Our Debate Over Higher Ed Has Lost the Plot

There is an endless war being waged against colleges and universities in this country, one unprecedented in our lifetimes. Not merely a war of words, it is one of deeds. Beginning with state-level efforts to ban “critical race theory” and “divisive concepts” from college classrooms and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives from campuses, it has now grown into an obsessive preoccupation of federal policy.

Broad executive orders have sought to ban concepts related to race, gender and identity on campus, using the leverage of withheld federal grants. Drastic and indiscriminate cuts have been made to university funding. International students have had their visas revoked on the basis of their political views. Attacks on nonpartisan university accreditors have mounted. And escalating demands that elite private research universities effectively place themselves in government receivership or lose further billions in federal dollars have thrown the sector into chaos.

That is why I was honored to sign, and to help coordinate, last month’s letter from more than 600 college, university and scholarly society presidents in defense of our nation’s institutions of higher learning. The letter, which calls for “constructive engagement that improves our institutions and serves our republic,” also criticizes “the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering” institutions of higher learning and warns that “the price of abridging the defining freedoms of American higher education will be paid by our students and our society.”

I remain concerned that the problems colleges and universities face today go deeper than funding cuts and government threats. Indeed, our national debate over higher education has lost the plot entirely. Critics of higher education present the entire sector as an elitist, out-of-touch indoctrination factory for liberal orthodoxy, one that has replaced the great books of the Western canon with political claptrap. This charge has gained broad traction among the public. But not only is it untrue on the merits, it fundamentally misunderstands the purpose and mission of higher education. It asks the wrong question and delivers the wrong answer.

If our sector is to regain the respect and appreciation of American society, we need to reorient the national conversation. We need to help people remember what it is that colleges and universities actually do—and why it matters.

The American Association of Colleges and Universities, where I have been president since 2016, is a voice and a force for what we call liberal education. Let me be clear: teaching students to believe in liberal politics or conservative politics is the opposite of what “liberal education” means. Rather, the term, which predates modern political labels, refers to liberating the mind from received orthodoxies of all types.

I agree with Margaret Mead—and with leaders across the political spectrum, from Barack Obama to Ron DeSantis—that students should be taught how to think, not what to think. A successful college education is measured not by what its graduates believe but by what they can conceive. It fires the imaginations of its students, helps them explore ideas and experiences different from their own, and trains them in habits of thought and mind that aid them in making their own meaning from the world. It provides them both with the practical skills they will need for their future employment and with the critical thinking tools that help them attain, and succeed in, their jobs of choice. By providing a forum and a method for open inquiry and intellectual freedom, and by exposing students and communities to new ideas and perspectives, it also helps to strengthen our democracy.

This type of education does not happen by chance, from a hodgepodge of unconnected courses; it is part of a plan. For decades, AAC&U has served as a learning lab for a type of comprehensive undergraduate education that teaches students in a systematic way, over the course of a two-year or four-year degree, how to become effective thinkers and problem-solvers. We pioneered the concepts of high-impact practices, inclusive excellence and innovations in general education, learning outcomes and assessment, innovations that have been adopted by hundreds of campuses across the country, including many of our nearly 900 member institutions.

Higher education should always try to do better at opening students’ minds; in fact, that commitment is at the core of my organization’s work. Taking criticism seriously is how colleges and universities innovate and improve. But that innovation cannot happen if the government steps in to ban or defund ideas it dislikes, taking away the academic freedom of faculty; if it strips university leadership of its autonomy to make decisions about what ideas are permitted or promoted on campus; or if it makes so many threats or cuts that professors and students become afraid to speak and think freely.

The careful process of preparing students for democratic citizenship requires helping them understand the great multiplicity of people, cultures and beliefs that make up the world we live in. It is time for us to stop asking whether colleges and universities teach the “right” ideas and ask, instead, whether they teach students the skills they need to navigate our complex world. That approach would lead us away from culture wars and heavy-handed government restrictions and toward constructive engagement with the educational missions of colleges and universities so they can work together with government to improve our students’ educations.