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Inflation for U.S. colleges and universities rose 4 percent in fiscal year 2023, according to data from the annual Commonfund Higher Education Price Index released Wednesday. It’s the second-highest rate of inflation since fiscal year 2008, when the HEPI was at 5 percent. HEPI has been tracking inflation in higher education since 1961. It is mostly used to project budget increases required to preserve purchasing power and is considered a more accurate indicator of cost changes for higher education institutions than the Consumer Price Index, according to a news release.

Richard K. Vedder, senior fellow at the Independent Institute, distinguished emeritus professor of economics at Ohio University, and author of Restoring the Promise: Higher Education in America, writes:  The first 24 years of the 21st century have been the era of Woke Supremacy in our institutions of higher learning. Universities have downplayed traditional academic standards and expectations while becoming centers for promoting ideologies centered around combatting perceived injustices, especially condemning perceived racist behavior while showing increasing contempt for the post-Enlightenment collegiate ideal of free expression of ideas. 

Top school security and academic officials want the Biden administration to overhaul its response to campus antisemitism and Islamophobia — and the White House appears to be listening. Advisers to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas this week issued urgent recommendations for an expansive federal response to campus threats, free speech debates and hateful acts that have consumed the U.S. education system in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war.

Top school security and academic officials want the Biden administration to overhaul its response to campus antisemitism and Islamophobia — and the White House appears to be listening. Advisers to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas this week issued urgent recommendations for an expansive federal response to campus threats, free speech debates and hateful acts that have consumed the U.S. education system in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war. Those recommendations include requests for a White House campus safety convening aimed at turning down the heat, new forms of information sharing and even modified immigration enforcement actions for Israel and the Palestinian territories, according to a draft report that was unanimously approved Wednesday afternoon by the Council.

Americans are experiencing a crisis of faith in college and university leaders amid a volatile moment for the higher education sector, with more than half not trusting them to do the right thing for students. Nearly 80% of Americans surveyed in a new U.S. News-Harris Poll survey say that higher education institutions are more worried about their endowment than creating leaders of tomorrow, and more than 60% believe they are prioritizing donors, press and other external factors over students.