New Yale Report on Trust in Higher Education Is an Important Step Toward Higher Education Reform

Gnōthi seauton—know thyself!—was the maxim at Delphi that Socrates famously adopted. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) commends Yale University for its willingness to take a hard look in the mirror with its newly released Report of the Committee on Trust in Higher Education. While so many others avoid taking any responsibility for the decline of American higher education, Yale has acknowledged the need to make changes in the face of the American people’s deep dissatisfaction with our colleges and universities: “Those of us in higher education have too often resisted calls to critically examine our own institutions, professions, and modes of thought,” the Report states. “We must be willing to admit where we have been wrong and where we might improve, even as we defend what is essential about higher education and its academic mission.” This admission alone is a sign of wisdom.

So is the Report’s acknowledgement of Yale’s mission drift:

Steering Yale’s course back to its core academic mission is an act of courage in American higher education today.

The Report’s recommendations address myriad other issues on which Yale and other institutions have gone astray: They call for reforms to promote and protect free speech, academic freedom, and open discourse. They ask for affordability, transparency, and fairness in admissions. They suggest renewed commitment to liberal education, including policies to address digital distractions, and increased rigor and revised grading policies. They include the need for governance reform, bureaucracy reduction, and better communication with the public. These are all important areas for reform.

ACTA is particularly delighted to see the committee recommend “the creation of a civic education initiative that would reach every first-year undergraduate student on a regular basis.” We have long documented the appalling state of civic education in America and have just released A Broadside for the Nation, which calls for colleges and universities to require the civic education that students deserve and our country needs. But the “day-long programs at least three times per year,” as the committee recommends, are not nearly robust enough to address the fragmentation that they rightly identify. And ironically, the committee also suggests the university “re-center the classroom,” yet places this corrective outside the classroom. A better solution would be to charge the recently established Yale Center for Civic Thought and other interested parties with leading an effort to implement a required full-semester civics course for all undergraduates.

The 10 faculty who authored the report are correct that “the problem of declining trust did not emerge out of nowhere over the past few months or years.” For decades, ACTA and other organizations have been working for reform on these issues in American higher education. Our What Will They Learn?® project tracks whether universities require seven subjects every student should study. Yale earns a “C,” requiring only Composition, intermediate Foreign Language, and Natural Science at the college level for all students. Yale could ensure its students acquire “common knowledge” in more than just civics by adding other requirement areas and rededicating itself to teaching excellence. Admissions materials should also center academics rather than campus culture.

According to our How Colleges Spend Money website, Yale spends over $24,000 per student on administration, and over $30,000 per student on non-instructional student services, well above their peer median of $11,703. Yale should indeed trim its bureaucracy, as the Report suggests.

The challenges to intellectual freedom at Yale have been well documented: campus meltdowns over Halloween costumes and a Constitution Day event invitation; the disruption of a panel on free speech at Yale Law. The near-complete absence of Republicans or conservatives among the faculty, often documented by the Buckley Institute, is suggestive of the extent of the monoculture on campus. The Report rightly sees the need to better protect free expression and to “open minds.” Yale could make great progress toward these goals by adopting the 20 Standards in our ACTA Gold Standard for Freedom of Expression.

In recent years, the sense that American higher education is in crisis has continued to grow. Students and parents worry more than ever about educational quality, return on investment, and the freedom to learn. Colleges and universities face a looming demographic crunch, declining interest in the liberal arts, and the uncertain impact of artificial intelligence. Alumni, donors, and governments are increasingly alert and ready to demand reforms.

In the past, Yale has shielded itself from accountability, as it did when it took away the ability of alumni to petition to become candidates in the Alumni Fellow election, which has yet to be restored. Now it seems to understand that reform is required. The biggest question remains: Will Yale act? Documenting problems and acknowledging responsibility are laudable, but the true test will be whether Yale’s leadership follows through on the recommendations in the Report. Years of intransigency within the walls of academia engender a healthy dose of skepticism among onlookers. But if Yale is serious, this report could be a watershed in the effort to reform not just one university but America’s system of higher education as a whole.