These are trying times for American colleges and universities. They face rising costs, a potential reduction in federal funding, grade inflation, the challenge of AI, alleged liberal political and social bias, claims that a college degree is not worth the money spent to obtain it, declining numbers of students of traditional college age and of international students caused by the Trump administration’s policies, and the difficulty of offering liberal arts majors in an age that prioritizes STEM programs and practical career preparation.
The Trump administration is threatening to substantially reduce federal funding to major universities because of their promotion of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), purported lack of ideological balance among their faculty, and failure to adequately protect Jewish students. The administration is also attempting to tie federal support to colleges to the salaries their graduates earn. In addition, the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” Congress passed in early July calls for increased taxes on college and university endowments.
For decades, the cost of higher education has risen more rapidly than the nation’s inflation rate, with the annual cost of tuition, room, and board approaching $100,000 at Ivy League schools. Grade inflation has increasingly become a problem, as the median college grade point average (GPA) has risen from 2.70 in 1987 to 3.28 today. Much evidence suggests that this increase has not resulted from better high school preparation for college, improved studying habits, or longer hours of studying. Rather, it is a result of easier testing methods, the widespread use of student course evaluations, and the consumer mentality that colleges have adopted that views students as customers who need to have a pleasing experience.
Obtaining an “A” grade, Duke professor Frank Bruni argues, “seldom requires any herculean effort and doesn’t distinguish one bright” student from another. This prompts many students to “redirect their energies away from the classroom and the library” and focus instead on “shrewd networking” to help them obtain post-college jobs.
AI also poses many challenges for institutions of higher education. While AI facilitates research and increases knowledge, it has opened the floodgates for rampant cheating in writing college papers. As it becomes even more sophisticated, professors will have greater difficulty determining what students have actually written.
Another issue is that the “Big, Beautiful Bill” calls for basing federal funding of colleges on the salaries of their graduates. The Council for Christian Colleges & Universities, which represents more than 170 Christian institutions of higher education, protested that, “The emphasis on earnings as a measure of value risks penalizing students who pursue lower-paying public service roles—many of whom do so out of a deep sense of faith and calling.” The CCCU argues that higher education institutions should instead be evaluated by their promotion of “service, character formation, and contributions to the common good.”
Wheaton religion professor Esau McCaulley calls punishing Christian colleges for encouraging students to follow Christ’s example of serving others while rewarding colleges that prepare graduates for high-paying jobs “deeply troubling.” Many Christians (and Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and secular humanists) believe there are higher purposes than making money, including caring for the vulnerable and needy. Numerous Christians, emulating Christ, forsake lucrative jobs to serve as ministers, missionaries, social workers, and agents of NGOs in impoverished areas. Judging schools and their academic programs by the salaries of their alumni is misguided.
The focus of most colleges on preparing graduates for high-paying careers and the vocational mentality of many students has caused many institutions to eliminate broad-based all-college requirements (mandating courses in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences for graduation), reduced the number of students majoring in the humanities, and diminished the long-standing collegiate emphasis on preparing students to think critically and become responsible citizens.
Treating their students as consumers, Bruni contends, leads most colleges and universities not to assign “the most demanding books,” force students “to solve the knottiest problems,” or confront them “with the sorts of uncomfortable situations in which the most growth often occurs.” Bruni asks, “What happened to college as a theater of intellectual betterment, character development, self-discovery? Easy A’s work against that, replacing rigor with ready affirmation.”
Liberal political and social bias in education in American higher education has long been seen as a problem by many conservatives. Several recent studies demonstrate that political and social conservatives are discriminated against on most campuses. True diversity of thought and expression exists at few colleges. Most surveys find that only 10-15 percent of college faculty are conservatives. Several surveys reported in the late 2010s that Republicans comprised only 4 percent of historians, 3 percent of sociologists, and 2 percent of literature professors. On many campuses, conservative ideas and traditions seldom receive sustained, scholarly analysis. (see, for example, John Shields and Joshua Dunn, Passing on the Right: Conservative Professors in the Progressive University, 2016). Eight states have recently introduced or passed laws to require public educational institutions to provide a diversity of viewpoints in their classrooms.
The future of higher education is especially challenging for Christian colleges. They confront the additional challenge of lower numbers of prospective Christian students. Various surveys report that less than 10 percent of Gen Z (individuals born between 1997 and 2012) are white evangelicals, historically the principal market for Christian colleges. About 42 percent of Gen Z members identify as nonreligious. Sociologist John Hawthorne argues that many Christian colleges today are driven by fear about demographics, funding, public relations crises, the pressure caused by culture wars, and mission drift—abandoning the objectives of their founders to attract more students. (John Hawthorne, The Fearless Christian University, 2025).
Colleges must vigorously combat these trends that threaten their historic mission to produce well-educated, rigorous thinkers who are committed to promoting the common good. Colleges that help students not simply obtain a degree and job but gain fulfillment through a combination of a robust faith, rewarding vocation, and reliable character are vital to the well-being of our nation.