AKA Review - 02.27.2026

From The Atlantic

By Rose Horowitch

Despite Americans’ claims that college is too costly, their behavior shows they still value it. The share of 25-year-olds with bachelor’s degrees has risen for 15 years, and for good reason. Data shows college ROI offsets tuition for nearly everyone regardless of income or where they enroll. So why insist that college isn’t worth it? The author points to confusing college pricing and political signaling, and concludes that skepticism may be good if it leads people to focus on and make better decisions about where to go and what to major in. Read this article

From Inside Higher Ed
Most Conservative Students Don’t Feel Persecuted on Campus
By Kathryn Palmer
Public rhetoric suggests a politically hostile environment on campuses. Yet a new Gallup–Lumina survey finds that only 2% of students—and just 3% of Republicans—feel they don’t belong because of their views. Large majorities of all parties say professors encourage open expression. In this regard as well as with respect to how much they value their education, students of all political affiliations largely agree college is worthwhile—a view that contrasts sharply with growing partisan skepticism among the general public, especially Republicans.
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From The New York Times

Who Finishes First in Life? Often, Late Bloomers

By Maggie Astor

“Young prodigies…are usually not the same people who reach the pinnacles of their fields in adulthood,” according to a new study. Prodigies typically start with a focus on one thing, but those who achieve at the highest levels later in life, from Nobel laureates to elite athletes, begin with engagement across many fields and see less early success. The author suggests a few reasons that may explain this and encourages further research—work that one hopes will explore the implications for K-12 and college education. Read this article

From Experimental History

Why Aren't Smart People Happy?

By Adam Mastroianni

Without mentioning higher ed explicitly, this exploration of the title’s question sheds light on some of college’s critical challenges, from ROI to AI to student mental health. Key to this is the author’s focus on well-defined and poorly-defined problems. That distinction, along with his references to everything from ancient Greek philosophers to his grandma’s struggles with her TV remote, make a strong case (at least to anyone thinking about higher ed) for the humanities, a vigorous campus experience, and what we might call “education for life.”
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From The New Yorker

How the University Replaced the Church as the Home of Liberal Morality

By Jay Caspian Kang

The university has replaced houses of faith as incubators for social-justice movements and progressivism generally, the author claims. But it is not very good at this job, doing poorly as a moral/ethical center of our culture simply because not everyone goes to college. Elite universities “that foster supposedly egalitarian politics, limit upward mobility as much as they facilitate it. As vehicles of class reproduction,” they never challenge “the system that provides them with their own lofty status.” Read this article