In the optimistic decades after World War II, America opened its colleges and universities to foreign students, confident that exposure to our higher education would spread American values and foster goodwill abroad. For a time, it worked. But foreign governments soon recognized that higher education also could serve as a tool of their own soft power—and they began using American institutions to influence America itself.
While we should not abandon the ideals that inspired us to welcome ambitious students from around the globe, we should not abandon America’s friendly interest in the West and in the world. Yet policymakers and citizens must no longer ignore how deeply foreign influence has deformed our universities. To restore their integrity, these institutions must be reoriented toward serving the American national interest. If academia wishes to regain the public’s trust, it should pursue this reorientation willingly. If it refuses, policymakers must act on behalf of the American people to ensure that it does.
That's the argument of Waste Land: Higher Education & the National Interest.
Join the National Association of Scholars on Tuesday, April 7, at 2 pm ET for "Higher Education and the National Interest."
This event will feature David Randall, Director of Research at the National Association of Scholars and Waste Land report co-author; Jonathan Butcher, Acting Director of the Center for Education Policy and Will Skillman Senior Research Fellow in Education Policy at the The Heritage Foundation; Michael Gonzalez, the Angeles T. Arredondo E Pluribus Unum Senior Fellow at the Heritage Foundation's Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy; and Christopher Schorr, Director of the Higher Education Reform Initiative at America First Policy Initiative.
Photo by Christian Lucas on Unsplash
