A major reset of higher education

As with many other policies, the Trump administration's war on universities may be just a chaotic and inefficient harbinger of long-run structural changes in the world order

- NIRVIKAR SINGH

THE UNITED STATES, along with being an innovator in democratic government, experimented with higher education in ways that shaped the modern university.

The founders of the country were creatures of the European enlightenment, and believers in education as freedom of thought as well as practical experimentation.

The US borrowed from various European models, including Germany, which led the world in the 19th century in research, and the creation of new scientific knowledge.

By the early 20th century, the US was already developing the precursors of modern research universities, though these differed from the German model in relying less on government support and more on private philanthropy.

The Nazis forced some of the brightest minds in Europe to flee to the US, and World War II increased federal government support for its universities.

The Cold War, US economic dominance, and the baby boom all came together to make US universities a global force.

They have led the way as places where people from all over the world come to be educated.

Eight decades of progress are now being destabilized, and even reversed, by the Trump administration.

Many of the people leading this effort are themselves products of elite US universities.

But they lack the same attitude to valuing free inquiry and truth-seeking that has been—mostly—a hallmark of US universities (with the usual caveats about the perennial influence of money).

President Trump, himself the erstwhile promoter of a fraudulent university, epitomizes that lack.