• My daughter and I took the scenic route from Oregon to her college in Missouri.
• We camped near Yellowstone, explored Wyoming, and visited South Dakota landmarks.
• The trip gave us precious time together before she started her independent life.

After buying a car for my daughter to take to college, the problem was getting the little Mazda from Portland, Oregon, to Fulton, Missouri. Maria and I are fun in the car, but awful at driving long distances.

We checked the miles, over 2,000, and groaned.

"Are we doing this?" I asked. "Remember Eugene?"

We laughed, thinking about the time after an exhausting day, we couldn't manage the usual three hours from Eugene, Oregon, to Portland without stopping every 10 to 15 minutes. We took turns saying, "Your turn," as we blasted cold air and chomped Good 'n' Plenty licorice to stay awake. Eventually, we napped at a rest stop. I finished the drive and let Maria sleep.

We took the scenic route to college

"Let's make it an adventure," Maria said when we were debating whether to take the scenic route. She knows I love sleeping in a tent and waking up outdoors. Being in nature would ease my aching heart, already missing her. I savored our time before we even started.

We mapped our route, picking the long way. In Yellowstone, we tented next to a motorhome complete with a satellite and TV. We cracked up as we popped up our two-person tent in the RV's shadow. In the morning, it was a quick coffee and on to gawking our way through the park, pointing at bison, moose, elk, deer, wolves, and more. At a geyser view spot, a tourist tried to touch a bull moose with a huge rack of horns while onlookers poised their phones.

We made so many memories together

We drove across Wyoming with its wide-open spaces and the prettiest blue skies. Then camped at Custer State Park, our tent site flanking a river. In the morning, we plopped on a log and sipped cowboy (unfiltered) coffee. "So much better than flying," I said, surprising myself.

Our awe was mild at Mt. Rushmore, where we snapped bad tourist pictures, pretending to squish the presidents' heads between thumb and index finger as a curly-haired woman in white pointy Keds glared at us.

Then, onto Crazy Horse: a massive monument of Crazy Horse, the Lakota leader, still being carved out of the mountain. I cried at its mass, its beauty, its story. For scale, Mt. Rushmore could fit in the finger that points to his people's land.

Next was the iconic Wall Drug, where we stretched our bodies, then drove on to the Corn Palace. "All corn?" I asked. Yes, beautiful, detailed murals crafted of corn and other grains covered the Moorish building.

The road trip made me less sad to see her go

Endless signs in Kansas enticed us with the World's Largest Prairie Dog, a live five-legged cow, plus rattlesnakes. Even though the prairie dog turned out to be a 15-foot-tall, four-ton concrete statue, it topped our list for fun roadside attractions and included a bonus rattlesnake "pit" in a gift shop where rattlers slept in terrariums. The cashier's nametag said Suzy. She hit the tops of the cages with a cane, startling the snakes to shake their rattling tails. We jumped too.

"It's OK," I told Suzy, my hand up in the universal sign for stop. "Let them rest." "You paid to see 'em," she rasped, whapping another terrarium as Maria gave her the side-eye.

We held our belly laughs in until we reached the car.

We stopped at rest stops and gas stations. Drank sparkling water (me) and soda (her). Snacked on chips and Wheat Thins. Took rinse showers at campsites. The only time we drove semi-sleepily was through Kansas with the obligatory, "Are we there yet?" And "Can you drive?" It wasn't as bad as that haul from Eugene home, but the straight flat is hypnotizing.

"My turn. I got you," Maria said, tightening her ponytail and her resolve. I saw her on the cusp of her grown life as she drove the last leg, singing full tilt, our playlist a mix of Garth Brooks, Earth, Wind & Fire, The Chicks, and more.

Willie Nelson sang us across the country. We played "On the Road Again" every morning, every time we restarted, every time we crossed a state line. Whenever I hear "Making music with my friends" it's my daughter I think of.

Once we reached Fulton, Missouri, I knew I could fly home without my girl. We were both ready. While it was bittersweet to drop my dream-chasing kids — first my son, then my daughter — at college, that year my excitement for her overshadowed my sadness.

We'll always have the rattlesnakes. We've laughed about them ever since.

Dylan Hembrough, editor in chief of the student newspaper at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, contacted the school's communications office to protest a policy requiring a communications staff member to sit in on interviews between student reporters and university staff. As a result, university officials reported Hembrough to campus police for harassment. Police looked into the report, decided his comments did not constitute harassment, and recommended dropping the case. In a statement, the communications office defended the policy and said the real problem is that the student paper has printed inaccurate information and refused to retract it.

The post Brickbat: Listening In appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Is a college educations worth the hassle and expense? Amid concerns over soaring tuition costs and campus political intolerance, a growing share of Americans aren't convinced that higher education is worthwhile. Academics themselves—the honest ones, anyway—acknowledge that they've squandered a lot of goodwill over the years. Fortunately, it's still possible to get an education that justifies the time and money—though the path doesn't necessarily go through college.

High Costs and Political Bias Sour Americans on College

"Three in 10 Americans (31%) think a college education is 'very important,' four percentage points below last year's reading, the previous low among the seven times Gallup has asked this question since 1978," the polling firm reported earlier this month. "As recently as 2013, more than twice as many U.S. adults (70%) said college was very important." Gallup adds that "the percentage of U.S. adults who say a college education is 'not too important' has risen from 6% in 2013 to 29% today, while the percentage saying it is 'fairly important' has increased from 23% to 39%."

Higher education plummeted in public esteem for more than one reason. For years, Americans have voiced concern about rising costs and political intolerance on campuses. Last year, even as a Vanderbilt University poll found a slight rebound in favorability toward colleges and universities, the authors noted that "Americans across the political spectrum still are deeply concerned about the affordability of higher education" and "many Americans see political bias in higher education as a serious problem."

The problem was underlined this year when some colleges broke the $100,000 mark in annual costs. "Today, a bachelor's degree at some of America's top schools can cost upward of nearly half a million dollars over four years," reported Business Insider. "And the trend doesn't seem to be slowing down."

Almost at the same time, Vanderbilt released a report warning "there are several worrying tendencies in contemporary academic scholarship in the humanities and social sciences, all of which reflect, to varying degrees, a distinctive form of politicization in which the scholarly enterprise is taken to be subordinate to, or in the service of, political (social or moral) goals beyond the advancement of knowledge and understanding." The goals of this politicization, the study added, "are generally though not exclusively associated with the progressive left."

Unsurprisingly, many Americans balk at paying through the nose so they (or their kids) can spend four years at woke camp. That trepidation undoubtedly contributes to declining college applications at a time when the applicant pool is already shrinking. Many students who do apply to college are applying very modern filters to the schools they'll consider.

"The median student is willing to pay up to $2,617 (12.5%) more to attend a college where the share of students with opposing political views is 10 percentage points lower, suggesting that political identity plays a meaningful role in the college choice process," found a 2025 study from the Annenberg Institute at Brown University which documented "a steady increase in political sorting across American colleges."

This month, a survey from Art & Science Group, a higher education consultancy, found that among college applicants, "the share ruling out colleges solely because of politics in a state rose from 24% in 2023 to 31% in winter 2026 and 34% in summer 2026."

Employers haven't stopped hiring from prestigious colleges and universities. But the definition of "elite" has changed, with some firms leery of traditional Ivy Leagues and preferring southern schools where costs are lower and ideological tolerance still has a place.

College Still Offers Value for Those Who Choose Wisely

Higher education can still be worthwhile for students who apply due diligence to their selection of schools and fields of study. College offers a good return on the investment of time and money for those who choose wisely.

According to the Education Data Initiative, "an average bachelor's degree has a 560.53% lifetime return on investment with a median lifetime return up to 1,040.14%." But not all degrees are equal. "The most cost-efficient bachelor's degree is in management information systems and statistics, with a lifetime ROI of 1,758.59%," while "a Bachelor of Psychology offers the lowest lifetime ROI at -122.78%, representing a $54,188 loss in degree-based earnings (compared to median earnings with a high school diploma)."

The 10 bachelor's degrees with the highest lifetime earnings are an assortment of engineering disciplines, management information systems and statistics, accounting, finance, economics, mathematics, and the like. But return on investment also depends heavily on the cost of the degree; it's more difficult to get your money's worth when you pay top dollar.

Importantly, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields are also the academic disciplines with the least lopsided political balance among professors.

Trade Schools Rise as Employer Demand for College Degrees Falls

But college is not the only choice for young Americans planning their futures. According to a 2025 Harris survey for the American Staffing Association, more Americans now recommend that graduating high school seniors go to trade school (33 percent) than recommend college (28 percent).

Trade schools cost a fraction of what four-year colleges cost. And they satisfy a growing demand for skilled workers.

"Of the 124 skilled trades occupations, 86 are projected to grow or hold steady, and more than 600,000 net new positions are projected through 2035," the Alliance for Skilled Trades, a coalition of companies that depend on trades people, notes in a recent report. "Employers will need to fill about 1.7 million openings each year."

Note that new positions are opening even as the population of job-market entrants shrinks.

And employers increasingly value experience and in-house training over college degrees of dubious value. Last year, a quarter of employers reported that they were eliminating requirements for bachelor's degrees among new hires.

Higher education still has a role to play. But "education" doesn't have to mean four years of high tuition. It can be a certification program or trade school that launches graduates into a productive life.

After decades of being the default path for many Americans, colleges and universities have alienated people with high prices and intolerant ideological environments. They still have a lot to offer, but now they have to compete with alternatives for the time and money of a skeptical public.

The post College Still Has a Future, but It's No Longer the Default Choice appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Vice President J.D. Vance—who is heading the Trump administration's efforts to eradicate fraud—has set his sights on another alleged form of wasteful spending. 

Last week, Vance announced a probe into nine universities over alleged J-1 visa fraud as part of the Trump administration's broader crackdown on foreign worker programs. Vance's central complaint is that the named universities—which include Harvard, Stanford, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—are "employing J-1 visas for federally funded grants at a rate of about 61 percent" compared to the "national average of just 38 percent." 

"Something weird is going on at these universities," Vance added. "They're using these visas way too much. They're using them to undercut the wages of American grad students and American researchers, and it simply has to stop." Naturally, he figured that this warranted a fraud investigation.

Labor Department Inspector General Anthony D'Esposito, who is leading the investigation, had some harsh words for universities. "Improperly used J-1 visa classifications to avoid employment obligations, exploit taxpayer-funded programs, and undermine American workers will not be tolerated." He said, "I don't care how prestigious a university thinks it is. Break the law and screw the American people, and I will personally cuff you in the university square." He also raised concerns that universities were exposing American research to foreign adversaries, specifically China.

The press conference sounded more like an indictment of the J-1 program than of fraud. Unlike the H-1B visa—which allows employers to sponsor high-skilled foreign workers—the J-1 is more like an exchange program than a dedicated work visa; it doesn't require employers to pay the prevailing wage or visa holders to pay Social Security or Medicaid taxes within the first two years. Universities using the program to hire cheaper foreign labor is simply a feature of the program.

The real picture is much muddier than Vance cited figures suggest. The inspector general's announcement states that "approximately 61 percent of postdoctoral workers and researchers supported by federal grants at the nine universities are foreign nationals, compared to 38 percent at other universities." Foreign nationals could include H-1B holders and other visa categories, not just J-1s as Vance claimed. Additionally, the 38 percent figure comes from unspecified "other universities," rather than the national average.

D'Esposito had a fiery tone, but neither he nor Vance pointed to a single instance of a university breaking the rules. Their evidence is merely a statistic showing these schools, which are elite research institutions, hire a lot of foreign researchers. Vance's primary objection isn't that these universities have broken the law; it's that they are hiring foreigners instead of Americans, undermining his protectionist agenda.

Opposition to visa programs is, unfortunately, found on both the left and the right. In his first term, President Donald Trump enacted a slew of restrictions that complicated the H-1B visa application process and increased denial rates to 24 percent in FY 2018 (up from 6 percent in FY 2015).  In 2020, the administration was forced to rescind key policies behind those rising denials after a federal judge ruled they hadn't followed the required rulemaking process. In September last year, Trump imposed a $100,000 fee on H-1B petitions. A federal judge struck it down in June, saying it exceeds the president's authority and violates the separation of powers.

Other presidents have used federal power as leverage against higher education. But Trump's war on universities—including the freezing of federal funds for universities like Columbia and Harvard for alleged instances of antisemitism—is mostly unprecedented. These actions are indicative of a more enduring problem: Federal dollars come with federal influence, and as long as universities depend on federal funding, they will remain at Washington's mercy. If universities want lasting independence, the answer isn't to reduce their use of the J-1 visa. It's to get off the federal teat altogether.

The post No, Giving Immigrants Research Jobs Is Not Fraud​ appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Flock Safety, an Atlanta-based company worth more than $8 billion, manufactures automated license plate readers (ALPRs), cameras that capture images of license plates and store them in a database that police can search.

Recently, the company has been under intense scrutiny over concerns about privacy and the cameras' capacity for misuse, leading some cities to cancel their Flock contracts. But it turns out that getting rid of Flock is easier said than done.

"When Elgin Community College hired Flock Safety to install six surveillance cameras in April 2025, President Peggy Heinrich thought they would 'enhance the safety and security of students,'" Lisa Kurian Philip reported last week at the Chicago Sun-Times.

The Chicago-area school signed up for a one-year contract with the company. It was not alone: Five of Illinois' 12 public universities, plus four of its community colleges,

But Heinrich began to have second thoughts as she learned more about how the cameras can be used—for example, Flock allowed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to access over 80,000 of its cameras. In September 2025, ICE arrested a student near Elgin's campus.

More than half of Elgin's students are Latino, Heinrich told the Sun-Times, and enrollment began to suffer.

"In August of 2025, Flock publicly announced it would no longer conduct pilot projects with federal agencies," according to the company.

Still, Heinrich said, the school chose to end its contract with Flock "out of an abundance of caution for our students."

"Elgin Community College staff notified Flock in October 2025 that they wanted to cancel their contract and have the cameras taken down," Philip wrote. "Within a day, Heinrich said, Flock rejected the request and refused to uninstall the equipment on the basis that the company had not breached their agreement."

The school reached out again in December, offering to pay out the rest of the contract, but according to Heinrich, Flock did not respond.

Since the school no longer wanted the cameras to operate, and Flock refused to remove or disable them, officials zip tied garbage bags over the cameras on campus. But in a peculiar twist, "workers in an unmarked vehicle, which Heinrich assumed belonged to Flock, repeatedly removed the coverings."

This continued until the school's contract expired in April, when Flock finally removed the cameras.

Granted, the situation is somewhat complicated by the fact that while Elgin is a public institution, Flock is a private company.

"Per Flock contract conditions, the company retains ownership of the products it sells to cities," Caroline Haskins reports at Wired. "This means that when people damage or destroy cameras, cities are on the hook for the cost." Covering cameras with garbage bags will apparently work until Flock comes and cuts them down, but removing or disabling the cameras without the company's permission will incur fees to replace them, even if the city has already said it doesn't want them anymore.

But since the product that Flock sells is a searchable database of license plate images compiled from its interconnected nationwide system of cameras, the reality is more complicated than that.

Indeed, while Flock says repeatedly that customers own all data that their cameras capture, that's little comfort when the information is also available to any other customer with access to Flock's database.

Between June 2024 and May 2025, police in Illinois searched the Flock database over 4,000 times for immigration-related reasons, even though a state law prohibits ALPRs' use for that exact purpose. This implies the searches were done at ICE's request, meaning federal immigration authorities could access not just the license plate data in those Illinois communities, but also the thousands of communities nationwide that use Flock cameras.

It's also particularly troubling that Flock would make it so difficult for customers to end their contracts. In that, Elgin Community College is not alone: Plenty of jurisdictions have kept using Flock even after supposedly canceling the service, though it's usually the police who fight the cancellations.

In June 2025, the Austin, Texas, City Council declined to renew its Flock contract. Though the city police department supported the program, officials cited concerns about the cameras' capacity to target vulnerable communities.

But in February of this year, public radio station KUT reported that at least two neighboring towns were sharing access to the Flock database with Austin police.

In July 2025, the Board of Lucas County Commissioners in Toledo, Ohio, voted 2–1 to approve 27 Flock license plate cameras across the county, costing $250,000 over four years. But a week later, one commissioner changed his mind, citing fears of how the data would be used, and the board voted again to rescind the previous approval.

In a letter to the Lucas County prosecutor the following day, Sheriff Michael J. Navarre said the commissioners "have a legal obligation to honor this contract" and alleged that the decision to rescind it was borne out of personal animus toward him.

"I cannot sit idly by and allow them to make decisions out of spite that negatively impact the safety of my deputies and the community they protect," he wrote. To be clear, what apparently put everyone at risk was the decision not to move forward with a series of license plate cameras.

County prosecutor Julia R. Bates wrote back to the sheriff in September 2025, stating that since he had already signed the contract from the original resolution, the rescission was "void."

Elgin Community College's experience is not quite the same—in that case it wasn't the police department, but Flock itself, that refused to take down the cameras. But it's still indicative of the widening rift between those who worry about our growing surveillance state and those who apparently see it as worth the tradeoffs.

The post An Illinois College Tried To Cancel Its Flock Contract. Flock Refused. appeared first on Reason Magazine.