par Eric V.

« Manœuvre organisée par LFI et ses proxys de l'ultragauche », dit Matignon des quatre cents lycées bloqués. La France dépense 10 580 euros par an pour un collégien. À ses parents, elle accorde 61 euros de réduction d'impôt. Je propose l'inverse : l'argent aux parents, et qu'ils choisissent l'école.

Soixante et un euros. C'est ce que le fisc accorde chaque année aux parents d'un collégien, au titre des « frais de scolarité ». Cent cinquante-trois euros pour un lycéen. Encore faut-il payer l'impôt sur le revenu : 46 % des foyers seulement sont dans ce cas. Les autres n'ont rien.

La même année, la France dépense 10 580 euros pour ce collégien, et 13 200 pour un lycéen de la voie générale. L'essentiel est payé par l'État et les collectivités. Sur cette somme, ses parents ne décident de rien : ni de l'établissement, que leur adresse désigne, ni des professeurs, qu'un barème affecte, ni du programme, qu'un bureau rédige. Soixante et un euros sur 10 580 : à peine plus d'un demi pour cent. C'est la part exacte de confiance que le pays leur fait.

Gardez ces deux chiffres en tête. Ils expliquent mieux les lycées bloqués que tout ce qu'on entend depuis quinze jours.

« Une manœuvre organisée »

Le mouvement est parti le 21 septembre d'un lycée de Créteil. Dix jours plus tard, on comptait près de mille actions en une journée et environ quatre cents établissements fermés. Matignon a trouvé l'explication : une « manœuvre organisée par LFI et ses proxys de l'ultragauche ». Bruno Retailleau a renchéri : « Il y a cette jeunesse qui s'engage, qui veut éteindre le feu, et une jeunesse qui veut mettre le feu. » Philippe de Villiers, dans le Journal du Dimanche, a compté deux jeunesses lui aussi.

Éduquer, est-ce apprendre à obéir ou à innover ?

Philippe de Villiers ne voit que deux jeunesses. PISA 2025 : 458 en maths, −37 points depuis 2018. Éduquer, est-ce apprendre à obéir ou à innover ?

Entendons-nous sur les violences. Elles sont réelles, et rien ne les excuse : vingt-quatre établissements « incendiés ou saccagés », selon le ministre de l'Éducation, une centaine dégradés sévèrement, des proviseurs blessés. Mais comptez dans l'autre sens. La France a 3 700 lycées. Le ministre dénombre 735 établissements touchés par le mouvement. Restent, au bas mot, près de trois mille lycées où il ne s'est rien passé, et quelque six cents où l'on a bloqué sans dégât sérieux. Vingt-quatre sur 3 700 : moins d'un pour cent. Ce sont ceux-là qu'on nous montre depuis quinze jours, et l'on en tire le portrait d'une génération.

Que La France insoumise souffle sur les braises, je le crois volontiers, et 61 % des Français jugent qu'elle n'est pas dans son rôle. Mais souffler n'est pas allumer. Aucun parti n'a les moyens de fermer quatre cents lycées dans un pays où les élèves seraient contents d'y entrer. Le même sondage dit que 62 % des Français trouvent la mobilisation justifiée, et que les deux tiers ne se sentent proches ni de LFI ni du gouvernement.

Expliquer une colère par ceux qui l'exploitent, c'est une théorie du complot comme une autre. Elle a le même usage que les autres : elle dispense de regarder. Regardons donc.

Pour ses écoles, ses collèges et ses lycées, la France a dépensé 131,6 milliards d'euros en 2024, tous payeurs confondus. La dépense par élève du secondaire a augmenté de 70 % depuis 1980, en euros constants. Dans le même temps, les élèves français ont obtenu 458 points en mathématiques à l'enquête PISA 2025, trente-sept de moins qu'en 2018. Au collège public, une heure de cours sur dix n'est pas assurée, écrit la Cour des comptes. L'argent monte, le niveau descend, et les heures manquent.

Cet argent, où va-t-il ? L'éducation prioritaire coûte 2,6 milliards par an, deux fois et demie plus qu'en 2014. La Cour des comptes a constaté que 70 % des élèves défavorisés sont scolarisés ailleurs, et que la carte n'a pratiquement pas été revue depuis dix ans. Quant à savoir quel collège accueille quel public, le ministère le savait et le gardait pour lui. Il a fallu qu'un journaliste aille devant le tribunal administratif, en 2022, pour qu'il publie l'indice social de chaque établissement. Il refusait de crainte « qu'il ne serve d'outil au contournement de la carte scolaire ».

Reste la manière d'enseigner. Selon l'enquête TALIS de l'OCDE, 53 % des professeurs débutants jugent en France leur formation adaptée, contre 75 % en moyenne dans les pays comparables. On envoie devant des adolescents de 2026 des gens qu'on n'a pas préparés, puis l'on s'étonne.

Des moyens qui montent, des résultats qui tombent, un argent distribué à l'aveugle, des professeurs laissés seuls. Les lycéens n'ont pas eu besoin de Jean-Luc Mélenchon pour s'en apercevoir. Ils y passent leurs journées.

Ce que le ministère ne peut pas savoir

Ces trois défauts n'en font qu'un, et Friedrich Hayek lui a donné un nom en 1988 : la présomption fatale. C'est l'idée qu'un petit nombre de gens instruits, réunis dans un bureau, en savent assez pour organiser la vie de millions d'autres mieux que ceux-ci ne le feraient eux-mêmes.

Hayek ne dit pas que ces gens sont sots. Il dit qu'ils ne peuvent pas savoir. Ce qu'il faut connaître pour éduquer un enfant n'est écrit nulle part : que celui-ci s'ennuie et que celui-là se noie, que ce professeur de mathématiques est remarquable et que cet autre est absent depuis novembre, que dans ce quartier il manque un lycée professionnel et dans ce bourg une classe bilingue. Cette connaissance existe. Elle est dans la tête des parents, des élèves, des professeurs, d'un proviseur. Elle ne remonte dans aucun tableau de la rue de Grenelle, ou alors dix ans trop tard : voyez la carte de l'éducation prioritaire.

Relisez maintenant l'affaire de l'indice social. Le ministère détenait une information utile aux familles, et il l'a cachée pour qu'elles ne s'en servent pas. Tout y est. L'administration ne se contente pas d'ignorer ce que savent les parents. Elle leur retire ce qu'elle sait, de peur qu'ils choisissent.

À le bien regarder, nous avons bâti l'école sur une hypothèse que personne n'oserait écrire : un rédacteur de circulaire connaîtrait mieux votre fils que vous. Sept ministres se sont succédé rue de Grenelle depuis mai 2022. Chacun est arrivé avec sa réforme, et aucun n'a touché à la règle du jeu, puisque la règle du jeu est justement qu'on décide d'en haut. On ne corrige pas une présomption en changeant le présomptueux.

L'autre voie, Hayek l'appelait l'ordre spontané : laisser décider ceux qui savent, et laisser l'offre se former autour de leurs décisions. Des écoles qui ouvrent parce que des familles en veulent. Des écoles qui ferment parce qu'elles n'en veulent plus. Personne ne l'a planifié, et c'est pour cela que ça s'ajuste.

L'argent suit l'enfant

Tout repose sur un constat d'une grande banalité : dans leur immense majorité, les parents veulent le bien de leur enfant. Pas tous, pas toujours avec discernement, mais plus sûrement et plus obstinément qu'aucune administration. Un recteur change de poste ; un père reste père.

Ils savent d'ailleurs très bien ce qui ne va pas. Interrogés par l'Ifop pour le Comité national d'action laïque, qui défend l'école publique, 93 % des parents jugent urgent d'y améliorer la sécurité et la discipline, et 88 % la qualité de l'enseignement. On ne leur demande pas leur avis. On leur attribue une adresse.

Le chèque scolaire retourne le circuit. Aujourd'hui l'État finance des établissements et y affecte des enfants. Demain il financerait des enfants, et les établissements viendraient les chercher.

Concrètement : on cesse de subventionner les écoles, et chaque famille reçoit pour chaque enfant un crédit d'impôt égal à la subvention moyenne par élève de l'année scolaire concernée. Un crédit d'impôt, et non une réduction comme les 61 euros d'aujourd'hui : ceux qui ne paient pas l'impôt sur le revenu, plus d'un foyer sur deux, le touchent quand même, et pour la même somme. Fléché, bien entendu : il ne règle qu'une inscription, dans l'école publique ou privée que les parents ont choisie. Et versé directement à l'établissement, comme l'Urssaf avance déjà le crédit d'impôt des emplois à domicile, pour que personne n'ait à sortir une pareille somme de sa poche.

Ce n'est pas une rêverie. La Suède le pratique depuis 1992 : la commune verse la même somme par élève à l'école municipale et à l'école indépendante, celle-ci est gratuite et ouverte à tous, et près d'un lycéen sur trois y est aujourd'hui inscrit. Les Pays-Bas financent à égalité écoles publiques et écoles privées depuis 1917, et les trois quarts des élèves y fréquentent une école privée.

Ce que le chèque ne règle pas

Je ne vends pas un remède miracle. La Suède se dispute depuis des années sur ses écoles indépendantes : notes gonflées pour attirer les familles, élèves qui se regroupent par milieu, et une partie de la presse française y voit un « anti-modèle ». Les syndicats d'enseignants objectent que l'école privée choisit ses élèves quand l'école publique les prend tous, et que le chèque ferait de celle-ci l'école de ceux dont personne ne veut. Ils désignent ainsi la règle qu'il faut écrire : une école qui encaisse le chèque ne trie pas à l'entrée.

Reste le supplément qu'elle pourrait réclamer en plus du chèque. La question se dispute. La Suède l'interdit. On peut aussi l'admettre, à condition que l'État ajoute au chèque des enfants pauvres une subvention de discrimination positive, pour que le prix ne leur ferme aucune porte. Les 2,6 milliards de l'éducation prioritaire, qui manquent aujourd'hui sept élèves défavorisés sur dix, suivraient alors l'enfant et non la carte.

Il y a aussi ce que le chèque ne peut pas faire. Dans un bourg qui n'a qu'une école, le choix reste sur le papier, au moins les premières années. Un parent qui ne s'occupe pas de son enfant ne s'en occupera pas davantage avec un crédit d'impôt, et pour celui-là l'État garde tout son rôle : l'obligation scolaire, l'inspection, l'examen national qui dit ce que l'élève sait. Et l'opinion n'est pas acquise. Dans le sondage que je citais, 60 % des parents voudraient que le privé soit payé par les seules familles. J'imagine qu'ils répondraient autrement si le chèque était dans leur poche et non dans celle du voisin. Je n'en ai pas la preuve.

Mais regardez ce qu'il change, et qu'aucune réforme n'a changé. Aujourd'hui, un collège où une heure sur dix n'est pas assurée ne perd pas un euro. Les familles n'ont aucun moyen de le lui faire savoir, sinon déménager ou payer deux fois, l'impôt puis l'école privée. Avec le chèque, l'établissement que les parents quittent perd ses moyens, celui qu'ils demandent en gagne, et le ministère l'apprend le jour même, sans rapport de la Cour des comptes, sans tribunal administratif, sans blocus.

L'information que la rue de Grenelle cachait aux parents devient ce qui fait tourner la machine. C'est en cela que la réforme est structurelle. Elle ne demande pas à l'Éducation nationale de se corriger, ce qu'elle ne sait pas faire. Elle change la main qui tient le carnet de chèques.

Dernier mot

Reste nous. Le chèque scolaire a un prix que ses partisans annoncent rarement : il nous retire une excuse. Depuis quarante ans, nous confions nos enfants à l'État, nous nous plaignons de ce qu'il en fait, et nous votons pour celui qui promet des moyens. C'est confortable. Le jour où l'argent est dans notre main, il faut visiter, comparer, se tromper, changer, et ne plus pouvoir dire que c'est la faute du ministre. Je ne suis pas certain que nous en ayons tous envie.

Les lycéens de Créteil demandent des professeurs et des salles qui tiennent debout. On leur répond Mélenchon. On pourrait leur répondre ceci : plus de 13 000 euros sont dépensés chaque année au nom de chacun de vous, et ni vous ni vos parents n'avez votre mot à dire sur un seul.

Soixante et un euros de confiance sur 10 580, pour les parents d'un collégien. Commençons par inverser la proportion.

At dawn on Monday, October 5, Israeli forces destroyed the martyrs’ memorial at Birzeit University. 

Basil Farraj, an assistant professor of philosophy and cultural studies at Birzeit University, told BreakThrough News that the Israeli forces came to the campus around a week ago to capture photos of the memorial, sparking suspicions that they may attempt to destroy it.

Farraj suggests that the removal of the memorial came as part of Israel’s broader efforts to erase the Palestinian people’s collective memory and entrench cultural, social, and political hegemony over them, specifically at Birzeit University, due to its pioneering role in the Palestinian struggle against occupation. 

“The assault on the memorial constitutes a cowardly attempt that will never defeat the resilience of the Palestinian collective memory. It also reflects the failure of the Zionist project in the face of the Palestinian people’s struggle,” he emphasized.

Meanwhile, the Right to Education Campaign issued a statement, condemning the offensive, and clarifying that it was carried out on the first day of the new academic year.

“The destruction of a memorial to student martyrs is an assault on our collective memory, and our right to remember, preserve our history, and honour those who are part of Birzeit’s story,” the statement reads.

“This attack comes within a broader pattern of scholasticide on Palestinian universities and the systematic disruption of academic life,” it continued.

The campaign urged “universities, academics, students, human rights organizations, and governments worldwide to demand accountability, protect Palestinian educational institutions, and take concrete action to defend the right to education and academic freedom.”

The university as a target

In recent years, the Israeli forces have intensified their crackdown campaign on Palestinian universities across the occupied West Bank. There has been a particular focus on Birzeit University in northern Ramallah due to its pioneering role in the Palestinian prolonged struggle against the occupation. 

Not only have prominent scientists, political leaders, artists, and journalists graduate from the renowned Palestinian institution, but it has also long been called the “University of Martyrs” because dozens of its students and graduates have been killed at the hands of the Israeli military. 

Countless students have been arrested and the university campus has faced frequent military raids since 2002.

Read more: IOF abducts four Birzeit University female students at dawn

Par Eric V.

Philippe de Villiers ne voit que deux jeunesses : celle qui brûle des cierges et celle qui brûle les écoles. Restent les trois mille six cents lycées qui n'ont fait ni l'un ni l'autre.

Il a dit : « Oui, il y a deux jeunesses. Celle qui brûle des cierges et celle qui brûle les écoles. »

C'est propre, c'est rythmé, et c'est vide. Philippe de Villiers a accordé cet entretien au Journal du Dimanche le 3 octobre, en pleine vague de blocus lycéens. La France comptait alors environ quatre cents établissements fermés ou perturbés sur quatre mille, et les interpellations se comptaient en milliers depuis le 21 septembre. Devant cela, un homme d'expérience propose une clef à deux dents. Il ajoute « l'irruption de hordes barbares encagoulées », et convoque Hannah Arendt pour expliquer que chaque génération nouvelle est une invasion barbare qu'il convient de civiliser.

Reste à savoir où l'on range les trois mille six cents lycées où l'on n'a rien brûlé, et où l'on ne brûle pas non plus de cierges.

Contestation étudiante : la dangereuse stratégie de la répression

600 interpellations avant midi, 40 proviseurs blessés, et deux explications gouvernementales incompatibles en 24 heures. Devaquet, le CIP, le CPE : la leçon.

Deux jeunesses, et aucune place pour la troisième

Le partage en deux a un charme : il dispense d'enquêter. D'un côté la ferveur, de l'autre la désespérance, et entre les deux rien — ni l'élève qui s'ennuie, ni celui qui travaille sans croire, ni celui qui code la nuit, ni celui qui monte une affaire à dix-neuf ans sans avoir jamais mis les pieds dans une église ni devant une poubelle en feu. La très grande majorité des jeunes Français ne figure dans aucune des deux cases. Une typologie qui laisse dehors presque tout son objet n'est pas une analyse : c'est une névrose maniaque déguisée en sociologie.

Et elle a un coût politique immédiat. Si la jeunesse se réduit à deux camps, l'éducation se réduit à un tri : récupérer les uns, contenir les autres. On n'éduque plus, on affecte. C'est le geste exact que ce journal reproche à l'État quand il range les gens par catégories de guichet ; il n'est pas plus recommandable sous une plume conservatrice que sous un tampon.

Admettons que la formule n'ait été qu'une formule. Reste le remède. Philippe de Villiers a conçu en 1977 un spectacle nocturne, joué pour la première fois en juin 1978, où des milliers de bénévoles rejouent chaque été l'histoire de la Vendée — deux mille six cents acteurs, quatre cent mille spectateurs par saison. Réussite considérable, que je ne lui dispute pas. Et, très exactement, un passé mis en scène par ceux qui l'ont perdu.

La question qu'on a le droit de lui poser n'est donc pas celle de ses intentions, qui ne m'appartiennent pas. C'est celle de son programme : que propose-t-il, concrètement, à un garçon de quinze ans de Créteil en 2026 ? S'enraciner où, dans quoi, pour y faire quoi ? Un pays peut se relever. Un pays peut aussi se visiter. Les deux demandent du talent et de l'argent, et ce ne sont pas les mêmes métiers.

Ce que l'école française n'a jamais su faire

Avant de décider si l'éducation doit conserver, regardons ce qu'elle conserve en ce moment. La note de la DEPP publiée en septembre livre les résultats de PISA 2025 : la France obtient 458 points en mathématiques pour une moyenne de 463 dans l'OCDE, et 456 en compréhension de l'écrit pour une moyenne de 461. Par rapport à 2018, la chute atteint trente-sept points dans les deux disciplines — à peu près une année de scolarité évaporée en sept ans.

Retenez le détail qui suit, parce qu'il démolit un argument qu'on va me servir dans dix lignes. Dans la même enquête, la France obtient 497 points en résolution informatique de problèmes, pour une moyenne de 500. L'effondrement français est donc concentré sur les deux disciplines les plus anciennes, les plus codifiées, les plus traditionnellement enseignées du programme. Là où l'élève doit chercher, essayer, se tromper et recommencer devant une machine, il tient la moyenne. Là où il doit restituer, il décroche.

On me dira que c'est le numérique qui a creusé le trou, et l'on me citera Michel Desmurget, dont La fabrique du crétin digital a documenté en 2019 les dégâts des écrans sur les enfants — formule que Philippe de Villiers reprend à son compte dans l'entretien, sans nommer son auteur. L'objection est sérieuse, et sur son terrain, la consommation passive d'images par de très jeunes enfants, elle n'a jamais été réfutée. Seulement elle ne dit rien de notre sujet. Entre subir un écran seul dans sa chambre et résoudre un problème à plusieurs sur un réseau, il y a l'écart qui sépare regarder un match et le jouer. Et les chiffres de PISA ne désignent pas le clavier : ils désignent la dictée et le théorème.

Si l'école française échoue à produire de l'invention, ce n'est donc pas qu'elle ait cédé à la modernité. C'est qu'elle n'a jamais été bâtie pour ça. Le lycée est une création de 1802, le baccalauréat de 1808, et l'un et l'autre répondaient à un besoin précis : fournir à l'État des cadres capables de restituer un corpus avec élégance. Le concours, la dissertation, la culture générale, la hiérarchie des disciplines nobles et des disciplines utiles — tout cet appareil procède d'un idéal du dix-huitième siècle, celui de l'honnête homme, que la bourgeoisie du dix-neuvième a hérité de l'aristocratie et conservé avec une piété de légataire.

Or cet idéal porte en lui un mépris, et il faut le nommer puisque personne ne le fait : le mépris du commerce, du risque, de la main, de l'essai raté. Dans la hiérarchie française des réussites, celui qui a composé brillamment à vingt ans garde un avantage sur celui qui a créé quelque chose à trente. Nous avons bâti un système qui récompense la restitution et punit l'erreur, puis nous nous étonnons qu'il produise des gens prudents.

La preuve par l'autre bout : interrogés par PISA en 2022 sur la pensée créative, les élèves français obtiennent 32,4 points pour une moyenne de 32,7 dans l'OCDE. Le pays qui se raconte comme celui de l'esprit et de la finesse se situe, en matière d'invention mesurée, dans la moyenne des trente.

La mutation ne réclame pas d'autres savoirs, elle réclame d'autres gestes

Ce qui change avec Internet, le travail en réseau et maintenant les modèles de langage, ce n'est pas la quantité de connaissances disponibles : c'est leur prix. Une information qui demandait trois heures de bibliothèque s'obtient en trois secondes ; une synthèse qui demandait une semaine s'écrit en une minute. Dans un monde où la réponse est gratuite, la valeur migre vers la question. Et vers tout ce que la machine ne fait pas : décider quoi chercher, juger ce qu'on a trouvé, travailler avec des gens qu'on n'a pas choisis, risquer une proposition que personne n'a validée.

Aucune de ces quatre compétences n'est évaluée par le système français ; elles y sont structurellement désavantagées. La scolarité française est verticale — un adulte parle, trente élèves prennent note — et solitaire : la note sanctionne un individu, la coopération s'appelle triche, l'originalité se paie d'un commentaire en marge. On apprend à l'élève que la bonne réponse préexiste à sa recherche, et qu'il s'agit de la retrouver. Excellente préparation à l'administration d'un pays stable. Préparation catastrophique à un monde qui bouge.

Faut dire que nous avons, dans cette affaire, la fierté qu'il ne faudrait pas. Nous admirons cette verticalité comme une rigueur, quand elle est d'abord une économie : une restitution se corrige au barème, une invention exige un jugement — donc des professeurs formés, nombreux, payés pour penser. Notre amour de la tradition scolaire est souvent, à le bien regarder, de la radinerie habillée en exigence.

La règle n'est pas l'ennemie de l'invention, elle en est la condition

Qu'on ne se méprenne pas : rien, dans ces lignes, ne plaide pour une école sans règles, sans effort et sans transmission. L'idée qu'il faudrait choisir entre la discipline et la créativité est une sottise — et une sottise que partagent, symétriquement, le pédagogue qui veut libérer l'enfant et le conservateur qui veut le dresser. Les deux croient que l'ordre vient du dehors. Ils ne discutent que de la dose.

Les modèles de personnalité dont la psychologie dispose depuis quarante ans — OCEAN, et sa version à six facteurs, HEXACO — permettent d'être précis. Le trait qui prédit le mieux la réussite scolaire et professionnelle n'est pas l'intelligence mesurée, c'est la conscienciosité : tenir un engagement, différer une satisfaction, organiser un travail long, revenir sur un ouvrage raté. Le trait qui prédit le mieux la production créative est un autre, l'ouverture à l'expérience. Et le point qui règle notre débat est celui-ci : ces deux dimensions sont indépendantes. On ne gagne pas l'une en cédant l'autre. Un individu peut être les deux, et les créateurs qui durent le sont presque toujours.

Ce que cela veut dire pour une école est simple, et très exigeant. Un enfant à qui l'on n'a pas appris à tenir une promesse, à finir ce qu'il a commencé, à supporter l'ennui d'un exercice et la honte d'une erreur n'innovera rien : il aura des idées, ce qui ne coûte rien, et il ne les mènera nulle part. L'invention n'est pas l'absence de méthode, c'est une méthode appliquée à l'inconnu. Un laboratoire est l'endroit le plus réglé du monde. Un atelier de peintre aussi.

Alors oui : il faut des horaires, des devoirs faits, des exigences non négociées et des adultes qui ne tremblent pas. Sur ce point, et sur celui-là seulement, les conservateurs ont raison contre trente ans de démagogie scolaire, et il serait malhonnête de ne pas l'écrire.

Dernier mot

Reste la question décisive, celle que le partage en deux jeunesses sert justement à ne pas poser : cet ordre, qui le détient ?

Philippe de Villiers cite Arendt. Allons y voir. Le texte dont la phrase est tirée, La crise de l'éducation, dit bien que « le conservatisme, pris au sens de conservation, est l'essence même de l'éducation ». Mais il dit pourquoi, et c'est là que le raisonnement se retourne : « c'est justement, pour préserver ce qui est neuf et révolutionnaire dans chaque enfant que l'éducation doit être conservatrice ». La tâche est double, et réversible : protéger « l'enfant contre le monde, le monde contre l'enfant ». Et le même texte ajoute que cette attitude conservatrice, transportée du terrain de l'éducation à celui de la politique, « ne peut mener qu'à la destruction ».

On ne peut pas faire plus exactement l'inverse de ce qu'on invoque. Arendt conserve pour libérer le neuf ; on nous propose de conserver pour l'éteindre. Elle interdit de porter ce conservatisme en politique ; c'est précisément là qu'on le porte. La citation a été prise pour son autorité, non pour son contenu — définition d'un argument décoratif.

Car un ordre extérieur produit deux résultats, et nous les avons tous les deux sous les yeux. L'obéissance tant qu'on regarde — et nous sommes devenus experts en surveillance, de la caméra au contrôle continu. Et, dès qu'on détourne les yeux, la poubelle en feu devant le portail. Un adolescent qui ne tient à l'ordre que par crainte de la sanction n'a pas appris la discipline : il a appris le rapport de force, et il attend son tour.

L'ordre qui tient est celui qu'on s'est donné. Tout l'écart est là, entre un homme formé et un homme tenu. Et c'est pourquoi aucun pouvoir n'a jamais eu d'intérêt spontané à produire le premier : un adulte qui porte sa règle en lui-même ne requiert ni tutelle, ni guichet, ni surveillance, et il ne vote pas par reconnaissance.

Je nous mets tous dans le lot, et moi avec. Nous avons réclamé de l'école qu'elle produise de la conformité, parce que la conformité nous arrange : elle est calme, elle est lisible, elle ne nous oblige à rien. Nous avons appelé cela la transmission. Un enfant obéissant est un enfant commode, et nous avons confondu notre confort avec son éducation pendant deux siècles — en laissant trente-sept points de lecture et de mathématiques sur le trottoir.

Éduquer n'est donc pas apprendre à obéir, et ce n'est pas davantage apprendre à innover. C'est apprendre à s'obéir à soi-même, pour pouvoir changer le reste.

Between 400 and 500 French secondary schools are expected to suspend lessons fully or partially on Monday, 5 October, as nationwide student protests continue following several days of violence, arrests and damage to educational buildings.

French Education Minister Édouard Geffray said on Sunday that the number of affected lycées was likely to be broadly similar to Friday, when between 400 and 500 establishments suspended classes.

“There will probably be just as many on Monday, but with a partial, progressive resumption of classes,” Geffray said during interviews with France 2 and France Inter.

France has around 3,700 lycées. The government says classes are being suspended where normal security conditions cannot be guaranteed, including schools damaged during the unrest or where staff have been directly targeted. French reporting on the education ministry’s latest figures said Geffray expected disruption on a similar scale to Friday.

The closures mark the latest stage in a protest movement which began in the Paris region in September before spreading to cities across France.

Students initially mobilised over conditions in the education system, including shortages of teachers and replacement staff, overcrowded classrooms, deteriorating school buildings and demanding timetables. Pressure surrounding the Parcoursup university admissions system has also featured prominently in the demonstrations. Accounts from pupils involved in the blockades have highlighted frustration over conditions in schools and wider concerns about educational inequality.

As EU Today reported on 3 October, the protests have since developed into a broader confrontation involving students, education staff, police and political activists.

Geffray said on Sunday that 24 educational establishments had been “burned or vandalised” since the unrest intensified. He also said 78 employees of the national education system had been injured.

The minister has accused organised far-left activists of infiltrating the student demonstrations and contributing to the escalation of violence.

According to the government, some education staff have been deliberately attacked because of their position within the school system. Geffray said schools would remain closed or operate only partially in cases where staff or pupils could not be adequately protected.

The political argument over responsibility for the unrest has intensified alongside the protests. Government ministers have accused activists connected with the hard-left La France Insoumise of encouraging blockades and helping to broaden the mobilisation. LFI representatives have rejected accusations that they are responsible for the violence and have continued to support the students’ underlying demands. The dispute over the political role in the protests has become part of the wider confrontation between the government and the demonstrators.

Friday brought another large-scale police operation.

Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said 1,747 people were detained during the day, compared with 1,954 on Thursday, taking the number of arrests since the beginning of last week to more than 5,000. Authorities said around 85 per cent of those detained were minors.

Of 735 schools affected by demonstrations or disruption on Friday, “urban violence” was recorded near 158, according to the Interior Ministry. The latest official arrest figures underline the scale of the police response.

The violence has increasingly complicated attempts by student organisations to maintain the focus on their original education demands.

Representatives of student organisations met Geffray on Friday but said afterwards that they had received no sufficiently concrete commitments from the government. They called for the mobilisation to continue and announced a new nationwide day of action, described as “Act III”, for Tuesday, 6 October.

Several education trade unions are also expected to participate in Tuesday’s action. Regional reporting on preparations for Monday and Tuesday said schools were preparing for continued disruption.

The government has already made one concession. A proposed measure that would have introduced registration fees of €178 for non-grant students entering BTS vocational programmes and €270 for preparatory classes for France’s grandes écoles was withdrawn as the demonstrations intensified. The withdrawal was announced as hundreds of schools were being affected by blockades.

The protests nevertheless show little sign of ending.

Many students continue to argue that their schools lack adequate staff and investment, while teachers and parents have raised similar concerns over replacement teachers and the condition of buildings.

At the same time, the scale of the damage and the number of injuries have moved security to the centre of the government’s response.

Monday will therefore provide an early indication of whether schools can begin returning to normal before Tuesday’s planned national mobilisation, or whether the disruption that affected hundreds of establishments last week will continue into a third week.

Cornell's president pledged greater transparency amid mounting outrage over the school's handling of the case, calling the alleged gang rape "deeply disturbing."

Cornell's president pledged greater transparency amid mounting outrage over the school's handling of the case, calling the alleged gang rape "deeply disturbing."

Goal of 2 million degreed or certified NC young people by 2030 banks on innovative community college programs including at many rural schools.

With worker shortage looming, NC pins hopes on community college initiatives is a story from Carolina Public Press, an award-winning independent newsroom. Our breakthrough journalism shines a light on the critical overlooked and under-reported issues facing North Carolina’s more than 11 million residents. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

---

Clay tablets containing cuneiform exercises reveal how students in ancient Babylonia studied the gods, temples, and religious customs, reports Phys.org—based on a study published in the journal *Iraq*. Research by Shana Zaia of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam shows that religious knowledge was not taught as a separate subject. Instead, it was part of the general education […]

After being abducted by plainclothes ICE agents from his New York apartment building in March of 2025 and locked away in immigration jail for 104 days, Mahmoud Khalil has been freed and reunited with his family. But Khalil, a former Columbia University graduate student who was heavily involved in the student-led justice for Palestine movement, is still being targeted by the Trump administration and still faces the possibility of deportation. In this exclusive interview, TRNN Editor-in-Chief Maximillian Alvarez sits down with Khalil to speak about his new book, “No Land to Stand On,” and his continuing fight for freedom and justice.

Credits:

• Post-Production: David Hebden

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
Maximillian Alvarez:

I’m here at the Parkway Theater and I’m sitting with Mahmoud Khalil, freed political prisoner and former Columbia graduate student who was heavily involved in the student-led Justice for Palestine movement and who because of that was abducted by plainclothes ICE agents from his New York apartment building in March of 2025 and locked away in immigration jail for 104 days. But he’s here with us now. Brother Mahmoud, welcome home, man.

Mahmoud Khalil:

Thank you for having me, Max. Thank you so much.

Maximillian Alvarez:

It’s such an honor to be here with you in person. I don’t even know how you begin to answer this question, but I can’t begin without asking it. How are you and your family doing after enduring this horrific nightmare that is sadly still not over?

Mahmoud Khalil:

We’re doing all right and we’re taking it day by day, really sort of surviving under the threat of deportation at any second or worse than that, whatever this government may decide to do at any point. But our fear is part of the fear of so many families in this country who are now worried about sending their children to school. We are in September now and I know a lot of kids are worried about going to school because they’re either undocumented or their parents are undocumented. I’m thinking about just the families in Minnesota and in New York and in Texas who are now under the threat of being really deportation by this or ripping them apart. It’s not only deportation. Haitians

Maximillian Alvarez:

In

Mahmoud Khalil:

Ohio,

Maximillian Alvarez:

Latinos in

Mahmoud Khalil:

Southern California. Anyone who this administration sees as the other or sees as a threat to whatever plans they have. So in that bigger scheme of things also, at least I know my son will be fed tonight. There wouldn’t be a bomb being thrown on our house as happening in Gaza right now as we are speaking. So in the bigger scheme of things, we’re grateful. We’re grateful for the community that’s supporting us.That’s what’s keeping us going forward right now is just the level of support, the level of solidarity, the community that was built around us because of what this government has imposed on me and my family.

Maximillian Alvarez:

I didn’t plan to ask this, but as a father as well, I have to. What was it like to hold your kid that first time?

Mahmoud Khalil:

I don’t think anyone can describe that feeling. It’s just the first time I held Dean was in detention in a courtroom, in an immigration courtroom where verdicts of deportations happen, like rain daily in these rooms. So it was a little bit weird that I was able to reunite with my family in a place where families are being torn apart. But at the same time I felt victorious because that’s a moment that this government tried to steal from me. Although it was only for one hour, but felt the world to me. And of course now being with Dean, a lot of people ask me, “What gives you purpose?” And just seeing Dean and dreaming of a world where he can live in dignity and safety, inequality, just like anyone else, as an American citizen who has the same rights and responsibility as any other American citizen, regardless of his background, regardless of the ethnicity, regardless of anything, really it’s just like being a human.

Maximillian Alvarez:

And how could you not look at your kids and our children and not fight? We’re going to give this world over. We’re going to give their future over to these psychopaths, to these fascists, to these fanatical nut jobs? Of course not.That’s just not an option. But it’s really hard to put that into action on a day-to-day level when we’re being bombarded by so much terror and awfulness. I interviewed members of your former graduate student union at Columbia after you were taken. I’ve interviewed members of my former grad student union in Michigan where activists are having their homes raided by the FBI. I mean, students, community members, workers, people all over this country who are terrified to fight back or do anything because of what happened to you. But you continue to speak out. You wrote this book, No Land to Stand On. You’re here in Baltimore to speak to folks.

What do you and this book have to say to all of us out there about confronting that fear and not living in fear?

Mahmoud Khalil:

I think the fear is very real and I would be lying if I said I don’t have fear about myself, about my children, about my family. But courage is not the absence of fear. It is actually acting despite the fear. I would be lying if I said, “Oh, I’m not afraid.” Or when you are dealing with such injustice and as you’ve mentioned, just these fascist tactics and the way that they dehumanize us, whether as immigrants or whether as Palestinians or just as someone who does not agree with what this government is doing. So to take you back, I think a day after my release, I decided to go to a protest. And I usually am not that protest guy, although I was very heavily involved in the Columbia movement, but I decided to go mainly to give a message that despite all this violence inflicted upon me from the government, from the university, from the institutions and the establishment in this country, I refuse to be silent.

And now my book is out because the government tried to silence me. Or in essence, they tried to make an example out of me so you and others wouldn’t speak out. But to me, this book is a testament that I refuse to be silent. Now the government gave me a platform and they would take it with a grace and responsibility that I should take this platform to advocate for those who don’t have voices. At any moment now there’s over 70,000 immigrant in ICE detention. At every second, there’s at least 70,000 immigrants in detention. That we know

Maximillian Alvarez:

Of. Now they’re like, we don’t even know if they’re keeping proper track.

Mahmoud Khalil:

Exactly. I don’t know how many went through the administrative errors that this administration every now and then does. So really this administration tried to silence me and I refuse to be silent. And that’s why I want to give people not hope, but at least some sort of despite all this violence, you can still speak out because what we’re dealing with right now is this administration, they are bullies and what our parents teach us when a bully come to bully you, you should not – Stand up, baby. Exactly. So that’s what I’m doing right now. And part of my fight is not about staying in the US. It’s more around what happened to me is wrong and shouldn’t happen to anyone else. Even if I win my case tomorrow, I may decide to leave the day after, but that’s totally besides the main point, which is what’s happening is wrong and should be confronted.

Maximillian Alvarez:

Well, I want to end on that note because ever since you were taken, one of the reasons that people found so much hope in your story was that you continued to use your voice to advocate for others who were locked away in immigration jail, people who couldn’t speak English, people who didn’t have access to lawyers and who could get contact with the outside world. And that meant so much to so many. And of course you ended up in that jail because you were speaking out and speaking up along with millions around the country and around the world against a genocide in Palestine funded by our tax dollars. So here we are in 2026 and I’m not going to say it doesn’t feel like we’re losing everything and that it was all for naught, but I know a lot of our viewers can feel that way when they look at what’s happening to the ruins of Gaza and to the continual onslaught to erase that people from that land while back home they’re using the same tech to disappear our neighbors and family members.

So how do you put all of this in perspective and how do we continue to fight even when it feels like all is lost?

Mahmoud Khalil:

I think hope and resistance is our only option right now because this administration wants us to feel defeated, want us to feel that nothing is working. And the moment that we succumb to that feeling is the moment that they win because even if we remain silent, because I know people who were targeted and remain silent, the administration did not stop going after them because their mere existence was a problem to this administration. And that’s why I’m hopeful because I don’t have any other option. And the fact that the president of the United States came after an unknown student speaks a lot to the successes of our movement because it was impactful. It was actually changing things on the ground. It was changing public opinion in droves. That’s why the president of the United States felt the need to go after a random student to make an example out of him so that others would fear speaking out.

And that’s I think my only message in terms of why we should be hopeful because the change doesn’t happen in a day and night. It is the persistence. It is the continued resistance against all odds when you see that nothing is happening, but you continue because you believe in that. And that’s the thing as Palestinians, why we continue resisting despite everything all odds against us is that we are righteous. We know that human beings, regardless of their faith and nationality, they can see that in us and they would support us. So that’s why we have a strong belief in our cause that it’s a righteous cause. We don’t need millions and billions of dollars to convince public opinion about the righteousness of our cause or not. It’s just like we need to present it and that’s it. And that’s what they are fearing right now.

That’s why you see the establishment in this country is scrambling to control the media, to buy TikTok and to buy CNN and all of these just because we are actually winning and they know they will not be able to stop us. That’s why they’re bringing these all new tactics about, in my case, they’re weaponizing the immigration law from 1952. And in other cases they’re bringing all these alien laws.

Maximillian Alvarez:

They’re

Mahmoud Khalil:

Reaching back to laws from centuries ago. Yeah, 1800 something because they’re looking for tools because we’re actually winning and the public is with us. But also with immigrants, an average American sees that an immigrant is a benefit to this country, whether it is through the work that they do, whether through the diversity they bring. And this country was built upon, I mean recently, I don’t want to stoke about the enslaved people and how this country was built on their shoulders, but recently also immigrants were part of this.

Maximillian Alvarez:

You and I wouldn’t be sitting here if that wasn’t true.

Mahmoud Khalil:

Absolutely. And we absolutely must be conscious of that. And that’s the other thing about why I’m writing the book now, not in five years, because this is urgent. A lot of people ask me, “How would you look at this moment in 20 years?” I don’t want to look at it in 20 years. I want to do what I can do right now to stop it because what’s happening right now is a stain on the constitution, is a stain on the American consciousness, is a stain on every human value that we stand or we say we stand for. And I don’t want to look in 20 years and say, “Oh, we should have done something because it’s happening now in our backyards. An ICE detention center is at least 30 minutes from any one of us right now. If you drive 30 minutes, you would find an ICE detention center.

There’s one

Maximillian Alvarez:

Five minutes that way. Thank you so much, bro.

Mahmoud Khalil:

No, thank you so much,

Maximillian Alvarez:

Max.

Mahmoud Khalil:

Appreciate it, man.

💾

The European Parliament’s culture committee on Tuesday (29 September) agreed to boost the flagship Erasmus+ student exchange programme by €7bn in 2028-2034 linked to rule-of-law conditions, even as so-called frugal countries seek to cut overall funding. 

MEPs backed in April to increase the European Commission’s original proposal from €40bn to €47bn as part of a interim report on the EU’s long-term budget (MFF).

On Tuesday, they also said funds should be linked to respect for the rule of law and transparency standards – a clear reference to the situation facing Hungarian universities in the past, which were unable to participate in Erasmus+ during the illiberal rule of former prime minister Viktor Orbán. 

Candidate countries, such as Ukraine and Moldova, may be able to participate in the next Erasmus+ in the coming cycle, provided they met “certain conditions,” Polish centre-right and lead MEP on the file, Bogdan Zdrojewski, said during a press conference in Brussels.

The UK and Switzerland are also set to rejoin the programme already in 2027.

And Canada might be able to participate too, Zdrojewski said, should it gain an associate EU membership – an unclear status presented by EU commission president Ursula von der Leyen during her State of the Union speech on 11 September and welcomed by Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney.

Around 17m participants have taken part in Erasmus+ since it was launched 39 years ago, in what is widely considered one of the most popular EU integration projects.

An estimated one million babies have also been born from couples who have met during their exchange. 

The committee boost comes amid long-term EU budget talks for the next seven years, in which frugal states such as Germany and the Netherlands want to pay in less than in the past, but Zdrojewski was “feeling optimistic” about getting through the proposed Erasmus budget increase. 

He said he counted on EU capitals to defend the programme in future negotiations.

MEPs want to make Erasmus+ more inclusive, highlighting special programmes for adult learners and students in informal education programmes.

They also aimed to set a 20 percent quota for participants with underpriviliged access to career and educational opportunities.

To make Erasmus+ easier to manage, they proposed dividing the funding between different areas: education and training (74 percent), youth and volunteering (15 percent), and sport (four percent).

The committee report will now be voted on by the EU Parliament plenary, although it is still unclear when, when it becomes part of MEPs’ formal basis for negotiations with EU capitals.

This article was updated on 30 September 2026 to make clear that the €47.39bn figure was first set out in Parliament’s interim report on the MFF, adopted in April. Tuesday’s committee vote incorporates that figure into the Erasmus+ regulation, alongside new rule-of-law and transparency conditions.

FIRE gives most US schools low grades for campus free speech and rewards positions of institutional neutrality in higher education.

NC universities ranked by free-speech advocacy group is a story from Carolina Public Press, an award-winning independent newsroom. Our breakthrough journalism shines a light on the critical overlooked and under-reported issues facing North Carolina’s more than 11 million residents. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

13.7% of the people in the EU aged 25 to 64 state having received formal or non-formal education and training in the last 4 weeks in 2025, rising from 10.1% in 2015. This growth has been steady, except for a temporary decline in 2020, likely due to the COVID-19 pandemic and related contingency measures.

Among EU countries, Sweden (38.2%), Denmark (31.0%) and Finland (28.1%) had the highest shares of adult learning in 2025. In contrast, Greece (5.2%), Bulgaria (6.1%) and Croatia (6.5%) recorded the lowest shares. 

Compared with 2015, adult learning grew in almost all EU countries, most notably in Malta (+12.3 percentage points (pp)), Estonia (+11.9 pp), Belgium (+11.1 pp), and Slovenia (10.9 pp). The only exceptions were France (-3.1 pp), Luxembourg (-0.6 pp), and Denmark (-0.5 pp). 

Click to enlarge

Source dataset: sdg_04_60

In 2025, the share of adults participating in education and training was 2.5 pp higher among women than among men (14.9% compared with 12.4%, respectively). Women’s participation rate also increased faster, rising by 4.0 pp between 2015 and 2025, compared with 3.2 pp for men.

Participation in adult learning also differs by degree of urbanization. Adults living in cities were more likely to participate in learning (16.8%) than those living in towns and suburbs (12.3%) or rural areas (10.3%).

SDG 4 – quality education

Tertiary educational attainment is one of the indicators used to monitor the Sustainable development goal (SDG) 4 – quality education. SDG 4 seeks to ensure access to quality education for all at all stages of life, as well as to increase the number of young people and adults who have the relevant skills for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship. Monitoring SDG 4 in an EU context focuses on basic education, tertiary education, adult learning and digital skills.

For more information

• Publications on the sustainable development goals
• Database on sustainable development goals
• Visualization tool SDG EU progress tracker
• Visualization tool SDGs & me
• Visualization tool SDG country overview
• UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

Methodological note

Adult participation in learning measures the share of people aged 25 to 64 who stated they received formal or non-formal education and training in the 4 weeks before the survey, which was carried out to monitor it. For definitions of formal and non-formal education and training, see the reference metadata. Data stem from the EU Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS).

School year 2026-2027 kicked off in Greece with the traditional holy water blessing ceremony performed by a priest in front of pupils, students, teachers and parents. The new school season began today, Friday, September 11, not only in  primary, middle and high schools but also in kindergartens. After the blessing ceremony, students are being informed […]

The post School year kicks off in Greece: 30,000 fewer first-grade pupils in a decade appeared first on Keep Talking Greece.

Successes at Fayetteville State University come as many other schools struggle. FSU officials say these wins are no accident.

Fayetteville State seeing record enrollment, retention is a story from Carolina Public Press, an award-winning independent newsroom. Our breakthrough journalism shines a light on the critical overlooked and under-reported issues facing North Carolina’s more than 11 million residents. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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In 2023, public spending on education (from pre-primary to the tertiary level) in the EU accounted for 4.7% of its gross domestic product (GDP). Compared with 2022, this figure did not change; however, it represents a slight decrease of 0.3 percentage points (pp) from 2020 (5.0%), the year with the highest level of public expenditure on education since the data collection started in 2012.

Among the EU countries, the highest level of public expenditure on education relative to the GDP was observed in Sweden (6.8%), followed by Finland (6.3%) and Belgium (6.2%). The lowest levels were registered in Romania (3.0%), Greece (3.3%) and Malta (3.4%).

Click to enlarge

Source dataset: educ_uoe_fine06

For more information

• Statistics Explained article on educational expenditure statistics
• Thematic section on education and training
• Database on education and training 

Lawyer shocked that judge found every page in long UNC document covered by attorney-client privilege. News media coalition may appeal.

UNC gets to keep report on controversial program secret, judge says is a story from Carolina Public Press, an award-winning independent newsroom. Our breakthrough journalism shines a light on the critical overlooked and under-reported issues facing North Carolina’s more than 11 million residents. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

If education is indeed the great vehicle of social and economic mobility, then higher education is no longer delivering the promise of the “American dream.” In fact, this “dream” has become a fiscal nightmare. Colleges and universities saw 9,000 job cuts and buyouts in 2025, and several college closures, mergers, and looming budget crises have already been announced in 2026. Portland State University is one of the most recent casualties, with a projected deficit of $35 million.

How did we get here?

Universities have been operating like corporations for quite some time now. Business terminologies — like return on investment (ROI), efficiency, strategic alignment, move the needle, transparency, buy-in, revenue generating, burnout, bottom line, deliverable, best practices, and others — have been normalized in strategic plans and administrative reports.

The boards of trustees and presidents running these academic corporations/factories have been boldly claiming that education is business. And just as businesses fail due to strategic missteps, poor financial decisions, and various forms of mismanagement, this “business” called higher ed is on the brink of a great collapse. This collapse has not happened overnight. It certainly did not start with the COVID-19 pandemic. It certainly did not start with blocking international students from attending U.S. universities. It certainly did not start with Donald Trump and the resurgence of McCarthyism, although the various draconian attacks on higher ed under his presidency have exacerbated the collapse.

Decades of mismanagement, fiduciary irresponsibility, a lack of shared governance and accountability, and divestment are responsible for a plethora of failures. Irrespective of these failures, university presidents and boards have been transparent about their singular mindset (at least in their visible actions). To them, growth is essential, but such growth can only take place by cutting various services and programs that are no longer deemed “essential.” Faculty and staff at many institutions have raised warning flags, insisting that universities cannot cut their way to growth. Such illusory growth will weaken programs and prevent students from truly being educated. Such short-term growth will ultimately threaten the long-term foundation of higher ed and lead to the collapse of one of the biggest arenas of 21^st-century thought: the university.

There are also other reasons for this collapse. For decades, universities have overspent on real estate, building fancy residence halls, offering attractive dining services, and raising tuition for students. All of this “added value” has been accompanied by cuts to essential student services (particularly those serving the most marginalized students) and insufficient compensation for overworked faculty and staff. Recent reports by the American Association of University Professors have found that faculty salaries still have not recovered from the decreases they saw during the early COVID-19 pandemic.

While faculty salaries have declined, large investments in athletics, online courses with low completion rates, and other designer programs have drained operational costs and endowments. Decades of reduced investment in the well-being of faculty have led to widespread burnout, watered down the system of tenure and shared governance, and led to the rise of the most exploited class in higher ed: the gig hustlers called “adjuncts.” This system, which Adrianna Kezar calls The Gig Academy, has created serious inequity and contributed long-term damage to faculty morale.

The infrastructure of higher ed has been further damaged by administrative bloat, with institutions hiring consultants — like enrollment management companies — that demand hefty price tags, all while cutting essential staff and overworking the ones that remain. In 2023, Forbes reported on this “skyrocketing” bloat and warned that such exponential growth in non-instructional staff in higher ed will drive up the cost of tuition and push vulnerable institutions to the brink of financial crisis. Meanwhile, due to staff cuts, overworked and underpaid faculty and staff are being asked to meet the demands of students who are increasingly coming to them underprepared and with various issues of mental health, food insecurity, homelessness, and learning styles and disabilities requiring multiple accommodations.

But unlike corporations, there is no government backing to bail universities out of their millions of dollars in structural deficits. They are simply closing or merging, destroying the lives of faculty and staff at various ranks and causing serious educational derailments for their students. The age of “the great resignation” that we witnessed during the pandemic has been replaced by “the age of massive layoffs” in higher ed. In my own state of Oregon, sweeping academic restructuring is underway, with 36 faculty layoffs and the closure of the award-winning and nationally recognized University Studies, a general education interdisciplinary program.

Let’s face it: The greatest danger facing higher education is not the “demographic cliff” but the loss of its fundamental mission to educate students. This shift has been accompanied by the loss of public trust in higher ed to serve the public good. The greatest danger facing higher education is not in its ability or inability to provide students with “job-related skills and training,” but the increasing and crushing debt, akin to a mortgage, that students and their families will be struggling to pay for decades.

No university education should cost over $60,000 per year to deliver just an undergraduate degree, which only a handful can truly afford. And these days, some universities are charging over $90,000 per year. There is no justifiable ROI for this kind of exorbitant cost. Yet, most of us who have been in higher ed for a while now know well that the millions of dollars of structural deficits that almost every university is currently facing did not just accumulate overnight. They are a result of shifting priorities.

Universities are no longer mission-driven to create critical, thoughtful, responsible, and well-rounded citizenry to participate in democracy and serve the public good. Instead, higher ed has traded its long-term intellectual benefits for short-term market and profit-driven (sometimes predatory) programs, with the sole and narrow purpose of training a generation of students for the workforce. This focus on job training, under the umbrella of “professionalism,” may or may not even succeed given the volatility of job markets in the age of artificial intelligence. Yet the disciplines that will be necessary to combat AI, like the humanities, are routinely being devalued.

While university administrators are speculating like gamblers to gauge which revenue-generating “programs” will ultimately survive, they are reducing, cutting, or hamstringing the disciplines in the arts, humanities, and sciences that have a long and storied tradition of cultivating “critical thinking.” Yet this strategy conflicts with studies that show the liberal arts, particularly the humanities, are valuable in terms of long-term employment prospects. According to the Mellon Foundation report “Humanities Graduates Can Find a Great Job. It’s Time to Make This Fact Known”:

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences reports that, at latest count, 96.3 percent of terminal humanities bachelor’s degree holders between the ages of 23 and 32 were fully employed, a share that is on par with that for degree holders in the same age range across all fields. Further, the earnings of terminal bachelor’s degree holders in the humanities are comparable to those of their counterparts in the behavioral/social sciences and the life sciences, while the job satisfaction levels among humanities graduates are in line with those of degree holders in all fields.

This and other reports emphasize that students need to learn and practice deep critical thinking, problem-solving, and ethical reasoning as basic skills to enter and succeed in the job market.

In response to the closure of Hampshire College, Ken Burns, one of the school’s most celebrated alumni, hit the nail on its head: “The greatest danger that faces higher education,” Burns said, “is this transactional tendency that everything is about an exchange that ultimately is economic.” What is lost in this game is the mission that education should be “transformational.”

As bell hooks wrote in Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom, “The classroom remains the most radical space of possibility in the academy.” These days, in the age of fascism and corporatization, any radical space is a threat, and every effort is being made to destroy those threats. Federal policies target disciplines that challenge the status quo or question power structures, like sociology, pushing for them to be eliminated from the curriculum altogether.

This transformation was underway long before the current right-wing attacks on higher education, as universities slowly eroded critical programs through the use of the terminology of “academic prioritization.” Recently, “academic prioritization” has been replaced by new terminologies of “long-term sustainability,” “strategic growth potential,” “indoctrination,” and “demand programs.”

Irrespective of these terms, the end goal is to reduce and eliminate programs, mostly in the humanities, that have created transformational spaces for generations of students, particularly those from marginalized backgrounds, those who are economically disadvantaged, and first-generation students. Colleges and universities around the country have eliminated humanities majors in art, music, theater, philosophy, history, religious studies, global languages, gender and sexuality studies, and ethnic studies, citing decreased enrollments.

In April, the University of Montana eliminated its master’s degree program in English, focused on Literature and Ecocriticism, raising serious concerns about the university’s identity. “English is such a fundamental core subject within the humanities, and it’s almost like the heart of the humanities is being cut out,” said English Department Chair Louise Economides.

The University of Montana is not the only university where the “heart of the humanities” is being cut out with little to no conversation. The attack has been relentless nationally. Eric Hayot and Matt Seybold have described this crisis as “a crisis of civil society writ large.” They write:

There is no condition in which the humanities are under attack in which the whole university is not under attack. There is no condition in which the university is under attack that the whole of educational infrastructure, public and private, from pre-K up, is not under attack. And there is no condition in which education is under attack in which civil society can remain unimperiled.

Yet none of this is a surprise. While the right-wing attacks on these disciplines and departments have been relentless in recent years, faculty have been witnessing this slow collapse of the arts, humanities, and sciences for quite some time now. The market-driven model that encourages packing students into classrooms like sardines to maximize profits is not conducive to the personal attention that students need in disciplines like the arts and humanities. Many of these departments, slated to be reduced or cut, have been deliberately hamstrung by their administrations (citing low enrollment numbers), resulting in their inability to offer a robust curriculum. The overemphasis on the number of majors these disciplines have is a deliberate strategy to discredit these disciplines. If these programs are retained, they are treated as second-class departments simply serving as the “general education requirements” for the more profitable “revenue-generating” programs.

Higher ed is on the verge of collapsing because it has lost its soul. Can this soul be restored? Perhaps. But this would require a nationwide movement to restore public trust and reclaim higher education, building an academy that is not solely transactional or profit-driven but is deeply invested in serving and collaborating with its broader communities and society writ large. If we cannot do this, then we are one step closer to witnessing the weakening of our civil society and the end of our democracy.