AKA Review - 01.16.2026

From Substack

The End of the American University as We Knew It

By Steven Mintz

“As we knew it” is the university built for a post-war era of prosperity and robust higher ed funding that has passed, leaving a student population mismatched to higher ed’s inherited design. The author examines what broke this model and the accelerating forces making it critical for institutions to redesign it strategically. He describes a new typology of institutions that will respond to the forces shaping higher ed, while acknowledging the irreplaceability of the old model, which created communities where young adults could develop together.
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From The Atlantic

America and Its Universities Need a New Social Contract
By Danielle Allen

The postwar explosion of federal investment in academic research created a social contract with one major gap. Protections for academic freedom and autonomy overlay a belief that researchers did not need to consider their responsibility to society. Today’s widespread mistrust of higher ed arises in part from this flaw, the author argues. She outlines four ways to refocus American universities on civic strength, ensure they keep providing the innovations we need, and avoid the overdependence on federal funding that enables government interference.
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From The Chronicle of Higher Education

How Did We Get So Cynical About Higher Ed?

By Mark Hlavacik

Contrast two conservative-led efforts to restore public trust in higher ed: the creation of schools of civic thought to “rebalance [higher ed’s] partisan composition” and the threatening disciplinary approach of activist Chris Rufo. The author dates both perspectives back 40 years to academic Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind. Despite Bloom’s belief in the importance of education, his talent for “cynical exposés” in his book were a boon to sales and set the stage for the bitter, culture-war cynicism of activists like Rufo today.
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From The New Yorker

Will the Humanities Survive Artificial Intelligence?

By D. Graham Burnett

The spectacular results of an assignment in which his students engaged AI in conversations about the history of attention led this Princeton historian to what it would mean to reinvent the humanities. Producing fact-based knowledge has been automated. We can go to AI systems for answers. “But to be human is not to have answers. It is to have questions—and to live with them. Machines can’t do that for us. Not now, not ever.” Rather, we must “return to what was always the heart of the matter—the lived experience of existence. Being itself.”
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From The New York Times

Pay Attention to How You Pay Attention

By Ezra Klein

Competition among algorithm-driven digital platforms (TikTok, Instagram, etc.) has made them better at their business purpose—controlling our attention—and worse for human flourishing. Antitrust law fails to address this, focusing as it does on increasing competition. Examining the flaws in both temperance-based and “neutrality” approaches to addressing digital harm, the author suggests reforms based on insulating children while requiring greater liability from companies that want to shape so much human attention.

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