the checks are technically “portable.”
I’m not asking for a party line or a censorship board. I’m saying that once we decide to run a tax‑funded, debt‑backed system that shapes most of the next generation, we can’t pretend it has nothing to do with the one thing a republic absolutely depends on, citizens who can actually govern themselves. Self‑government is something citizens must choose and cultivate, yes. But when the state pays for the main pipelines that shape those choices, it cannot wash its hands and say, “That’s just a private consumer preference, we have no interest in the outcome.
OLLY, the argument by GSX above is AI or at least a heavy mix of AI providing the intellect. It reads and sounds like AI, but more importantly some of the logic is different than what we generally see in a GSX posting and conflicts with some of his ideas.
S. Meyer, what you are saying is you cannot refute or point out that anything I posted is incorrect or not factual. You’re reduced to griping about my method of argument instead of the merits of what I posted.
It doesn’t mater what it is. Is it correct or not? Is it a fair argument or not?
“what you are saying is you cannot refute or point out that anything I posted is incorrect or not factual.”
No. I am saying that what you posted was mostly or entirely AI that in part conflicts with your normal ideology. The last time I mentioned this was because AI took your response in the opposite direction of what you were arguing. You didn’t have the innate intelligence to recognize that your AI post was opposite of your argument.
I don’t mind your use of AI, only that you are unable to control it and prevent it from taking the opposite position of what you took before. When that happense have some agreement.
An example:
“Using funding as a “threshold test” creates a system of regulatory capture, where colleges must align their curriculum with the current ruling party’s ideology to survive financially.”
in a market-based education system,
You are the biggest ifiot on this site, and this horse sh1t you have been shoveling for years, svelaz/george/x
Being a sour pus is not an argument. Nice try though.
you claim its a market based system, then you say its has nothing to do with them not responding to the market. Go reply to lin about the WOKE Birmingham Southern, moron.
what you are saying is you cannot refute that you’re an idiot.
Colleges and universities have gone through multiple iterations in their purpose. In the very beginning, they were meant to teach men to read so they could spread religion. In America, most of the earliest colleges and universities were created by religious organizations to spread the Christian Gospel to save souls. Though classical literature – the “western canon” – became increasingly important early on.
One of the biggest changes came in the late 18th century. Colleges and universities shifted in a big way to doing research. That opened the door to all sorts of stuff we call “soft science”: psychology, sociology, anthropology, etc.
Then in the tumult of the ’60s, America imported a bunch of far left Jews from Germany who made it their mission to indoctrinate students in the Frankfort School garbage. That laid the groundwork for all the “studies” garbage: Women’s Studies; Queer Studies; Chicano Studies, and all the rest and sprang from it. As well as more garbage, “post modernism”, imported from France. It’s all “taught” by far left activists masquerading as professors for the purpose of indoctrinating and training left wing activists.
I say often the current evolution did not just happen by accident. It’s been a deliberate choice. At the institutional level it was done with the knowledge and support of donors, trustees, faculty, administrators, etc. At a more macro/societal level, it was done with support and funding from Congress.
The elites with power chose to change the academic focus toward left wing activism, passed off as “research”.
Anonymous, I think you’ve got the heart of it.
At every turn, the people steering higher ed had a pretty clear idea of what kind of graduate they wanted. First, pastors and Christian leaders, then expert managers and researchers, and now, in a lot of places, activists and cultural critics. That wasn’t drift, it was design.
And you’re right, even if they won’t say “forming citizens for self‑government is not our main job,” they have acted on a deeper decision. They decided that the old‑school self‑governing citizen is not the kind of person they want to produce anymore. Once you see that, the rest of what we’re seeing on campus and in the country stops being a mystery.
OLLY,
I think your last paragraph really hits the spot. A self-government citizen is not what they want. They want some mindless dependent on the government serf.
Exactly. Pick any process, big or small, the output is always what the design will produce, whether you meant it or just let it happen. If you never think about the design, you still get an outcome, you just get it by drift instead of on purpose.
Olly is spot on in this description of the situation.
Bottom line….you do not contribute to your Alma Mater if you do not have the ability or desire to share in your own financial success…or if having achieved some success have the Heart to share in helping others enjoy the same path by funding the college or university.
Of course we know how so many of those on the Left find themselves imitating Scrooge early in the movie long before the conversion which when it comes to giving away your own money becomes reality. The Left like giving away other people’s money.
In my own experience I think so little of the University I attended I don’t even watch any of the athletic games shown on TV.
I benefited from the degree….but not necessarily what I was taught. Life and some very good mentors boosted me much more than did the Liberal Propaganda I had to endure even back then. The Degree alone opened some doors that would have otherwise been closed…but what lay behind that piece of paper mattered not….just the fact I had a Diploma in my grubby mitts.
Bottom line….there are way too many colleges and universities vying for far too little money as most have overpriced professors contributing far too little of benefit thus value for money just isn’t justified anymore. That and the propaganda that every one must attend college has finally seen its day as highly technically trained non-degreed workers are in constant demand.
Ever call a Plumber for some repair work….or a computer technician….or an automobile mechanic?
I have a friend who paints boat bottoms with anti-fouling paint who makes a very good living as he has found a niche business that is in great demand, takes some skill in laying out the water line, doing minor fiberglass repair, and requires a minimum of equipment. He started out with zero college debt and no college degree but he is smart, wise, and saw the need for a service that was not being filled.
Hampshire College has been teetering on the brink of closure for a decade or more. No surprise that it is now forced to close its doors. The Eric Carle Museum is located on the Hampshire College campus and is hopefully unaffected by the college’s closure.
I think that the collapse of Hampshire is Darwinian
Economic common sense has rapidly disappeared from the American educational “establishment.”
I think that the explanation is Darwinian.
The social justice warriors who have come to dominate education and the media are, for the most part, poorly educated, low information, and incapable of fact-based logical analysis.
Although it is unfashionable in the West to even suggest this, it is obvious that the human race is segregated by intelligence.
As the Chinese decided sometime in the late twentieth century, for their nation to rapidly advance economically, it would be necessary to focus upon STEM education. And to maximize the velocity of transformation of their agrarian state to a modern industrial state it would be necessary to select the very best candidates for that education. The Chinese government therefore decided, as the imperial German government had decided in the late 19th century, that national examinations designed to find those most skilled in logical reasoning and its application to real-world problems would be the way to rapidly educate enough people to support the transformation.
The unstated premise of the above agenda is that some people are naturally better suited for mastery of STEM subjects than others, and that the existence of such a core cadre of STEM specialists is necessary to create and support an industrial state based on technology.
In the West, the rapid development of the welfare state, with its unfortunate emphasis on rewarding people whether or not they were able to contribute or even comprehend the need for the maintenance of a civil society, made it become politically necessary to mask and, in that way, ignore the basic necessity to educate and maintain a core of STEM-educated specialists. Thus took hold the self-destructive nonsense of the idea that any study of the distribution of intelligence among the human race was in fact an attack on particular groups of fantasized “races” identified only by superficial characteristics. The effect on the Western higher education system was to shift its emphasis to social engineering and destroy its ability to support an industrial state. This mistake was noted by and purposefully ignored by the Chinese, and to be honest, by most of the Asian nation states. of the world. The fact that the developing nations of Asia sent their best and brightest to the United States for STEM education was seen as a positive indication of the value of Western education. But it was really a purposeful attempt by the Asians to gather the best of the remnants of a once great industrial technological system (our society’s educational system) before it was too late, and to transfer those skills and knowledge to their own countries as rapidly as possible. In this endeavor, China has succeeded.
Jack Lifton,
“Economic common sense has rapidly disappeared from the American educational “establishment.”
That right there.
The fact they seem to double down on failing or failed policies only tells us how committed to their woke ideology they are. They would rather accelerate to flank speed into the iceberg than steer away.
Leftwing Fascists in academia demand ideologicial purity to a degree that would make Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot blush.
I taught at Smith for 40 years and because Hampshire students could take Smith courses, I taught many who enrolled in one or another of my classes on Middle East Politics or political theory. Most were excellent students as measured by grades and quality of writing. It is probably important to note that Ken Burns is a Hampshire graduate as is Aaron Lansky who founded the Yiddish Book Center. It is indeed sad that Hampshire is closing down. What once made it distinctive just isn’t ‘marketable’ in these times.
Ignorance is Strength