Closings, Mergers, FAFSA, Spies—and Roger Federer’s Commencement Address
Though CIA is first, the biggest stories of this issue are FAFSA follies by Amy Genito and school closings and mergers by Elizabeth Janice, who reports a college is closing every week.
Early Summer Beach Reading Issue
PURPOSE/CURRICULUM
Intelligence, Part 3: The CIA and its “Brightest Bulbs”
I did not plan to highlight a story about the CIA in Paideia Times when I started reading Daniel Immerwahr’s review of “When the C.I.A. Messes Up” in the New Yorker a few days ago—until I came to a couple of sentences about the agency’s birth in 1947: “The United States was in the strange position of towering over other countries while knowing little about them.” So its founders “sought the brightest bulbs” by reaching out to Ivy League professors and “tasked [them] with steering top students toward intelligence careers.”
Immediately, this terrifying and dramatic piece (it begins with Saddam Hussein executing his minister of health and ends with Hussein’s own execution) became part 3 of my little series on intelligence (see here and here for parts 1 and 2), a little different take on intelligence. It is a story about how America stumbled broadly and badly when it set up a spy agency after World War II (an ambitious successor to the wartime Office of Strategic Services), in large part by seeking out the country’s “brightest bulbs” at the Ivy League. The new book, “The CIA: An Imperial History,” by Hugh Wilford, is an “adroit new overview,” says Immerwahr, a historian at Northwestern, who, it would seem, uses the phrase “U.S. intelligence officers” with some significant tongue-in-cheek thanks to Wilford’s amply documented case, one that can only rub salt in the Ivies’ latest wounds. One Yale professor described the recruitment process in those early days as “the laying on of hands, quietly and effectively, in the college and in the classroom, at the master’s tea and in the seminar, over at Mory’s and during a break in crew practice.”
As became abundantly clear, all too quickly, according to Immerwahr’s summary, the early recruits were great at textual analysis—James Jesus Angleton, the agency’s longtime director of counterintelligence, had “founded two surprisingly good literary journals while at Yale”—but were abysmally poor at the actual spy business. “To interpret a text you first must have a text,” writes Immerwahr, “and that is where the Yale crew team was less helpful.” In fact, this is a sad tale of an “expertise shortage” that results in terrible numbers of lives lost (on our side!) and carried on with such ineptitude for the rest of the next 55 years (Wilford ends with the overthrow of Saddam), a sad story largely masked by America’s “imperial” powers. As Hussein himself once noted, “The U.S.A. is the strongest state. But it is not the most capable.”
Do we now blame the Ivies for the failures of the CIA along with pro-Palestinian protests? Or do we simply look again to America’s failure to follow Washington’s advice to avoid “foreign entanglements”? And what is higher education’s role in guiding the country to true intelligence—or even counterintelligence? Is it right to apply David Brooks question (part 2 above), “what happens to the extremely intelligent?” to foreign policy? Or did David Halberstam already do that? Or Harvard man Henry Kissinger? Why did the “brightest bulbs” not see the “expertise” gap in 1947? Do smart people help us find the smartest course? Are they better at building empires than republics? I don’t know, but as a bonus, our Further Readings (below) provide a short list of titles about our education system’s role from the last 60-some years that might help shed some more “brighter bulb” light on these big questions. —Peter Meyer
Sources
When the C.I.A. Messes Up: Its agents are often depicted as malevolent puppet masters—or as bumbling idiots. The truth is even less comforting. (New Yorker)
The Best and the Brightest (1973) (David Halberstam)
Further Readings
Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1963) (Richard Hofstadter)
A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform: A Report to the Nation and the Secretary of Education United States Department of Education (1983) (National Commission on Excellence in Education)
The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students (1987) (Allan Bloom)
The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don 't Trust Anyone Under 30) (2008) (Mark Bauerlein)
Project on Governance for a New Era: A Blueprint for Higher Education (2014) (Benno C. Schmidt, Chairman, Project on Governance for a New Era)
The Dumbest Generation Grows Up (2022) (Mark Bauerlein)
A Nation at Thought: Restoring Wisdom in America’s Schools (2023) (David Steiner)
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PUBLIC TRUST/STUDENT DEBT
Fiasco: The New Financial F-Word for Colleges?
Dubbed the "FAFSA Fiasco," Inside Higher Education reported the chaotic rollout of the revamped federal aid form that has been plagued by technical glitches and bewildering new rules. Students, grappling with delays and overwhelming paperwork, describe the experience as "a total nightmare." Navigating this bureaucratic maze is likened by one student to be "one of the most tedious and panicky" chapters in their academic journey. As new applicants endured delayed financial aid, risking enrollment dips for many institutions—particularly for low-income and first-generation students— returning students faced their own hurdles with website shutdowns and perplexing instructions, adding to the tumult of financial aid renewal. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona issued a mea culpa for the rocky rollout, boosting Department of Education efforts with a $50 million infusion for school district outreach, but bipartisan lawmakers call it too little, too late, foreseeing future admission cycle woes. Higher Ed Dive reported FAFSA completion for the class of 2024 is slowly improving, with around 41% completing submission—still over 15% behind last year's rate—prompting calls for legislative action to prevent future gaps in financial aid access. —-Amy Genito
Sources
Faces of the FAFSA Fiasco (Inside Higher Ed)
‘Very unpredictable’: Colleges fear FAFSA fiasco will hurt enrollment (Washington Post)
The FAFSA Fiasco’s Forgotten Students (Inside Higher Ed)
Biden's education secretary apologizes for FAFSA rollout amid new concerns about next year (USA Today)
The FAFSA completion gap is shrinking. Will it disappear entirely? (Higher Ed Dive)
Further Reading
How FAFSA complications are disproportionately affecting Black students (npr)
Four cities of FAFSA chaos: Students tell how they grappled with the mess, stress (The Hechinger Report)
For Some Frustrated Students, the FAFSA Is Still Broken (Chronicle of Higher Education)
Biden administration launches review of office overseeing FAFSA, student loans (USA Today)
Higher Ed’s Challenges Are Bigger Than FAFSA: We Need To Make A Better Case For College (Forbes)
Colleges Are Swimming in Financial Uncertainty Amid the FAFSA Mess (Chronicle of Higher Education)
How the Effort to Revamp Financial Aid Resulted in Chaos (Wall Street Journal)
Biden’s Unrecognized Successes on Student Debt Relief (The Century Foundation)
Biden Administration Transfers Another $7.7 Billion in Student Debt to Taxpayers (National Review)
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PUBLIC TRUST/NEWS FROM ALL OVER
Shortstack: From Roger Federer (an online hit), to Expanding the Options for Dreamers, to the new Tracker for Dismantling DEI.
Roger Federer’s Graduation Speech Becomes an Online Hit: At Dartmouth College, the retired tennis champion offered his thoughts on winning and losing. (And don’t miss Conan O’Brien’s 2011 classic, highlighted in this story.) (New York Times)
Tracking Higher Ed’s Dismantling of DEI: The Chronicle has a regular section devoted following higher ed’s progress undoing one of the sector’s fastest-growing fads (Chronicle of Higher Education)
Politicization of higher education alarming: While political spin is a common tool in America today, the implications associated with that rhetoric are becoming increasingly intolerable. (News-Press)
More Downsizing at Beleaguered ETS: The former SAT administrator and owner of the GRE offered buyouts to most of its U.S. workforce Tuesday morning, kickstarting its second round of job cuts in under a year. (Inside Higher Ed)
26 States Challenge Title IX: Experts expect a long legal fight that could end at the Supreme Court. (Higher Ed Dive)
Higher Education Leaders Applaud The Biden Administration For Expanding Protections for Dreamers: The Biden-Harris Administration is announcing a suite of affirmative relief policies that could provide protections to long-term residents, including Dreamers. (Presidents Alliance)
Polls: Confidence in colleges and universities continues plummet to ‘new lows’ (The College Fix)
Stanford becomes latest elite college to reinstate SAT requirement:.The university joins Yale, Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell, Harvard and California Institute of Technology — all top-notch colleges which have reinstated the requirement this year. (The College Fix)
The New Age of College Athletics Will Strain Higher-Ed Budgets Athletes today may well get compensated fairly, but perhaps at the cost of accelerating contraction in higher education. (National Review)
Universities Failed to Protect Students from Antisemitic Harassment during Protests, Education Department Finds: Two universities failed to adequately protect both Jewish and Muslim students in the heated days after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel and during the war in Gaza that followed. (National Review)
Professor loses job after lectures ‘secretly recorded’ The UNC-Chapel Hill professor who called out school administrators for launching an apparent investigation and secretly recording his classes will not have his contract renewed. (Times Higher Ed)
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GOVERNANCE/CLOSINGS
Financial Struggles Force Wells College to Shut Down After More Than 150 Years
A statue of Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom, was damaged while it was being moved at Wells College in upstate New York. Students in the Finger Lakes town of Aurora have long kissed the statue’s feet for good luck. Minerva’s beheading is an unavoidable metaphor for the angst surrounding the sudden closure of the 156-year-old small liberal arts college. On April 29, school officials announced that Wells would close its doors permanently at the end of the spring semester. Wells, which was a women’s college for the bulk of its history (it began accepting male students in 2005), did “not have adequate financial resources to continue.” The institution’s precarious financial situation was exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, inflation and a shrinking pool of students. Only 353 students were enrolled in the fall 2023 term. The last-minute announcement left student scrambling to figure out their future education plans. Officials say they will be able to transfer to Manhattanville University (formerly, Manhattanville College). —-Elizabeth Janice
Sources
Students Kissed Her Feet for Good Luck. Now She’s Missing Her Head. (New York Times)
Wells College closing after 156 years, MU taking students (Ithaca Journal)
Further Reading
This Small College Warned of Imminent Closure. Here’s How It Kept the Lights On. (Chronicle of Higher Education)
Alverno College Declares Financial Exigency, Cuts Faculty And Programs (Forbes)
Emerson College’s Preventable Enrollment Crisis (National Review)
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GOVERNANCE / CLOSINGS
Philadelphia’s UArts Abruptly Closes, Leaving Students and Faculty in Limbo
The University of the Arts sent shockwaves through Philadelphia when it gave just a week’s notice that it was permanently shutting down. On May 31, Kerry Walk, who had been president of UArts for less than a year (and has since resigned), announced that the nearly 150-year-old institution would be closing on June 7 due to declining enrollment numbers and a fragile financial state. Her handling of the situation has been roundly criticized. Many of the 1,149 students and 700 faculty and staff members first got the news from social media. A university trustee said $40 million would be needed to stave off the financial crisis. UArts owns a string of iconic properties in City Center said to be worth $162 million. What happens to the real estate is unclear. Four lawsuits have already been filed. In two of them, former employees claim administrators violated a federal law requiring employers to give at least 60 days’ written notice of mass layoffs. Nearby Temple University is exploring a possible merger with the beloved institution. “I’m working with their chair to see if we can put this genie back in the bottle,” said Mitchell L. Morgan, Temple’s board chair. “If it’s a win-win, we are interested.” —-Elizabeth Janice
Sources
Upheaval continues at UArts: Its president resigns, but Temple offers a possible merger (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Philadelphia’s University of the Arts Announces Sudden Closing (New York Times)
UArts fallout continues | Morning Newsletter (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Pressure to investigate UArts closure ramps up with latest letter from faculty union (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Temple University is exploring a potential merger to save University of the Arts, chairman says (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Further Reading
UArts’ sudden closure was a shock, but not a big surprise in the turbulent higher-ed landscape (Philadelphia Inquirer)
UArts closure leaves the future of Pig Iron School’s MFA program uncertain (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Here’s what to know about UArts president Kerry Walk, who has resigned from the university (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Why Did This Beloved Arts College Have to Close? (Chronicle of Higher Education)
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GOVERNANCE/MERGERS
NYC Liberal Arts College to Merge With Northeastern University
Marymount Manhattan College, a small liberal arts school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, has agreed to merge with Northeastern University, giving the Boston-based institution a foothold in the Big Apple. Northeastern’s global network—which already includes campuses in London, Silicon Valley and Toronto—has been expanding, in part, by absorbing smaller colleges. After the merger, Marymount Manhattan will be known as Northeastern University-New York City. Despite a $28 million endowment, the outlook was just “not sustainable.” Marymount Manhattan began as a two-year women’s college in 1936, became a four-year school in 1948 and awarded degrees to its first male graduates in 1973. Alumni include Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman to run for vice president, and Rose Ann Scamardella, a former anchorwoman and inspiration for Roseanne Roseannadanna, the Gilda Radner character on “Saturday Night Live.” The timeline for the merger is uncertain, but it could take two years or more. —-Elizabeth Janice
Sources
Marymount Manhattan to Merge With Northeastern (New York Times)
Northeastern University and Marymount Manhattan College merger FAQ (Northeastern Global News)
Further Readings
Northeastern University and Marymount Manhattan College to merge (Boston Globe)
‘Students May Be Harmed’: Pittsburgh Technical College Is in Danger of Closing
(Chronicle of Higher Education)
US ends academic year with another wave of closures and cutbacks (Times Higher Ed)
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GOVERNANCE/CLOSINGS
Colleges Continue to Close as the Number of Bachelor’s Degree Programs Grow
Colleges are now closing at a rate of one per week. And following this spring’s FAFSA fiasco (only 41.5 percent of high school seniors have completed it this year vs. 50 percent in 2023), (see F-Word above) even more closures are likely. Until recently, college closures were overwhelmingly confined to private institutions. But state lawmakers—long willing to cut the budgets of their colleges but not actually close them—are starting to reconsider that stance. Pennsylvania is in the middle of consolidating six public universities into two. Wisconsin has also taken steps in that direction, and earlier this year, Oklahoma’s governor broached the idea publicly. While college closures continue to make the news, an analysis done by The Chronicle of Higher Education found the number of bachelor’s degree programs has actually grown by 23,000 over the past two decades. A small number of disciplines, mainly career-focused ones, are driving this growth. In the No. 1 spot, with 2,700 new programs, are health and clinical sciences programs—such as nursing, public health, radiologic technology and physical therapy. In the No. 2 spot, with 2,600 new programs, are the visual and performing arts—which includes design, drama and film, video and photography. —-Elizabeth Janice
Sources
Can Small, Struggling Colleges Survive? (Chronicle of Higher Education)
US college closures could spread to public universities (Times Higher Education)
Is Higher Ed Growing or Shrinking? (Chronicle of Higher Ed)
Further Readings