We’re hearing a lot lately about a war on higher education, as the Trump administration targets colleges on multiple fronts. On a lot of campuses, though, the biggest battle is an endless feud between faculty and administrators. Professors and presidents seem to be at loggerheads over everything, including curriculum debates, online education, and academic freedom. How did we get here? And is it really as bad as it looks?

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For more on today’s episode, visit chronicle.com/collegematters. We aim to make transcripts available within a day of an episode’s publication.

If you follow higher education like we do, you know that the sector is ripe for controversy. From misused money, to smoking-gun emails, to the occasional sex scandal, colleges and universities routinely make news for all the wrong reasons. But what makes for a delicious higher-ed controversy? And what can be learned from the embarrassing failures of otherwise respectable institutions? To dig into those questions, Chronicle staffers gathered recently for a first-of-its-kind higher-education controversy draft. Who built the best roster? That’s for you to decide.

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For more on today’s episode, visit chronicle.com/collegematters. We aim to make transcripts available within a day of an episode’s publication.

Public colleges and universities across Florida have scrambled to comply with a new law that supporters see as a bulwark against the liberal indoctrination of students. The law prohibits core general-education courses that teach “identity politics” or those “based on theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States.” The law has forced colleges to scrutinize hundreds of courses in their catalogues, pressure testing whether anything they teach runs afoul of this sweeping new regulation of college curricula. Proponents of the law say it’s an overdue corrective to general-education offerings, which have ballooned on campuses across the country. But critics worry that the legislation signals a perilous encroachment on faculty control over curricula, creating political litmus tests for what students are allowed to learn in core courses.

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Guest: Emma Pettit, senior reporter at The Chronicle of Higher Education

For more on today’s episode, visit chronicle.com/collegematters. We aim to make transcripts available within a day of an episode’s publication.

When it comes to college enrollment, admissions officers and civil-rights advocates often talk about historically underrepresented groups, including Black and Latino students. But white-student enrollment has dropped 19 percent since 2018 — more than any other racial group. People in higher education often seem reluctant to talk about it.

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For more on today’s episode, visit chronicle.com/collegematters. We aim to make transcripts available within a day of an episode’s publication.

March Madness season will soon be upon us, bringing with it another grand American tradition: an annual college-sports-betting bonanza. A 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling struck down what had been a near-national ban on sports betting, ushering in a wave of legalized gambling legislation across the country. For colleges and universities, the changing sports-betting landscape brings new risks and potentially lucrative financial returns.

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Guest: John Holden, an associate professor of business law and ethics at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business

For more on today’s episode, visit chronicle.com/collegematters. We aim to make transcripts available within a day of an episode’s publication.

Chances are, you’ve met a straight-A college student. There are plenty of them around. And some people aren’t too happy about that. A new wave of “meritocracy” obsessives seem convinced that there are just too many good grades being given out. But what drives our nation’s periodic panic about grade inflation? And what does it tell us about what we want grades to mean?

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Guest: Beckie Supiano, Senior Writer at The Chronicle of Higher Education

For more on today’s episode, visit chronicle.com/collegematters. We aim to make transcripts available within a day of an episode’s publication.

With GPS tracking, “concierge moms,” and high-priced dormitory-design consultants, it’s easier than ever for college students’ parents to go overboard. But is extreme helicopter parenting as pervasive as it seems? And how much are changing cultural norms affecting the relationships parents have with their young-adult children? We asked Lisa Heffernan, co-founder of Grown and Flown, a wildly popular online resource for parents, to break down what’s really happening between parents and young college students.

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Guest: Lisa Heffernan, co-founder of Grown and Flown

For more on today’s episode, visit chronicle.com/collegematters. We aim to make transcripts available within a day of an episode’s publication.

Political opposition to diversity, equity, and inclusion programs has been building for years, but something happened last October that felt like a turning point. In a deeply reported article for The New York Times Magazine, Nicholas Confessore cast doubt on the effectiveness of one of the nation’s best-funded DEI programs. Titled “The University of Michigan Doubled Down on DEI. What Went Wrong?,” Confessore’s article added fuel to a debate over whether DEI programs are meeting their stated goals or actually making campus climates worse. In an interview with College Matters, Confessore talks about his investigation, and what it meant for The Gray Lady to take a critical view of DEI.

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Guest: Nicholas Confessore, a political and investigative reporter at The New York Times and a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine.

For more on today’s episode, visit chronicle.com/collegematters. We aim to make transcripts available within a day of an episode’s publication.

During his first weeks in office, President Donald Trump has waged war on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. But the effort to stamp out DEI on college campuses has been years in the making across state legislatures. How did DEI take hold in higher education? And what does it really mean to “ban” this kind of work? 

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Guest: Daarel Burnette II, senior editor at The Chronicle of Higher Education.

For more on today’s episode, visit chronicle.com/collegematters. We aim to make transcripts available within a day of an episode’s publication.

On the campaign trail, President Trump promised to do away with the U.S. Department of Education, leaning on a Republican mantra that the federal government meddles too much in decisions that are better left to state officials. But a very different philosophy prevailed in Washington during the presidency of Joe Biden, who embraced student-debt relief as a key priority and leaned on the education department to execute a bold — if not always successful — agenda. In an exit interview with The Chronicle, the Biden administration’s under secretary of education, James Kvaal, reflects on the department’s work, its failures, and the future of Democratic higher-ed policy.

Guest: James Kvaal, former under secretary of education

For more on today’s episode, visit chronicle.com/collegematters. We aim to make transcripts available within a day of an episode’s publication.