Eighth in a series on Public Higher Education. Higher education in the 21st century stands at a cost–value crossroads. For much of the last century, especially after the G.I. Bill and robust state support, college was broadly accessible and reasonably priced.…
Seventh in a series on Public Higher Education. Frédéric Bastiat warned that when the law is bent from its rightful purpose, to protect life, liberty and property, it becomes an instrument of legal plunder. That phrase is sharp because the…
Sixth in a series on Public Higher Education. Frédéric Bastiat warned us plainly, that when the law is twisted from its proper purpose, society suffers a particular kind of moral injury. In The Law, he argued that the state exists to…
Fifth in a series on Public Higher Education. Bastiat’s brief but powerful book, The Law, is bracing because it does not allow us to hide behind complexity. He begins with a moral first principle: human beings are born with “life, faculties, production,…
Fourth in a series on Public Higher Education. Public higher education has a civic purpose. That statement shouldn’t be controversial—but in 2026, it’s treated like an opinion. It isn’t. A public university exists because the public believes it serves the common…
Third in a series on Public Higher Education. America is tired of being sold. Families are tired of being told that tuition hikes are “unavoidable,” that fees are “modest” and that debt is simply the new rite of passage for…
Public Universities, Public Trust—and Bastiat’s Warning About “Legal Plunder” Second in a series on Public Higher Education. Frederic Bastiat’s The Law is a slim book with a heavy message: when the law is used to take from some to benefit others,…
Public, and I Mean Public, Higher Education: A Values-Driven Case for Mission, Trust and Renewal First in a series on Public Higher Education Public higher education is one of America’s greatest civic inventions, and it is at a crossroads. Costs…