College Matters from The Chronicle

Latest Episodes:

What’s Up with Grade Inflation? Feb 25, 2025

Show notes

Chances are, you’ve met a straight-A college student. There are plenty of them around. And some people aren’t too happy about that. A new wave of “meritocracy” obsessives seem convinced that there are just too many good grades being given out. But what drives our nation’s periodic panic about grade inflation? And what does it tell us about what we want grades to mean?

Related Reading:

Guest: Beckie Supiano, Senior Writer at The Chronicle of Higher Education

For more on today’s episode, visit chronicle.com/collegematters. We aim to make transcripts available within a day of an episode’s publication.

How Bad Are Helicopter Parents? Feb 18, 2025

Show notes

With GPS tracking, “concierge moms,” and high-priced dormitory-design consultants, it’s easier than ever for college students’ parents to go overboard. But is extreme helicopter parenting as pervasive as it seems? And how much are changing cultural norms affecting the relationships parents have with their young-adult children? We asked Lisa Heffernan, co-founder of Grown and Flown, a wildly popular online resource for parents, to break down what’s really happening between parents and young college students.

Related Reading:

Parents, Young Adult Children and the Transition to Adulthood (Pew Research Center)
Tuition: $9,400. Dorm Room Interior Designer: $10,000? (The New York Times)
Varsity Blues (Chronicle coverage)
Surveillance Parents Face the Ultimate Firewall: Freshman Year (The Wall Street Journal)

Guest: Lisa Heffernan , co-founder of Grown and Flown

For more on today’s episode, visit chronicle.com/collegematters. We aim to make transcripts available within a day of an episode’s publication.

Unwinding DEI: Part II Feb 11, 2025

Show notes

Political opposition to diversity, equity, and inclusion programs has been building for years, but something happened last October that felt like a turning point. In a deeply reported article for The New York Times Magazine, Nicholas Confessore cast doubt on the effectiveness of one of the nation’s best-funded DEI programs. Titled “The University of Michigan Doubled Down on DEI. What Went Wrong?,” Confessore’s article added fuel to a debate over whether DEI programs are meeting their stated goals or actually making campus climates worse. In an interview with College Matters, Confessore talks about his investigation, and what it meant for The Gray Lady to take a critical view of DEI.

Related Reading:

The University of Michigan Doubled Down on DEI. What Went Wrong? (The New York Times Magazine)
Where DEI Efforts Are Ambitious, Well Funded, and Taking Fire From All Sides (The Chronicle)
The Dismantling of DEI (The Chronicle)
Statement from Tabbye Chavous, vice provost for equity and inclusion and chief diversity officer at the University of Michigan

Guest: Nicholas Confessore, a political and investigative reporter at The New York Times and a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine.

For more on today’s episode, visit chronicle.com/collegematters. We aim to make transcripts available within a day of an episode’s publication.

Unwinding DEI: Part I Feb 04, 2025

Show notes

During his first weeks in office, President Donald Trump has waged war on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. But the effort to stamp out DEI on college campuses has been years in the making across state legislatures. How did DEI take hold in higher education? And what does it really mean to “ban” this kind of work?

Related Reading:

DEI Legislation Tracker
Tracking Higher Ed’s Dismantling of DEI
A Slap in the Face: How UT-Austin Axed a DEI Division
Behind the Lines of Texas A&M’s Diversity War (Washington Post)

Guest: Daarel Burnette II, senior editor at The Chronicle of Higher Education.

For more on today’s episode, visit chronicle.com/collegematters. We aim to make transcripts available within a day of an episode’s publication.

Biden Camp Defends Its Record Jan 28, 2025

Show notes

On the campaign trail, President Trump promised to do away with the U.S. Department of Education, leaning on a Republican mantra that the federal government meddles too much in decisions that are better left to state officials. But a very different philosophy prevailed in Washington during the presidency of Joe Biden, who embraced student-debt relief as a key priority and leaned on the education department to execute a bold — if not always successful — agenda. In an exit interview with The Chronicle, the Biden administration’s under secretary of education, James Kvaal, reflects on the department’s work, its failures, and the future of Democratic higher-ed policy.

Closing the Department of Education? (4:16 - 7:25)
Biden and student-debt relief (7:25 - 11:14)
Is debt relief dead? (11:17 - 14:20)
FAFSA failure (14:55 - 22:45)
Public confidence in higher ed (22:46 - 23:56)
Abandoning college for all? (23:56 - 26:07)
Culture wars, discrimination, critiques of higher ed (26:08 - 31:32)

Related Reading:

Biden’s Debt-Cancellation Plan Draws Praise and Skepticism
$189 Billion in Student-Loan Forgiveness (The Washington Post)
What the FAFSA Just Happened? (College Matters from The Chronicle)

Guest: James Kvaal, former under secretary of education

For more on today’s episode, visit chronicle.com/collegematters. We aim to make transcripts available within a day of an episode’s publication.

The Cheating Vibe Shift Jan 21, 2025

Show notes

With the help of ChatGPT and other AI tools, cheating in college has become so easy and commonplace that some students don’t see much wrong with a little academic dishonesty. Meanwhile, professors are screaming into the void, trying to convince students that relying on AI to do their work will hurt them in the long run. But is the battle for academic integrity already lost?

Related Reading:

Guest: Beth McMurtrie, senior writer at The Chronicle of Higher Education

For more on today’s episode, visit chronicle.com/collegematters. We aim to make transcripts available within a day of an episode’s publication.

Season 2 Trailer Jan 14, 2025

Show notes

Higher education is undergoing a period of intense political, cultural, and technological transformation. We'll dive into all of it on Season 2 of our show, starting January 21st.

Before There Was Woke, There Was 'PCU' Dec 10, 2024

Show notes

In 1994, a movie called PCU opened in theaters to little fanfare. But three decades on, the cult classic feels like an on-the-nose satire of the kinds of identity politics, liberal extremism, and right-wing intolerance that fuel many of today’s hottest disputes in higher education. In a conversation with The Chronicle’s Jack Stripling, Zak Penn, a co-writer of PCU, talks about how the film looks in 2024. Later, Chronicle staff share their impressions of the movie.

Related Reading:

A Decade of Ideological Transformation Comes Undone: What the congressional antisemitism hearing really means.
What Does ‘Woke’ Mean Anyway?
The Oral History of PCU, the Culture Wars Cult Classic

Guest: Zak Penn, a co-writer of PCU

For more on today’s episode, visit chronicle.com/collegematters. We aim to make transcripts available within a day of an episode’s publication.

Is That Our Chancellor in the Porno? Dec 03, 2024

Show notes

Months after he’d announced his coming retirement as chancellor of the University of Wisconsin at La Crosse, Joe Gow made a fateful decision: He posted on the internet pornographic videos of himself and his wife. Wisconsin’s Board of Regents promptly fired him as chancellor and, more recently, terminated him as a tenured professor. His case presents some thorny First Amendment questions that are expected to play out in court. Meantime, Gow spoke with The Chronicle’s Jack Stripling about how he balanced his X-rated private hobby with his important public job — and what motivated him to release those videos.