Report: The Higher the Tuition, the More Prone to Stifling Open Debate of Ideas

Surprising results? A Brookings report discovered that the higher the college tuition and the wealthier the student body, the more likely that the college will stifle the open debate of ideas (see: Middlebury College):

“The average enrollee at a college where students have attempted to restrict free speech comes from a family with an annual income $32,000 higher than that of the average student in America,” declares Brookings Institution senior fellow Richard V. Reeves in an op-ed for Real Clear Markets titled “Illiberal arts colleges: Pay more, get less (free speech),” which he co-authored with his research assistant, Dimitrios Halikias.

“The pattern is clear: the more economically exclusive the institution, the more likely the students have attempted to hinder free speech,” the report states, pointing out that a vast majority of the 90+ cases of disinvitations since 2014 have occurred at institutions with larger-than-average shares of students with household incomes in the top 20 percent.

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