Universities Can Appease the Right

Universities are currently experiencing a full-blown assault from the federal government and from red-state politicians. Tired of subsidizing universities as a hotbed of ideological activism, Republican leaders are cutting budgets, forcing reorganizations, asserting control of university governance, and taking control of the general-education curriculum at state universities. Republicans have generally been more skeptical of generous funding of public education, including at the postsecondary level, but this is different. According to Gallup, 56 percent of Republicans in 2015 had a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education. In 2024, only 20 percent of Republicans did, and 50...