Here is the link to the Zoom recording of the debate; it plays best in Microsoft Edge.
Category: Education
Negativity bias is the tendency to give more weight to the negative than the positive. For example, people tend to weigh wrongs done to them more heavily than the good deeds done for them. As another example, people tend to be more swayed by negative political advertisements than by positives ones. This bias can also have an impact on education.
Some years ago, one of my colleagues always asked his logic students if they planned to attend law school. When he noticed a dramatic decline in logic students planning on law school, curiosity led him to investigate. He found that logic had been switched from being a requirement for pre-law to just recommended. Back then, my colleague said it seemed irrational for students who planned on taking the LSAT to avoid the logic class, given that the LSAT was largely a logic test and that law school requires logical reasoning. From his philosophical soap box, he said that students prefer to avoid the useful when it is not required and only grudgingly take what is required. We discussed how this relates to the negativity bias. A student who did not take the logic class when it was required would be punished by being unable to graduate. When the class became optional, there remained only the positive benefits of taking the class. Since people weigh punishments more than rewards, this behavior made sense—but still seemed irrational. Especially since many of the students who skipped the logic class ended up paying for LSAT preparation classes to spackle over their lack of logic skills.
Over the years, I have seen a similar sort of thing in my own classes. My university had a policy that allowed us to lower a student’s grade if they missed too many classes. While attendance has always been required in my classes, I have never inflicted a punishment for missing class. Not surprisingly, when the students figure this out, attendance plummets. Before I started using Blackboard and Canvas for coursework, attendance would increase dramatically on test days. Now that all work can be done on Canvas (a relic of COVID), attendance remains consistently low. Oddly, students often say my classes are interesting and useful. But, since there is no direct and immediate punishment for not attending (just a delayed “punishment” in terms of lower grades and a lack of learning), many students are not motivated to attend class.
I do consider I might be a bad professor or that most students see philosophy courses as useless or boring. However, my evaluations are consistently good, former students have returned to say good things about me and my classes, and so on. That said, perhaps I am deluding myself and being humored. That said, it is easy enough to draw an analogy to exercise: exercise does not provide immediate rewards and there is no immediate punishment for not staying fit—just a loss of benefits. Most people elect to avoid exercise. This and similar things show that people often avoid that which is difficult now but yields lasting benefits latter.
I have, of course, often considered adopting the punishment model for my classes. However, I have resisted this for a variety of reasons. The first is my personality: I am inclined to offer benefits rather than punishments. This is an obvious flaw given the general psychology of people. The second is that I believe in free choice: like God, I think people should be free to make bad choices and not be coerced into doing what is right. It must be a free choice. Naturally, choosing poorly brings its own punishment—albeit later. The third is the hassle of dealing with attendance: the paperwork, having to handle excuses, hearing poorly crafted lies, and so on. The fourth is the that classes are generally better for the good students when people who do not want to be there elect to do something else. The fifth is my moral and religious concern for my students: if they are not punished for missing classes, there is no reason to lie to me about what they missed. Finally, COVID changed things and if I punished students for not attending, too many students would end up failing simply because of not attending enough.
I did consider adopting the punishment model for three reasons. One is that if students are compelled to attend, they might learn something and I do worry that by not compelling them, I am doing them a disservice. The second is that this model is a lesson for what the workplace will be like for most of the students—so habituating them to this (or, rather, keeping the habituation they should have acquired in K-12) could be valuable. After all, they will probably need to endure awful jobs until they retire or die. The third is that perhaps people must be compelled by punishment—this is, of course, the model put forth by thinkers like Aristotle and Hobbes. But I will almost certainly stick with my flawed approach until I retire.
Back in 2014 Sandra Y.L. Korn proposed dispensing with academic freedom in favor of academic justice. Korn begins the essay with example of Harvard psychology Professor Richard Hernstein’s 1971 article for Atlantic Monthly. Hernstein endorsed the view that intelligence is primarily hereditary and linked to race. Hernstein was criticized for this view but was also defended by appeals to academic freedom. Korn seems to agree that the attacks on Hernstein impinged on academic freedom. However, Korn proposed that academic justice is more important than academic freedom.
Korn uses the American Association of University Professors view of academic freedom: “Teachers are entitled to full freedom in research and in the publication of the results.” However, Korn regards the “liberal obsession” with this freedom as misplaced.
Korn notes that there is not “full freedom” in research and publication. As Korn correctly notes, which proposals get funded and which papers get published is largely a matter of academic politics. Korn also notes, correctly, that no academic question is free from the realities of politics. From this, Korn draws a conditional conclusion: “If our university community opposes racism, sexism, and heterosexism, why should we put up with research that counters our goals simply in the name of ‘academic freedom’?”
One might suspect a false dilemma is lurking here: either there is full academic freedom or restricting it on political values is acceptable. There is not full academic freedom. Therefore, restricting it on political values is acceptable. This would be a false dilemma because there are many options between full academic freedom such restrictions. As such, one could accept that there is not full academic freedom while also rejecting that academic freedom should be restricted on the proposed grounds.
To use an analogy to general freedom of expression, the fact that people do not possess full freedom of expression (there are limits on expression) does not entail that politically based restrictions should therefore be accepted. After all, there are many alternatives between full freedom and the specific restrictions being proposed.
To be fair to Korn, no such false dilemma might exist. Instead, Korn might be reasoning that because political values restrict academic expression it follows that adding additional restrictions is not a problem. To re-use the analogy to general free expression, the reasoning would that since there are already limits on free expression, more restrictions are (or could be) acceptable. This might be seen as a common practice fallacy but could be justified by showing that the proposed restrictions are warranted. Sorting this out requires considering what Korn is proposing.
In place of the academic freedom standard, Korn proposes “a more rigorous standard: one of ‘academic justice.’ When an academic community observes research promoting or justifying oppression, it should ensure that this research does not continue.”
While Korn claims this is a more rigorous standard, it seems to be only more restrictive. There is also the challenge of rigorously and accurately defining what it is for research to promote or justify oppression. While this was of concern way back in 2014, it is of even greater concern in 2026. This is because the American right has embraced the strategy of claiming that white, straight, men are the truest victims of “woke” oppression. This is part of a broader approach of the right to turn terms, tactics and strategies used by the left against them. For example, the right has used accusations of antisemitism to attack institutions of higher education.
Back in 2014, Korn proposed that students, faculty and workers should organize to “to make our universities look as we want them to do.” While that sounds democratic, there is still the concern about what standards should be used.
While there are paradigm cases (like the institutionalized racism of pre-civil rights America), people do use the term “oppression” to refer to what merely offends them. In fact, Korn refers to the offensiveness of a person’s comment as grounds for removing a professor.
One danger is that the vagueness of this principle could be used to suppress and oppress research that vocal or influential people find offensive. There is also the concern that such a principle would create a hammer to beat down those who present dissenting or unpopular views. Ironically, this principle from 2014 would be ideal for “conversion” into a tool for the right: they could claim that “woke” and “DEI” views oppress white, straight men and hence “academic justice” would require suppressing such views. This would, of course, strike some as a perversion of the principle.
In closing, I favor justice and what is morally good. As such, I think people should be held morally accountable for their actions and statements. However, I do oppose restrictions on academic freedom for the same reason I oppose restrictions on the general freedom of expression. In the case of academic freedom, what should matter is whether the research is properly conducted and whether the claims are well-supported. To explicitly adopt a principle for deciding what is allowed and what is forbidden based on ideological views would, as history shows, have a chilling effect on research and academics. While the academic system is far from perfect, flawed research and false claims do get sorted out. Adding in a political test would not seem to help with reaching the goal of truth. Ironically, this sort of political test under the guise of addressing (imagined) oppression of white straight men (like me) is now being used by the right.
In terms of when academic freedom should be restricted, this is when an action creates enough harm to warrant limiting the freedom. Merely offending people is not enough to warrant restrictions—even if people are very offended. Threatening people or engaging in falsification of research results would not be protected by academic freedom.
As such, back in 2014 I was opposed to Korn’s modest proposal to impose more political restrictions on academic freedom. As Korn noted, there were already many restrictions in place—and there seemed to be no compelling reasons to add more. As this is being written in 2026, the right is using their own version of Korn’s principle and attempting to achieve their end of shaping the academy to fit their values. As would be suspected, I also oppose this.
On April 8, 2026 I’ll be participating in a debate on the question “will AI destroy higher education?” I’m taking the “no” side. It takes place on Zoom from 12:00-1:00 PM Eastern and you can register (free) here: Meeting Registration – Zoom.
As this is being written, I’m scheduled to debate whether AI will destroy higher education. I’m arguing that it will not and what follows is how I will make my initial case.
In supporting my position, I have optimistic and pessimistic arguments (although your perspective on optimism might differ from mine. I’ll begin with my optimistic arguments, the first two of which are analogical arguments.
One way that AI might destroy higher education is by making students, broadly speaking, incompetent. While the exact scenarios vary, the idea is that using or depending on AI will weaken the minds of students and thus doom higher education. Fortunately, this is an ancient argument that has repeatedly been disproven. Socrate, it is claimed, worried that writing would weaken minds. More recently, TV, calculators, computers and even the dreaded Walkman were supposed to reduce the youth to dunces. None of these dire predictions came to pass and, by analogy, we can conclude that AI will not make the youth into fools.
A related concern is that AI will destroy higher education by rendering it obsolete though radical economic change. While scenarios vary, the worry is that higher education will no longer be needed because AI will eliminate certain jobs. While AI might result in radical change, this is also nothing new and higher education will adapt, by analogy, as it has done in the past. This will be an evolutionary event rather than a mass extinction.
My third optimistic argument is in response to worries about cheating. While AI does provide a radical new way to cheat, cheating remains a moral (and practical) choice and is not inherently a technological problem. Good ethical training and practical methods can address this threat, allowing higher education to survive.
My fourth optimistic argument, which is unrealistic and idealistic, is to content that AI might succeed and bring about a “Star Trek” utopia in which an abundance of wealth means that higher education will thrive as people will have the time and resources to learn for the sake of learning. I put the odds of this even with my various AI kills us all scenarios. Now, on to the pessimistic arguments.
One pessimistic argument is that AI will either be a bursting bubble or, less extreme, fail to live up to the hype. If the AI bubble bursts, it will hurt higher education because of the economic damage, but the academies will survive yet another bubble. If AI fails to live up to the hype, it will continue as it is, doing some damage to higher education but failing to destroy it.
My two remaining arguments are very pessimistic. The first is that AI will not destroy higher education because state and federal government will kill it first. What began with cruel negligence has evolved into outright hostility that seems likely to only worsen. As such, the state might kill the academy before AI can do the job.
The second is, obviously enough, that AI might destroy everything else. But higher education might persist embodied in AI educating new models, with Artificial Education being the new higher education.
While Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University has obviously been concerned with preparing students for careers, this semester I learned that we are explicitly moving away from the idea of education having intrinsic value and instead embracing workforce readiness.
To be fair and balanced, this can be seen as an acknowledgement of reality: most of my students have always been rationally focused on education as a means to a career. This also has clear practical value as our students, for unless they have inherited great wealth, will need to labor to survive. But a case can be made that the main beneficiaries of a university focus on workforce readiness are businesses and the political right.
First, workforce readiness helps shift the cost of workforce training from businesses to students (and taxpayers). The old model was that universities sent students to their employers ready to learn the specifics of their jobs. This seemed a reasonable approach, as the specific skills needed varied with each job and could change over the four (plus) years required for a student to graduate. This is still true, which is why most businesses now want employees with experience—they have specific, current skills and the business does not need to spend resources to train them. My university has started requiring all majors to include an internship as an elective, which can benefit the students but will, one infers, provide businesses with free labor.
It is well worth considering some of the practical problems with trying to train students to be workforce ready. One concern is that education focused on workforce readiness can become obsolete. Students take 4+ years to graduate, and it takes time for departments to update and implement curriculum. There is also the obvious problem of trying to get students ready for a diverse range of jobs that require different skills and knowledge that previously required on the job training. Since philosophy majors could go on to do jobs ranging from managing a business to being the vice president, it is not clear how one would workforce ready students in a way that differs from the current approach to education.
My university is also embracing AI, which makes sense. However, readying students for the workforce in the age of AI presents a dilemma. If AI is a bubble that bursts, then getting them ready for the AI workforce that will not exist will leave them unprepared for the world that will be. But if AI is not a bubble (or is an enduring bubble) then we might also be preparing them for jobs that AI will replace. The example of AI can be generalized to the workforce dilemma: If we do not prepare them for a specific job, they are not workforce ready and businesses will not want to hire them. Instead, they will continue the practice of hiring experienced workers. If we prepare students for a specific job, that job might not exist when they graduate or their skills might be obsolete. In pushing for workforce readiness we might find that we are abandoning an imperfect educational approach in favor of one that is even worse.
A second benefit of a focus on workforce readiness is that if it succeeds, then it will decrease the value of labor. This, obviously, is a benefit for businesses and not students. This devaluing will arise from two factors. One arises from the positive focus on workforce readiness. If this creates more workers, then the value of each worker is thus diminished—which will benefit businesses. The other arises from a negative factor, which is the effort to reduce or eliminate degrees and programs that are perceived as not focused on creating workforce ready products for what will be the true consumer of education, the businesses. Success in reducing or exterminating such programs will provide benefits to business and the political right. Students who would otherwise have entered these programs will probably end up getting workforce ready degrees, thus increasing the workforce and decreasing the value of labor in these areas. The areas targeted for reduction or elimination often produce graduates who are critical of the harmful practices of businesses (like exploiting labor, polluting the environment, and producing harmful products and services). Hence, thinning their numbers is advantageous. These graduates are also often critical of racism, sexism, inequality, fascism, authoritarianism, and other such evils, which tends to put them at odds with the political right (who tend to favor business as well).
As a philosopher, I unsurprisingly think that education can have intrinsic value. You know, the idea of the examined life and all that stuff. However, there are also practical reasons to be concerned. While a focus on workforce readiness might yield short term benefits, there are long term harms to be considered. After all, as fans of Western civilization themselves love to point out, the old universities have been critical in making this civilization, its economy and its technology possible—and this goes back to Plato’s academy. There is also the very practical concern, as noted above, that workforce readiness might simply not work—especially with the uncertainty about AI. In closing, while I do understand why businesses want to shift training costs onto students and the taxpayers (as many of them have shifted costs by exploiting the SNAP and welfare systems), this is unethical. Businesses should pay to train the workers who will provide them with their profits. They have the resources to do so and, from a practical standpoint, they would be the best at providing the very specific and most current skills needed for their very specific job.
While philosophy is about inquiry and students should ask questions, there was a question I hoped students would not ask. That question was “do I need the book?” In some cases, this question arose from the challenge of limited finances. In other cases, it arose from a profound hope to avoid the pain of reading philosophy.
My answer was always an honest “yes.” As opposed to a dishonest “yes.” I must confess that in years gone by I heard the whispers of the Book Devil trying to tempt me to line my shelves with desk copies or, even worse, get free books to sell to the book buyers. In the before time, publishers often sent free copies to professors. Those days have passed.
But I always resisted the temptation. My will was fortified by memories from my student days of buying expensive books we never used. Even though the books for my courses were truly required and I sought the best books for the lowest costs, students still lamented my cruel practice of requiring books.
Moved by their suffering, I found a solution in technology. Since most of the great (and not-so-great) philosophers are not only dead but really, really dead, their works are usually in the public domain. This allowed me to assemble free texts for most of my classes. These were first distributed via 3.5 inch floppies (kids, ask your parents about these), then via the internet. While I could not include the latest and (allegedly) greatest contemporary philosophy, these free digital books are as good as most of the expensive offerings. The students are, I am pleased to say, happy that the books they will not read will not cost them a penny. Yes, sometimes students ask, “do I have to read the book?” I, of course, say “yes.” We smile and pretend that they will read the book.
As I make a point of telling the students on day one that the book is a free PDF file, I rarely hear “do I need to buy the book?” Now students ask, “do I have to come to class?” I must take some of the blame for this, thanks to COVID my classes are designed so all the coursework can be completed online via Canvas. Technology is thus shown, once again, to be a two-edged sword: it solved the “do I have to buy the book?” problem but helped create the “do I have to come to class problem.”
When I was first asked this, I remember feeling a bit annoyed by the question. After all, the question seems to imply that the student is thinking: “I have nothing to learn from you, but I don’t want to fail.” Honesty compels me to admit that a student might have nothing to learn from me. After all, there are arguments that philosophy is useless and presumably not worth learning. Alos, Things like logic, critical thinking and ethics could be worthless—after all, some people seem to do just fine without them. Some even manage to hold high offices and accumulate fortunes without any of these. I could also be useless in particular.
After overcoming my initial annoyance, I applied some philosophical thought to the matter. As with the “do I have to buy the book?” question, there could be a good reason for the question. Perhaps the student needs the time that would otherwise be spent in my class to do things for other classes or need the time to work to earn money to pay for school.
Out of curiosity I created an anonymous survey to see what the students would say. 28.8% of claimed work was the primary reason they missed class. 15% claimed that the fact that they could turn in work online was the reason they skipped class. 6% claimed they needed to spend time on other classes. These were the top three.
While the survey was anonymous, respondents might be inclined to select the answer that seems the most laudable reason to miss class. That said, these results are plausible. One reason is that many of my students are from low-income families and often need to work to pay for school. Another reason is that I routinely overhear students talking about their jobs and I sometimes even see students wearing their work uniforms in class.
While it might be suspected that my concern about attendance is a matter of ego, it is based on concern for my students. In addition to being curious about why students were skipping my class, I was also interested in why students failed my courses. Fortunately, I had objective data in the form of attendance records, grades, and coursework.
As would be expected, I found a correlation between missing class and failing grades when I went through a few years of classes. None of the students who failed had perfect attendance and only 27% had better than 50% attendance. This was hardly surprising: students who do not attend class miss out on the lectures, class discussion and the opportunity to ask questions. To use the obvious analogy, these students are like athletes skipping practice. But it must also be noted that there are other factors that can cause students to miss class and also do poorly, such as lack of interest and life problems.
Over the years I have tested a solution to this problem. Even before the pandemic, I created YouTube videos of one of my classes and put the links into BlackBoard. Thanks to the Pandemic, most of my classes have “decent” videos of all the content. This allows students to view (or ignore) the videos at their convenience and skip or rewind as they desire. As might be suspected , the view counts are very low. However, some students expressed appreciation for the availability of the videos. If they can reduce the number of students who fail by even a few students each semester, then the effort will be worthwhile.
I also found that 67.7% of the students who failed did so because of failing scores on work. While this might elicit a response of “duh”, 51% of those who failed did not complete the exams, 45% did not complete the quizzes, and 42% did not complete the paper. While failing grades on the work was a major factor, simply not doing the work was a significant cause. I did find that no student who ever failed my class completed all the work and this was part of the reason for the failure. While they might have failed the work even if they had completed it, failure was assured by not making the attempt.
My initial attempt at solving the problem involved having all coursework either on Black Board or capable of being turned in via Black Board. My obvious concern with this solution was the possibility that students would cheat. While there are some awkward and expensive solutions (such as video monitoring) I decided to rely on something I had learned about the homework assigned in my courses: despite having every opportunity to cheat, student performance on out of class work was consistent with their performance on monitored in course work. It was simply a matter of designing questions and tests to make cheating unrewarding. The solution was easy: questions aimed at comprehension, a tight time limit on exams, and massive question banks to generate random exams. This approach worked for years: student grades remained very close to those from the days or proctored in-class exams and quizzes. On the plus side, there was an increase in the completion rate of the coursework. However, the increase was not as significant as I had hoped. Then AI arrived and enabled easy cheating on online quizzes and exams, thus creating a problem whose obvious solution seems to be a return to proctored in-class exams and quizzes.
To address the problem of uncompleted work, I decided to have generous deadlines. Originally, students got a month to complete the quizzes for a section. For exams 1-3 (which cover sections 1-3), students got one month after we finished a section to complete the exam. Exam 4’s deadline was at the end of the last day of classes and the final deadlines at the end of the normal final time. The paper deadlines were unchanged from the pre-online days, although now the students can turn in papers from anywhere with internet access and can do so round the clock. The main impact of this change was another increase in the completion rate of work, thus decreasing the failure rate in my classes. When COVID hit, I made the deadlines even more generous for exams and quizzes: students can complete these for full credit up until the last day of finals week. This increased the completion rates for the coursework and, I must say, removed much of the end of the semester stress arising from addressing student grade crises.
As would be suspected, there are still students who do not complete all the work and fail much of the work they do complete. But the number of failing students has been reduced dramatically, and they are still learning. But, as noted earlier, the newest challenge is AI: while cheating has always been a problem, AI has obviously turbocharged this problem.
Way back in February of 2015 Laura Kipnis’ essay “Sexual Paranoia Strikes Academe” was published in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Though controversial in content, it was a balanced consideration of campus codes governing relationships between students and professors. In response to this essay, Kipnis was subjected to what she rightly called a Title IX Inquisition. While the legal issues of such codes are interesting, my main concern as a philosopher is with their ethics.
I will begin by getting the easy stuff out of the way. As universities are obligated to provide a safe environment conducive to learning, they should have rules that protect students. Since universities are obligated to ensure grades are assigned on merit, they should have rules forbidding exchanging goods or services (including sexual services) for grades. Crimes such as sexual assault and rape should be handled by the police, though universities should also have rules governing the employment of professors who are convicted of such crimes.
It is also relatively easy to settle the issue of whether universities should forbid consenting relationships between professors and students when the professor has power over the student. This would include such things as the student being enrolled in the professor’s class or serving as their TA. After all, if a student is involved with a professor, then the student might have an unfair advantage relative to other students. This is distinct from the explicit exchange of a grade for sexual favors. Rather, this is a matter of positive bias in favor of the student that can result in special treatment. For example, a professor might grade her boyfriend’s paper much easier than those of other students.
While sexual relations can lead to bias, these are not the only relations that can have this effect. A professor who is friends with a student or related to a student can be biased in favor of that student. This is distinct from explicit nepotism in which grades are decided based on the relationship. So, if the principle is based on the potential for bias, then students who are friends, relatives or otherwise comparably connected to the professor would also need to be forbidden from being in such roles.
It can, obviously, be argued there is a relevant difference between sexual relations and non-sexual relations that would justify forbidding a professor from dating a student in, while still allowing them to have a friend or relative as a student. Alternatively, a university could have a general ban on professors having students with whom they have a potentially biasing relationship, be it sexual, platonic, or family relationship. As a general policy, this has considerable appeal on the grounds of fairness. It can, however, be countered on the grounds that a professional should be able to control bias in favor of friends and family. But this view opens the door to the claim that a professional should also be able to control bias in the case of a romantic relationship. However, most would certainly be skeptical about such a claim. I recall from my own graduate school days the comments students would make about students who were involved with their professor or TA. Put in polite terms, they expressed skepticism about the fairness of the grading.
My considered view is a conditional one: if a professor can maintain objectivity, then the unfairness argument would have no weight. However, it is reasonable to think that many professors could not maintain such objectivity, thus justifying a general rule forbidding relationship. After all, rule are not crafted with the best people in mind, but those that are less than the best.
The fairness argument could not, of course, be used to justify forbidding professors from dating students who are not and will not be in their classes (or otherwise under them in a professional capacity). So, for example, if an engineering professor were to date an English Literature major who will never take any of the classes she teaches, then there would be no concerns about fairness.
As harassment and coercive relationships should always be forbidden, there would thus seem to be no grounds for forbidding such a consensual relationship between two adults. However, there are good arguments in favor of this general forbiddance.
There are excellent practical reasons to forbid romantic or sexual relationships between students and professors even when there is no coercion, no harassment, and no unfairness. One practical reason is that relationships usually fail and often fail in dramatic ways, and it could be problematic for a university to have such drama play out on campus. Another practical reason is that such relationships can be a legal powder keg in terms of potential lawsuits against a university. As such, university administrators sensibly think that their money and brand should be protected by forbidding such relationships.
From a moral perspective, the concern is whether there are grounds for forbidding such relationships (other than, of course, a utilitarian argument about the potential for brand damage or lawsuits).
One standard argument is that there is always a power disparity between professors and students, and this entails that all such relationships are potentially coercive. Even if most professors would not consciously coerce a student, rules are not made for how the best people would act but for what those who are less than best are likely to do. As such, a blanket ban on relationships is necessary to prevent the possibility of coercive relationships between students and professors. It is thus morally justified.
It might be objected that a rule against coercive relationships would suffice and that if the professor has no professional relationship with the student, then they should be treated as consenting adults. After all, a professor in such a situation would seem to have no power over the student and coercion via professional position would not be possible. So, they should be free to have a relationship.
It could be countered that a professor always has power over a student in virtue of being a professor, even when the professor has no professional relationship with the student. While a professor might have some “power” in regard to being older (usually), having some status, having more income (usually), and so on, these do not seem to be distinct from the “power” one adult could have over another outside the academy and in the dating world.
One could argue that there seems to be nothing specific to being a professor that would give a professor power over the student that would make the relationship automatically coercive. As such, there would seem to be no grounds for forbidding the relationship.
It could be objected that students are especially vulnerable to the power of professors and lack the autonomy needed to resist this power. As such, the university must act in a paternalistic way and forbid all relationships—to protect naïve and powerless students from the cunning, powerful predatorial professors. This would be analogous to laws that protect minors from adults because minors cannot give informed consent. If college students are analogous to (but not legally) minors, then the same reasoning would apply. But this approach seems insulting to the students and would suggest that changes to the age of consent would be warranted. So casting adult students as analogous to children is probably not a good idea.
A reasonable approach is to point out that there is no guarantee that a professor might not end up being in a position of relative power and it would be unreasonable to depend on some sort of informal honor system in which students and professors promise to never be in such a situation. Hence, a blanket ban on such relationships would seem warranted. This is analogous to how a professional should never date co-workers or clients of their business, even if they currently have no professional interaction. Since they could have such interaction someday, they should not risk having a relationship.
There are also other moral grounds for forbidding such relationships that are not based on concerns about power disparities. For example, a case can be made that a professor being involved with a student would simply be unprofessional and hence unethical.
From a legal, practical and moral standpoint, the best policy would seem to be for professors and students to not have romantic relationships.
One of the many problems with American higher education is that the cost of a four-year degree is higher than ever, even when adjusting for inflation. The causes of this increase are well known and well understood and there is no mystery here. One contributing factor is that universities spend on facilities that are not connected to education. Critics like to, for example, point out that some universities spend millions on luxurious fitness facilities to attract students.
A major factor contributing to costs is the ever-expanding administrative class at universities. This expansion occurs in both individual salaries and overall numbers. From 2000 to 2010 the median salary for the top public university administrators increased by 39%. The top administrators, the university presidents, enjoyed a 75% increase. In stark contrast, the salaries for full-time professors increased by only 19%.
The money for these salary increases must come from somewhere and an obvious source is students. My alma mater Ohio State University is leading the way. Between 2010 and 2012 Gordon Gee, the president of OSU, was paid almost $6 million. At the same time, OSU raised tuition and fees to a degree that resulted in student debt increasing 23% more than the national average.
While some might be tempted to attribute bloated salaries as the result of the alleged wastefulness and growth of the public sector, private colleges and universities topped their public counterparts. From 2000 to 2010 private schools saw salary increases of about 97% for their top administrators and their presidents enjoyed a 171% increase. Full time professors also partook of the increases as their salaries increased by 50%.
What is even more striking than salary increases are the increases in the number of positions and their nature. From 1978 to 2014 administrative positions skyrocketed 369%. This time also marked a major shift in the nature of faculty. The number of part-time faculty increased by 286%. The use of adjuncts has been justified on the grounds that doing so saves money. While adjunct salaries vary, the typical adjunct makes $20,000-25,000 per year. While this might sound decent for “part-time” work, most adjuncts work “part-time” at multiple schools and are thus better seen as full-time workers.
However, the money saved by hiring adjuncts does not translate to a lower cost of education. Rather, it “saves” money from going to faculty so that it can go to administrators. Since the average salary of a university president is $478,896 and the number of presidents making $1 million or more a year is increasing, it should be obvious what is helping to drive up the cost of college. Hint: it is not adjunct pay.
There has also been a push to reduce (and eliminate) tenured positions which resulted in an increase in full time, non-tenure earning positions by 259%. Full time tenure and tenure-track positions increased by only 23%. Ohio State University provides an excellent (or awful) example of this strategy: the majority of those hired by OSU were Adjuncts and Administrators. To be specific, OSU hired 498 adjunct instructors and 670 administrators. 45 full-time, permanent faculty were hired.
The Republicans who run many state legislatures rail against wasteful spending, impose micromanagement and inflict draconian measures on state universities yet never seem to address the real causes of tuition increase and the problems in the education system. Someone more cynical than I might note that the university seems to no longer have education as its primary function. Rather, it is crafted to funnel money from the “customer” and the taxpayer (in the form of federal student aid) to the top while minimizing pay for those who do the actual work.
Tenure has been a target in recent years because tenure provides faculty with protection against being fired without cause. The idea that some non-rich might enjoy a degree of financial security clearly vexes the ruling class. This is regarded by some as a problem for a variety of reasons. One is that tenured faculty cannot be let go simply to replace them with lower paid adjuncts. This, obviously enough, means less money flowing from students and the state to administrators. Another is that the protection provided by tenure allows a faculty member to criticize what is happening to the university system without being fired.
While I am critical of the approach to administration, we are on the same side in terms of how public education is suffering from disinvestment. While the cost of facilities and excessive administrative overhead are factors, the greatest harm to American education has been the decision to destroy it.
A Philosopher’s Blog 2025 brings together a year of sharp, accessible, and often provocative reflections on the moral, political, cultural, and technological challenges of contemporary life. Written by philosopher Michael LaBossiere, these essays move fluidly from the ethics of AI to the culture wars, from conspiracy theories to Dungeons & Dragons, from public policy to personal agency — always with clarity, humor, and a commitment to critical thinking.
Across hundreds of entries, LaBossie
re examines the issues shaping our world:
- AI, technology, and the future of humanity — from mind‑uploading to exoskeletons, deepfakes, and the fate of higher education
- Politics, power, and public life — including voting rights, inequality, propaganda, and the shifting landscape of American democracy
- Ethics in everyday life — guns, healthcare, charity, masculinity, inheritance, and the moral puzzles hidden in ordinary choices
- Culture, identity, and conflict — racism, gender, religion, free speech, and the strange logic of modern outrage
- Philosophy in unexpected places — video games, D&D, superheroes, time travel, and the metaphysics of fictional worlds
Whether he is dissecting the rhetoric of conspiracy theories, exploring the ethics of space mining, or reflecting on the death of a beloved dog, LaBossiere invites readers into a conversation that is rigorous without being rigid, principled without being preachy, and always grounded in the belief that philosophy is for everyone.
This collection is for readers who want more than hot takes — who want to understand how arguments work, why beliefs matter, and how to think more clearly in a world that rewards confusion.
Thoughtful, wide‑ranging, and often darkly funny, A Philosopher’s Blog 2025 is a companion for anyone trying to make sense of the twenty‑first century.
Interestingly, the free 2-year college movement began with Republican Governor Bill Haslam of Tennessee. Other states followed his lead but the Trumpian war on education raises questions about the fate of free college. But is offering free 2-year college a good idea? Having some experience in education, I will endeavor to assess this question.
First, there is no such thing as a free college education (in this context). Rather, free education for a student means the cost is shifted to others. After all, staff, faculty and administrators cannot work for free. The facilities of the schools need to be constructed and maintained. And so on, for all the costs of education.
One proposed way to make education free for students is to shift the cost to “the rich”, a group that is easy to target but somewhat harder to define. As might be suspected, I think this is a good idea. One reason is that I believe that education is one of the best investments a person and society can make. This is why I am fine with paying property taxes that go to K-12 education, although I have no children of my own. In addition to my moral commitment to education, I also look at it pragmatically: money spent on education means spending less on prisons and social safety nets. Of course, there is still the question of why the cost should be shifted to “the rich.”
One obvious answer is that they, unlike the poor and the tattered remnants of the middle class, have an overabundance of money. As economists have noted, an ongoing trend is wages staying stagnant while capital is doing well. This is illustrated by the stock market rebounding from the last crash while workers are doing worse than before that crash.
There is also the need to address income inequality. While many might reject arguments grounded in compassion or fairness, there are purely practical reasons to shift the cost. One is that the rich need the rest of us to keep the wealth, goods and services flowing to them (they need us far more than we need them, since we do not need them at all). Another is social stability. Maintaining a stable state requires the citizens to believe that they are better off with the status quo then they would be if they revolted. While deceit and force can keep citizens in line, these have limits to their effectiveness. It is in the pragmatic interest of the rich to help restore the faith of the middle class. One alternative is being put against the wall after the revolution. But in 2024 they seem to have decided to gamble on force and deceit to keep their wealth safe.
Second, the reality of education has changed over the years. In the not-so-distant past, a high-school education was sufficient for a decent job. I am from a small town in Maine and remember that people could get decent jobs at the paper mill with just a high school degree (or even without one). While there are still some decent jobs like that, they are increasingly rare.
While it might be a slight exaggeration, the two-year college degree seems somewhat equivalent to the old high school degree. That is, it is roughly the minimum education needed to have a good shot at a decent job. As such, the reasons that justify free (for students) public K-12 education would now justify free (for students) K-14 public education. And, of course, arguments against free (for the student) K-12 education would also apply. As a side note, I also support free trade schools, and these offer a good chance of getting a decent job.
Some might claim that the reason the two-year degree seems to be the new high school degree is because education has been declining. But there is also the fact that the world has changed. While I grew up during the decline of the manufacturing economy, we are now in the information economy (even manufacturing is high tech now) and more education is needed to operate in this economy.
It could, of course, be argued that a better solution would be to improve K-12 education so that a high school degree would once again suffice for a decent job in the information economy. This would, obviously enough, lessen the need to have free two-year college. This is certainly an option worth considering.
Third, the cost of college has grown absurdly since I was a student in the 1980s. Rest assured, though, that this has not been because of increased pay for professors. This has been partially addressed by a complicated and bewildering system of financial aid and loans. However, free two-year college would certainly address this problem in a simpler way.
That said, there is a concern that this would not reduce the cost of college. As noted above, it would merely shift the cost. A case can be made that this would increase the cost of college for those who are paying for it. One can argue that schools would have less incentive to keep costs down if the state was paying the bill.
It can be argued that it would be better to focus on reducing the cost of public education in a rational way that focuses on the core mission of colleges, namely education. One reason for the increase in college tuition is the massive administrative overhead that exceeds what is needed to run a school. Unfortunately, since the administrators are the ones who make financial choices, it is unlikely that they will thin their own numbers or reduce their salaries. While state legislatures increasingly apply magnifying glasses to the academic aspects of schools, administrators seem to get less attention. Perhaps because of some interesting connections between the state legislatures and upper-level school administrators. One obvious exception is the dismantling of the administrative apparatus and jobs in what the current regime defines as DEI.
Fourth, while conservative politicians have been critical of the state “giving away free stuff” to people who are not rich, liberals have also been critical of free two-year college. While liberals tend to favor the idea of the state giving people free stuff, some have taken issue with free stuff being given to everyone. After all, the usual proposal is not to make two-year college free for those who cannot afford it, but to make it free for everyone.
It is tempting to criticize free two-year college for everyone. While it makes sense to assist those in need, it can be argued that it is unreasonable to expend resources on people who can afford college. That money could be used to, for example, help people in need pay for four-year colleges. It can also be argued that the well-off would exploit the system.
One easy and obvious reply is that the same could be said of free (for the student) K-12 education. As such, the reasons that exist for free public K-12 education (even for the well-off) would apply to a free two-year college plan.
In regard to the well-off, they can already elect to go to lower cost state schools. However, the wealthy tend to pick the more expensive schools and usually opt for four-year colleges. The right-wing elites that bash colleges tend to be graduates of elite colleges and tend to send their children to such school. As such, I suspect that there would not be an influx of rich students into two-year programs trying to “game the system.” Rather, they would tend to continue to go to the most prestigious four year schools their money can buy.
Finally, a proposal for the rich to bear the cost of “free” college, should be looked at as an investment. The rich “job creators” will benefit from having educated “job fillers.” But the rich prefer that someone else pay the cost for them, such as how companies like Wal Mart rely on the state to provide food stamps and Medicaid to keep their underpaid workers alive
It can also be argued that because the college educated tend to get better jobs which will grow the economy. Most of this growth will go to the rich. There would also be an increase in tax-revenues and although the rich are loath to pay taxes, they rely on the rest of us doing so. As such, the rich might find that an involuntary investment in education would provide an excellent return.
Overall, “free” two-year college seems to be a good idea, although one that will require proper implementation. Free four-year college funded by an “investment” by the rich is also a good idea, for the same reasons.