Matt Reed

what if I told you that taking accountability for your actions was traditionally considered a load-bearing feature of masculinity?

Thoughts on ‘A Complete Guide to College Transfer’ The book is clearly written, logically organized and full of brief case studies to make the concepts concrete.

With one key caveat, this is potentially useful for students looking to transfer from a CC to a four-year. It's readable, practical, and concrete. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

"True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.” —FDR, 1944

Sometimes I think about how from 1935-1975ish, Bell Labs produced an insane amount of revolutionary science and technology, including 11 Nobel Prizes, the transistor, UNIX, C, the laser, the solar cell, information theory, etc. The secret? Provide scientists with ample, steady, no-strings funding.

Today’s incoming mail is very on-brand.

Chris Rufo's disastrous takeover of New College in Florida shows what universities would become if they sign the Trump regime's extortionary "compact."

New College was supposed to model the anti-woke conservative higher-ed Americans crave. Instead, it showed the opposite, and serves as a warning.

From my numismatic days, I recall that it's illegal to depict anyone still living on US coins or paper money. That's why FDR didn't get on the dime until 1946 and JFK didn't get on the half dollar until 1964.

The Annual Reminder That McCarthyism Was Actually a Bad Idea Florida, again …

Seems like a good time to dust this one off... www.insidehighered.com/blogs/confes...

Thread

Readers Respond on Advising The Girl The best readers ever respond with alternatives to the professoriate for a prolific reader and writer.

Wise and worldly readers come through with advice for The Girl www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

Talarico: if you read the new testament, Jesus doesn't spend most of his time preaching or teaching or even praying. He spends most of his time healing the sick.

Right now, we have politicians in congress with Christ follower in their Twitter bio, but they are kicking the sick off their health care

Spending Soars, Rankings Fall at New College of Florida Student outcomes and rankings are slipping at the liberal arts college while spending is up. Critics believe the college is at risk of implosion, and some are calling for privatization.

$134,000 per student! NCF is spending about sixteen times more per student than my college is, and its results are getting worse.

It's almost as if professional educators actually know something about how colleges work.

www.insidehighered.com/news/governa...

Opinion | When Silence Is the Only Logical Choice, Are We Really Free?

Another characteristically excellent piece by @tressiemcphd.bsky.social . As the kids say, no lies detected. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/01/o...

Advising The Girl In good conscience, I can’t recommend she pursue a career teaching literature, at which she would excel.

Suppose you have a kid about to graduate college. She would make a fantastic English professor if the field were still hiring, but it isn't, and likely won't be. What would you advise her to do? www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

There should be more love songs for, like, libraries. And cheese. And people who stay calm when bad things happen.

States Need to Pass Budgets When states don’t pass budgets on time, colleges’ reserves can’t close the gap.

As the state continues to not pass a budget, colleges resort to burning through reserves www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

Affording Austerity Public austerity makes private economic coercion worse.

We can't afford austerity. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

in light of the kimmel news, just a reminder that a few days ago a prominent fox news host literally called for killing homeless people. right afterward, someone shot up a couple homeless encampments.

that fox news host still has his job.

Teenage me would have devoured this, tbh

Interesting polling data: Those with unfavorable views of Donald Trump are the LEAST LIKELY to support political violence.

Dual Enrollment and Degree Requirements Do students taught by teachers with a terminal degree succeed at higher rates than those taught by teachers without?

Looking for good data on whether teacher credentials make a difference in student success in dual enrollment, and wondering about the implications if they don't www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

Consulting the Manual How to teach American Government in Trump II? Focus on the Constitution, readers say.

Wise and worldly readers respond with ideas for teaching American Government in light of (waves hands wildly) www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

Expert on political violence, @lilymasonphd.bsky.social issues crucial warning:

This formulation is popular: contrasting SCOTUS' intolerance of race as an admissions factor with SCOTUS' tolerance of race as a detention factor. There are, in fact, doctrinal, historical, and logical distinctions between the positions, that one could use to dismiss this comparison.

But...
/1

The fact that a phrase like "the school shooting industry" exists is a sign that something has gone very wrong.

"Just the other day, I was in the audience at Lincoln Center when Justice Amy Coney Barrett said, while promoting a new book, that she doesn't think the United States is in a constitutional crisis," Farias told us. "Today, the Supreme Court, without offering a single line of reasoning, more or less declared that the Fourth Amendment, which protects everyone from unreasonable searches and seizures, nonetheless allows the Trump Administration to arrest and detain anyone who looks Latino, citizen or not, on account of the language that they speak or the kind of jobs they do. The ruling putatively covers the Los Angeles area, but the effect could be national," he continued. "If that's not a constitutional crisis, then what is?"

The New Yorker asked me “how bad” today’s Supreme Court ruling was. I boiled it down to one paragraph:

link.newyorker.com/view/5bda429...

Well said.

Unprecedented coolness hath unfolded.

Go, Bills!

Tom Waits and Rawlf would have been great duet partners.