The Issues

Academic Content

• Hollowing out of liberal education
• Politicization of the classroom
• Trivialization of scholarship and teaching
• Disappearance of core curricula
• Neglect of important books
• Marginalization of key subjects
• Declining study of Western civilization
• Overemphasis on the current, popular, marginal, ephemeral
• Overemphasis on issues of race, gender, class, sexual orientation

Cost

• Excessively high tuitions
• Policies that encourage students to assume imprudent levels of debt
• Federal policies that encourage profligate spending by colleges and universities
• Deep flaws in higher education’s financial model
• Administrative bloat
• Burdensome regulation

Injustice

• Censorship of ideas and suppression of debate
• Ethnic preferences in admissions and hiring
• Sex discrimination in academic hiring
• Ideological litmus tests for faculty appointments and tenure
• Abuses of academic freedom and individual rights
• Exclusion of conservative and traditional viewpoints

Academic Integrity

• Widespread plagiarism
• Research fraud
• Grade inflation
• Credential inflation
• Academic credit for non-academic activities
• Cheapening of honors and distinctions

Campus Culture

• Cultivation of ethnic and group grievances
• Neglect of character education
• Dorm-based indoctrination
• Transformation of student activities into student activism
• Broad imposition of the “sustainability” agenda on university activity and campus life
• The rise of a “therapeutic” model of education
• Celebration of what is coarse
• Overemphasis on group study
• Pressure to conform to campus ideologies
• Partying and the hook-up culture
• Corruption of college athletics

Attitudes

• Systematic denigration of American society
• Denial of the possibility of truth and disinterestedness
• Condescension toward the non-academic world
• Anti-capitalist, anti-democratic, and anti-freedom orientations
• Complacency toward divisive group entitlements
• Marketing college as the only path to success
• Assuming a college degree signifies an education

Governance

• Opaque rules and procedures
• Overreaching harassment codes at odds with intellectual freedom
• Overemphasis on “community-building” at the expense of academic learning
• Excessive layers of administration
• Deficiencies in the U.S. accreditation system
• Lack of public accountability
• Marginalization of the trustee role in shared governance

Trends

• The higher education “bubble”—and the possibility of serious retrenchment
• The rise of online colleges
• The rise of for-profit colleges
• Expansion of community colleges
• Effects of new national K-12 standards on students’ college preparedness
• Continuing deficiencies in teacher education
• The “outcomes assessment” movement
• “Multiculturalism,” “diversity,” “sustainability”

Our Ideals

The National Association of Scholars advocates for excellence by encouraging commitment to high intellectual standards, individual merit, institutional integrity, good governance, and sound public policy.

Intellectual Standards

• Ideas judged on their merits
• Disinterested pursuit of truth
• Fair and judicial examination of contending views
• Rich and challenging reading assignments
• Frequent and carefully assessed writing assignments
• Well-rounded core requirements
• Transmission of both the core content and core values of Western civilization
• Rigorous and fair testing and examination
• Coherent curricula within majors and programs of study

Individual Merit

• Individuals judged fairly, according to their abilities and accomplishments
• Grades consonant with accomplishment

Institutional Integrity

• Thrift, faithful stewardship of gifts, and financial probity
• Transparency in the curriculum and classroom 
• Scientific spirit in scholarly inquiry
• Freedom of faculty members and students to pursue academic research
• Freedom of faculty members to teach their academic subjects
• Freedom of students to question and to think for themselves
• Freedom from ideological imposition or suppression
• Conservation of knowledge and intellectual achievement

Good Governance

• Leadership focused on academic mission
• Appointment of officers and staff members who are genuinely qualified
• Efficient organization
• Transparent rules and procedures
• Adherence to the rule of law
• Restraint in response to fashionable movements and political, social, and ideological enthusiasms
• Mindfulness of the history of higher education, the ethos of scholarship, and value of knowledge and free inquiry
• Capacity and willingness to distinguish between the significant and the trivial
• Commitment to civil debate and respect for dissenting opinions

Sound Public Policy

• Prioritizing education as academia’s main purpose
• Minimal student indebtedness
• Equal opportunity on the basis of individual merit
• Access to college for all
• Alternatives to college made available
• Greater price competition among colleges and universities
• Support for affordable tuition
• Support for innovation and the creation of new colleges
• Support for the developing market for online college degrees and vocational training
• One set of standards applied to for-profit and not-for-profit institutions
• Academic programs aligned with U.S. national interests
• Funding for basic research
• Reform of K-12 education