The federal presence in higher education is both unconstitutional and harmful. Federal student aid drives up college prices, creates numerous distortions and inefficiencies, and costs taxpayers ever more. Federal institutional aid, university-based research grants, and academic pork also cost taxpayers billions of dollars each year. Finally, federal efforts to impose ‘accountability’’ on the nation’s ivory tower threaten to destroy its greatest strengths: institutional autonomy, consumer freedom, and the powerful competition and innovation they create. Washington must get out of higher education.

More on Higher Education

Commentary

Court Punts but Affirmative Action on the Ropes

By Ilya Shapiro. USA Today. June 25, 2013.

Why You Should Root against Indiana University, and for Butler, in NCAA Tourney

By Neal McCluskey. Indianapolis Star. March 20, 2013.

Resist the Data Siren Song

By Neal McCluskey. TownHall.com. March 13, 2013.

Cato Studies

Liberalizing Cross-Border Trade in Higher Education: The Coming Revolution of Online Universities

By Simon Lester. Policy Analysis No. 720. February 5, 2013.

How Much Ivory Does This Tower Need? What We Spend on, and Get from, Higher Education

By Neal McCluskey. Policy Analysis No. 686. October 27, 2011.

Federal Higher Education Policy and the Profitable Nonprofits

By Vance Fried. Policy Analysis No. 678. June 15, 2011.

Articles

Did Expansion of the Pell Grant Program Lead to Tuition Hikes?

Neal McCluskey. CQ Researcher. Vol. 23. No. 3. January 18, 2013.

Public Filings

Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin

By Ilya Shapiro and Anna Mackin. Legal Briefs. May 29, 2012.

Reducing Federal Aid, Not Changing Bankruptcy Laws, Key to College Affordability

By Neal McCluskey. Testimony. March 20, 2012.

Reviews & Journals

The Looming Fiscal Train Wreck

Policy Report. May/June 2013.

The Coming Collapse of the BA Bubble

Charles Murray. Cato's Letter. Winter 2013.

Squeezing the Ivory Tower

Stephen Joel Trachtenberg. Cato's Letter. Spring 2012.

Events

Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate

Featuring Trevor Burrus. December 11, 2012. Book Forum.

Squeezing the Tower: Are We Getting All We Can from Higher Education?

Featuring . November 18, 2011. Conference.

How Much Ivory Does This Tower Need?

Featuring Neal McCluskey. October 27, 2011. Capitol Hill Briefing.

Downsizing the Federal Government

Higher Education Subsidies

By Neal McCluskey and Chris Edwards. May 2009.