MIT could have a new competitor on the horizon.
On Wednesday, news broke that SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk is planning to build a new science and technology university in Austin, Texas.
Good!
It’s about time that new institutions apply some much-needed market pressure to the monopolistic mess that is modern higher education.
According to tax filings obtained by Bloomberg, Musk has already committed $100 million to the project via his charity, The Foundation.
His plan, which was approved by the IRS for tax-exempt status in March, is to establish a primary and secondary school first, then to break ground on a university “dedicated to education at the highest levels.”
The filing reveals Musk intends to admit students based on merit and to offer financial aid.
Next, the school needs to seek accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Its name is yet to be revealed. Too bad Elon University is already taken.
It’s no secret Musk has gone sour on higher education. The billionaire said at a 2020 conference that “college is basically for fun and to prove that you can do your chores, but … not for learning.
“I don’t consider going to college evidence of exceptional ability,” he added.
Musk has also blamed “Neo-Marxists” in academia for his estrangement from his 18-year-old daughter, Vivian. And this week he called for Harvard to be stripped of federal funding due to the school’s insufficient reaction to campus antisemitism.
His wouldn’t be the first university of its type.
The University of Austin, founded by Free Press editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, has raised more than $200 million in donations to create an alternative college “dedicated to the fearless pursuit of truth.” After offering non-credit summer courses for the past two years, the school is expected to welcome its first class of 100 students in person next fall.
There seems to be a growing market for alternatives to the current system as faith in higher education has plummeted to a record low.
According to a 2023 Gallup poll, only 36% of Americans have confidence in colleges and universities. That’s down 12% over five years, and 21% since 2015.
The drop is precipitous. And is it any wonder?
Tuition is up 748% since 1963. Americans are saddled with more than $1 trillion debt. And students who graduate from a third of American colleges make less than the average high school graduate.
Meanwhile, campuses — and especially elite ones — have become hotbeds of illiberalism and radicalism.
Harvard University ranked the worst college for free speech this year.
Stanford University, where Musk spent two days before dropping out, has been rocked by speaker shout downs and even published a guide on “harmful language” that included the words “immigrant” and “grandfather.”
Meanwhile, the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and MIT were all hauled before Congress this month to answer for rampant antisemitism on their campuses.
The state of higher education is so atrocious that many, myself included, are leaving it entirely.
I dropped out of NYU in the wake of the pandemic after I realized that an overpriced lesson in illiberalism wasn’t worth my while.
I’m not alone. A mass exodus from academia underway.
There are 4 million fewer students in college today than there were a decade ago, and two-thirds of current high schoolers say they want to forge their own paths.
And, while I’m glad society is waking up to the dire state of higher education, we shouldn’t burn it all down.
Education is the lifeblood of progress, and denigrating its value is counterproductive.
That’s why I applaud Musk for creating an alternative to the system already in place. As faith in education falters, innovation is the antidote to ignorance.
The Foundation is an on-the-nose name for the charity Musk is using to fund the initiative, and likely an allusion to Isaac Asimov’s science-fiction series which follows the rise of an alternative society that supplants a crumbling empire.
Of course, there’s no way of knowing whether his school will be successful in replacing higher ed as we know it. I sincerely hope that it lives up to its lofty mission of “education at the highest levels.”
But, even if the school flops, the threat of new institutions is precisely what we need in a moment of abject educational crisis.
Our current system is drunk on power — pumping up tuition, inflating its bureaucracies, and turning its back on free speech. For too long it’s been insulated from meaningful market pressure.
Perhaps Musk’s university will become the new MIT. But, if it doesn’t, just the threat of promising, out-of-the-box thinkers heading elsewhere will hopefully inspire existing colleges to look inwards and better themselves to earn back public trust.