Host Jack Stripling
Latest Episode
What do the people who’ve helped shape the sector since 2000 now say mattered most?
ADVERTISEMENT
Season 3
We gave professors a tough assignment: Sum up 2025 in a single word.
There’s plenty of moral panic about college students using generative AI to write their essays, but many students say they are trying to use these tools in the right way.
With one university president felled and another imperiled, fights over DEI in the commonwealth are getting brutal.
A report on grade inflation in Harvard’s undergraduate program has stirred up critics of “snowflake” culture, but it tells a deeper story about fairness, rigor, money, and power.
Calls are growing to bring greater ideological balance to the professoriate, but the history and motives behind the movement warrant scrutiny.
In their efforts to rein in hatred toward Jewish people, do colleges risk stifling free speech and academic freedom?
Appearing on Marc Maron’s final episode of the WTF podcast, the former U.S. president urged university leaders to guard their independence in the face of threats from the Trump administration.
Under a proposed agreement, select colleges would co-sign the president’s vision for higher ed — or else.
Christopher Eisgruber is a defender of higher ed’s record on free speech, but he’s worried about how some universities have responded in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s killing.
In a hyper-politicized environment, scientists who study vaccine hesitancy, gender identity, and climate change are seeing federal funding cut or under threat.
The conservative activist says President Trump should consider using the military to dismantle college DEI programs.
The fatal shooting of the conservative activist, who adopted higher ed as his ultimate foil, is a signal event that could profoundly shape debates over the nation’s future
A new season of weekly episodes begins September 11.
Summer Series
In a course at Rutgers U., students analyze the idea of America through the works of one of its icons: Bruce Springsteen.
If an afterlife exists, are pets bound for eternal glory? That’s the central question of this college course.
Everyone eats. In this course at Texas Christian University, students learn how the food they consume shapes their lives.
In this Bates College course, students learn what fuels conspiracy theories, how they amass influence, and how to combat them.
Season 2
Released from prison and back in the college-consulting business, Rick Singer is chippy, driven, and — he promises — squeaky clean.
Two years after a board takeover, the left-leaning liberal arts college is gaining students and losing some of its granola appeal.
Research shows that teaching evaluations are rife with bias and of dubious value, but they can have a big effect on college instructors’ careers.
Jon Shields, a right-leaning professor at Claremont McKenna College, says young conservative activists are missing out on the movement’s rich intellectual tradition.
From the Trump administration’s unnerving first days to the recent mass layoffs, Education Department employees describe shortsighted dismissals and a workplace defined by paranoia and intimidation.
An immigration lawyer says the Trump administration has trampled on free speech, but that “there’s still time to stand up.”
Fed up with what they see as illiberalism in higher ed, conservatives are pushing for centers devoted to classics and American civics.
Long a third rail of campus politics, parking inspires raging debates that are about far more than fees, fines, and crowded lots.
On many campuses, relations between professors and administrators have eroded to a worrisome degree.
It’s March Madness, and we’re picking the top scandals, imbroglios, and snafus of the past quarter century.
An emboldened GOP is reaching deeper into what colleges teach, banning “identity politics” and theories of “systemic racism” from core courses in Florida.
White student enrollment has dropped more than that of any other racial group. What’s happening?
As more states move toward legalized sports betting, colleges are weighing the risks to their students against the potential for significant financial rewards.
Our collective obsession with college students’ grades might say more about us than them.
It’s easier than ever for invasive parents to smother college students, but not everyone thinks it’s a national crisis.
Nicholas Confessore’s New York Times Magazine article on a $250-million diversity program galvanized debate and fueled criticism. How does he feel about that?
Part 1 of 2: Long before Trump’s recent flurry of anti-DEI actions, state lawmakers were busy tearing it out from the roots on college campuses.
James Kvaal, who served as undersecretary of education, reflects on the biggest swings and misses of the past four years.
With ChatGPT and other AI tools, cheating in college feels easier than ever — and students are telling professors that it’s no big deal.
Season 1
Released in theaters 30 years ago, PCU is a college comedy that skewered political correctness, lampooned student activists, and foresaw the debates now riling higher education.
In his final months as chancellor of the University of Wisconsin at La Crosse, Joe Gow posted on the internet pornographic films of himself and his wife. What was he thinking?
Technology is automating tasks once handled by faculty, and that’s changing the human relationships at the core of higher education.
College campuses appear designed to foster human connection. But many students feel isolated and excluded.
After the former president made a baseless claim about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, a college president there feared for his campus and his students.
From the economy to immigration, the major issues of this presidential campaign have big implications for colleges.
When colleges slash programs, outside consultants often play a pivotal role: taking the blame.
As president of the U. of Florida, the former U.S. senator spent millions of dollars on consultants and jobs for political allies.
Colleges love good press. Sometimes they buy it.
How a conflict over race, money, and respect boiled over in an English department.
For some recent high-school graduates, $18 an hour sounds like a safer bet than pursuing a degree.
Why have faculty joined in student-led protests against the war in Israel and Gaza? A crackdown at Indiana U. offers some answers.
The disastrous rollout of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid leaves many students vulnerable at a crucial time.
What happens when students come to college less willing and able to do the work?
ADVERTISEMENT
