STANFORD ALUMNI
FOR FREE SPEECH AND
CRITICAL THINKING

 

August 3, 2026​​

​

Vanderbilt's New Declaration of First Principles Is a Model for Stanford

and All Other Schools

 

Editor’s note: We believe Vanderbilt's new "Declaration of First Principles -- The University and Its Purpose" is an extraordinarily well written statement of everything we and others have long been urging for Stanford and other colleges and universities throughout the country. We suggest that Stanford’s senior administration and Trustees shouldn’t waste time writing their own statement but should just adopt this statement exactly as written. We also suggest that the issues raised in this statement could be the centerpiece for robust discussion at Stanford's new student orientation as well as its COLLEGE and ePluribus courses. 

 

Excerpt from the preamble (Italics in the original):

 

“Emerging from a unique combination of the pre-revolutionary colleges and the Enlightenment tradition that reshaped Europe and found constitutional expression in the American founding, the modern university has stood as a bedrock institution of a free and self-governing republic -- advancing discovery and the pursuit of truth. However, the substantial decline of public trust in some of America’s preeminent institutions over the past few decades has now extended to higher education.

 

“This erosion of trust presents a defining challenge for the country. America’s universities have long stood as forums of pathbreaking research, transformative education, democratic deliberation, free expression, and transmission of our shared political and cultural heritage. They have served as essential engines of discovery, progress, and economic opportunity. Supported by government funding, private philanthropy, student and community investments, and public trust, universities have delivered breakthroughs in every domain. Through their advancement of civic thought, health, technology, economic development, and national security, America’s universities have engendered national prosperity and a highly productive, successful society. The tremendous success of this distinctively American system of research, education, and innovation has inspired respect, admiration, and attempts at imitation across the world. 

 

“To ensure this enduring success, American universities need to be firmly committed to their core purpose: the cultivation of a free and self-governing republic by the creation, preservation, and dissemination of knowledge through reason, argument, and evidence, rooted in the pursuit of truth and discovery at the frontiers of human knowledge and in a university culture of free inquiry, wide-ranging debate, and academic excellence....”

 

Followed by these topics along with specific commitments for each: 

 

• Core Purpose: Pathbreaking Research

 

Supporting Principle: Academic Freedom

Supporting Principle: Merit and Excellence

 

• Core Purpose: Transformative Education

 

Supporting Principle: Merit and Excellence

Supporting Principle: Access and Affordability 

Supporting Principle: Freedom to Teach and Learn

Supporting Principle: Free Expression, Open Forums, and Civil Discourse

 

• Core Purpose: The Covenant Between Universities and Society

 

Supporting Principle: Merit, Excellence, and Stewardship of Resources

Supporting Principle: Global Engagement and United States National Security

 

• Closing

 

A full copy of the statement is now posted at our Commentary from Others webpage and is also available here. 

​

The Higher Ed Implosion Accelerates

 

Excerpts:

 

“More than a decade ago [U Tennessee Prof.] Glenn Reynolds predicted the inevitable implosion of higher education in America, from a combination of fiscal recklessness and ideological rot. And he added that universities that did not reform themselves would find themselves in the position of having outside forces -- legislatures and governors in the case of public universities, and market forces in the case of private universities -- dictate reforms, which the universities would then scream was ‘anti-intellectual.’

 

“That moment has arrived, and is accelerating in real time.

 

“The financial aspect of this story is easiest to see, and least interesting in the long term. I’m enjoying heaping helpings of schadenfreude at the news of eminent universities such as Syracuse facing huge financial holes because of declining enrollment, and imposing staff reductions, faculty layoffs, and closing many academic programs....

 

“More significant is the trend of openly assessing the worth and probity of leading academic disciplines, with an eye to downgrading or eliminating them. ... I’ve long enjoyed pointing out Tom Sowell’s blistering question: ‘The next time some academics tell you how important ‘diversity’ is, ask how many Republicans there are in their sociology department.’..."

  

Full op-ed at Substack.

 

See also:

 

• “Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences is running a $365 million structural deficit” at Harvard Crimson (2025).

 

• “This is the third year in a row that USC ran a deficit, meaning the University ran $251 million more in operating expenses than revenue” at USC Daily Trojan (2025).

 

• “The University of Chicago cut its fiscal 2025 budget deficit by about 44% to $160 million after years of belt-tightening measures amid financial headwinds, it announced last week” at Higher Ed Dive (2025).

 

• “Stanford University will cut $140 million from its budget” at The Guardian (2025).

 

• “Yale New Haven Health reports operating loss of nearly $200 million” at Yale Daily News (February 2026).

 

• “Moody’s lowers Columbia University’s outlook to negative” at Higher Ed Dive (May 2026).

   

See also the recently updated numbers and charts at our Stanford Concerns webpage: “Stanford continues to have the highest administrative cost per student of any U.S. college or university" at $52,099 per student per year in 2024, up from $47,691 in 2023. And these costs are “solely for central administration, legal, PR, business and finance, fundraising, etc. and don't include the costs for academic support, student services, housing, food services, campus buildings and grounds" and similar items which are accounted for separately.

 

As also shown in the charts, the numbers for Stanford are double the comparable numbers for Chicago, USC, Yale, Northwestern, Duke and many other private colleges and universities and more than five times the comparable numbers for Michigan, Berkeley, UCLA and many/most other state schools.

See also our Back to Basics at Stanford webpage.

 

How Well Do College Students Know America?

 

Excerpt (link in the original):

“In the spring of 2026, [the American Council of Trustees and Alumni] surveyed over 3,000 college and university students on basic knowledge of American history and government. Our data shows that far too many students are earning college degrees without a rudimentary knowledge of the nation’s history and civic structure. This is the third of three such surveys that ACTA has conducted since 2024 and builds on a key part of ACTA’s 30-year mission to ensure that all American college students complete a course on U.S. history and government that prepares them for informed citizenship.

 

“‘The continued dismal performance of our nation’s undergraduates is a damning indictment and a sure sign that higher education has abdicated a fundamental responsibility,’ said ACTA President Michael Poliakoff. ‘Our free institutions did not last for centuries and become the envy of the world by accident; each generation is responsible for passing along and building upon what came before it. This survey once again serves as a clarion call. American students have told us loud and clear that they cannot and will not uphold and defend what they do not comprehend. Yet, as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of our great republic, American colleges and universities continue to graduate students shockingly unprepared for the demands of citizenship.’" ...

 

[Followed by details of the two entities that did the survey, ACTA and College Pulse; description of the sampling methodology that was used; samples of specific questions and the percentages of students who knew the correct answers; and then a detailed listing of each question, the multiple-choice answers that were offered for each question, and the percentages of right and wrong answers that were given to each.]

 

Full article and survey results at ACTA website. Copy of press release here.

 

What Should a College Degree Signify?

 

Excerpts:

 

“In the debate over higher education reforms, we seldom see any mention of the end product: the graduates. We argue about what we should be teaching, how much or how little time we should spend on each area, how long it should take students to finish, and to some extent what students ought to be learning, but not really about what students should actually know or be able to do once they’ve received their bachelor’s degree.

 

“Yet that, it seems to me, is the crux of the matter: What should a college education signify to potential employers, to taxpayers who are largely footing the bill, to parents and other family members who may be footing the rest of the bill, and to society at large? I believe that if we can answer that one question, it will provide -- or at least suggest -- answers to all the others.

 

“I’m going to offer my own list of what I think young people should know and be able to do after four years of college.” ... [Followed by specific suggestions.]

 

Full op-ed by Georgia State Prof. Rob Jenkins at Minding the Campus.

 

Other Articles of Interest

 

Tuition Prices Are Less Transparent Than Ever; Regulators Should Pull Back the Curtain

​

Full op-ed at American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA): “College tuition prices are out of control. Since 1983, sticker prices have increased by 914%, rising at an average rate of 5.5% a year -- far faster than any other household expense over the same period. Private four-year colleges are driving this trend, with average tuition and fees rising from $5,093 in 1983 to $43,350 in 2024.”

 

How Professor Rebecca Tuvel Survived Her Cancellation

​

Full interview at Chronicle of Higher Education: “I look back at myself pre-crisis and I see someone who was insulated from a lot of important critiques and objections. I was reading a very narrow set of views. I think I’m a better philosopher now. I was less focused on following arguments where they lead, and more focused on reaching a particular conclusion. So it’s been liberating. I’m much less concerned about how people react to me. I’m not immunized entirely, and I definitely recommend that anyone going through an online shaming should get off the damn internet.”

 

How to Depoliticize Higher Education

​

Full op-ed by Johns Hopkins Lecturer Andrew Gillen at Minding the Campus: “A political imbalance is not necessarily a problem. In some fields, such as physics or engineering, an imbalance would not be cause for concern because there is little opportunity for political bias to affect teaching or research in those fields. But fields in the social sciences and humanities offer ample opportunity for political bias to distort teaching and research.”

​

Why We Care -- Samples of Current Teaching, Research and Other Activities

at Stanford

 

Click on each article for direct access; selections are from Stanford Report and other Stanford websites.

 

How AI Is Helping States Cut Through Decades of Red Tape

 

Harnessing the Power of Fungi to Create Foods of the Future

 

A Simple Idea to Bring Clean Drinking Water to U.S. Homes at a Lower Cost

 

Treatments for Kids with Food Allergies

​

**********​​​​