Higher Education News
Reporting on higher education reform, tuition costs, and academic freedom. The Daily Signal includes commentary and opinion on cultural and policy debates in academia.
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news
Virginia Navigates Changing NCAA, Federal Policies
College students across the Commonwealth are moving back into dorms and classrooms this month for the upcoming academic year. Things are heating up on the sports fields as well, where the University of Virginia boasts an impressive record heading into the 2026 campaign. Already this year the nationally ranked women’s soccer team is off to… -
opinion
Are Colleges Finally Admitting Standardized Tests Aren’t Racist?
Did you know that the SAT is racist? During Woke I, as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez now calls it, “antiracists” said the SAT’s creators “were avowed eugenicists.” No wonder black people get lower scores. Even if the test isn’t racist today, it still gives unfair advantages to white kids because their parents are more likely to… -
opinion
The DEI Admissions Scam Is Catching Up With Elite Universities
The higher education racket is being exposed in America as diminishing standards, collapsing public trust, and a cult-like, often unlawful devotion to DEI ideology pushes its mid-20th century model past the point of breaking. For several generations, going to a premier public or private university provided a smooth path to success for most Americans. Sure,… -
opinion
Victor Davis Hanson: The Truth About Jason Arday’s Death
Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal senior contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos. Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for the Daily Signal. What or who killed Jason Arday? That’s the question that’s being asked in the English-speaking intellectual,… -
news
83 Colleges and 26 Schools Act as a Pipeline for China’s Regime: Report
A new report from Defending Education has identified at least 83 universities and 26 K-12 schools across 30 states that exposed their students to Chinese Communist Party propaganda through the Young Envoys Scholarship program. According to the report, titled “Little Red Classrooms: China’s Infiltration of American K-12 Schools,” the program is monitored by the China… -
opinion
Duke Law Case Shows Why the Fight Against DEI in Higher Education Isn’t Over
The battle to end DEI in higher education is one that can only be won through attrition against a stubborn enemy that won’t back away from the ideology that created it. One might think that the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard Supreme Court decision that prohibited racial discrimination in college admissions would have put… -
opinion
Victor Davis Hanson: Fauci Called Them ‘Three Stooges’—Now His COVID-19 Critics Are Looking Vindicated
Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of the latest edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words” from Daily Signal senior contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to Victor Davis Hanson’s own YouTube channel to watch past episodes. Jack Fowler: I think we should leave [Dr. Anthony] Fauci. The news stories that have come out… -
SEE YOU IN COURT: 3 More States Slapped With Lawsuits Over In-State Tuition for Illegal Aliens
The Justice Department filed three lawsuits Monday against states that offer in-state tuition for illegal aliens, after securing victories in five similar cases. “Congress long ago made clear that states cannot put illegal aliens over our nation’s own citizens,” Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward said in a statement first provided to the Daily Signal. “By… -
opinion
How Brown University’s Next President Can Set the School Apart
Brown University President Christina Paxson is resigning after two years of federal scrutiny into antisemitic activity and school safety policies at the college. On the same day as Paxson’s announcement—Aug. 3—the U.S. Department of Education released a statement calling on college leaders nationwide to “reaffirm higher education’s foundational commitments to academic excellence, pathbreaking research, and… -
opinion
Diversity, Equity, and Confabulation
If The Onion or The Babylon Bee or another satirical publication wanted to spoof the absurdity of DEI—the ideology of “diversity, equity, and inclusion”—they couldn’t have invented a character as unbelievable as Jason Arday. But Arday is very real: Born in 1985, in 2023 he became at 37 the youngest black man ever to hold… -
opinion
Conservative College Students Need Courage
It was freshman year at my small liberal arts college. I walked into my social psychology class and was immediately asked to share my “preferred pronouns.” I was appalled by the question. “Do I not look like a girl?” I thought to myself. I hoped that would be the most uncomfortable part of my first semester; I was blissfully unaware that I would soon spend three weeks trying to “unlearn my whiteness.” Growing up in a small, rural town in Pennsylvania, I had… -
opinion
The Hidden Health Risk in College Dorms
Every student knows the smell. The musty odor from an air vent. The dark stain spreading across a dorm ceiling. The damp corner of a communal bathroom. Most students barely notice it. Others joke about it. What many do not realize is that mold is more than an ugly stain or an unpleasant odor. Federal… -
opinion
The Fall of a DEI Darling Reveals Why Universities Won’t Reform Themselves
An almost unbelievable scandal involving a professor of black studies at Cambridge University demonstrates how institutional DEI can only be defeated from without, not within. First, the story, which has received far too little attention from American media. Cambridge University professor Jason Arday has been one of the darlings of academia, particularly in the U.K…. -
news
Texas Approves Classic Learning Test for Public College Admissions
The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board has approved the use of the Classic Learning Test, or CLT, for admissions at Texas public colleges and universities. In a July 23 letter to university chancellors and presidents, Commissioner of Higher Education Wynn Rosser informed them that institutions may consider the CLT as a factor when admitting students…. -
opinion
Victor Davis Hanson: Race-Based Hiring Changed Higher Education
Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of Thursday’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words” from Daily Signal senior contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to Victor Davis Hanson’s own YouTube channel to watch past episodes. Jack Fowler: I mentioned a couple of episodes ago our friend Bill Jacobson with Legal Insurrection. He has some efforts aimed… -
opinion
The American Bar Association’s Not-So-Separate Law School Accrediting Council
The American Bar Association president, Michelle Behnke, gave a disastrous performance at a House Oversight Committee Task Force hearing last week. She doubled down on DEI and couldn’t answer even straightforward questions. In one emperor-has-no-clothes moment, she refused to answer what her implicit biases might be—even though the ABA proclaims that everyone has them. In… -
news
‘Ghost Students’ Defrauded Utah Taxpayers of Almost $1 Million
According to a recent report from the Utah legislative auditor general, the state’s higher education system lost over $830,000 in recent years to “ghost students” who apply to receive financial aid and run off with the money without pursuing a degree. “Institutions reported disbursing $834k to suspected fraudulent applicants and spending over 15,000 hours working… -
opinion
Want to Rebuild Higher Education? Here Is the Guidebook
The rise of the Democratic Socialists of America—a boom in its boom-and-bust cycle, as my colleague Robert Stilson calls it—has many political observers on the right and the left analyzing the conditions that led to an embrace of that group’s radicalism. And it is radical. As Stilson points out, “[i]n its newly updated platform, the DSA… -
news
Truman Scholarship, a Democrat ‘Talent Pipeline,’ on Path to Reform
A key House committee is moving forward with efforts to reform a federally funded scholarship program after extensive reporting from The College Fix uncovered the program’s overwhelming liberal bias. The House Committee on Education and the Workforce advanced New York Rep. Elise Stefanik’s Truman Scholarship Clean House Act, which could soon be brought before the… -
exclusive
GOP Lawmakers Move to Scrap Federal Rule Critics Say Unfairly Targets Career Schools
FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Rep. Mark Harris, R-N.C., is set to introduce a bill to repeal a federal rule skewing higher education funding. Currently, career and technical schools are being singled out while traditional public and nonprofit colleges and universities are exempt. “Washington should not pick winners and losers in higher education,” Harris told the…