Thoughts on last night’s debate for higher education

Posted on June 28, 2024 by Bryan Alexander

I stayed up last night live-tweeting the American presidential debate, starting here, possibly for my sins. I did that instead of finishing a post about academic cuts in June, which is still in the hopper. I should probably spend more time with my cats… Today I’d like to share my thoughts about what that debate and its immediate responses might mean for academia’s future.

I’m not going to summarize the debate here, nor analyze it either as a debate nor for its overall political implications. It’s easy to find plenty of examples of those around the web. Instead, here I’m focused on the higher education implications.

This is not an exhaustive account. I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts, as always.

Short term, through January 2025

There is a great deal of discourse around the option of replacing Biden as the Democratic party’s presidential nominee. If that happens, it’s possible that competition between potential candidates and factions will involve higher education policy issues, such as who would take which approach to student debt or which person can best fix the FAFSA debacle. It’s also conceivable that higher education policy will fall off the table, given the many other issues on…