Over the last few decades, the two most important domestic policy successes for American conservatives—reforming welfare and K-12 education—were achieved through the efforts of Republican governors, who turned simmering public frustration into a national, bipartisan movement. Today’s GOP governors, and those seeking the office this fall, should now seize the same opportunity in higher education.
By the 1980s, many Americans were fed up with the Great Society-era federal welfare system. It was expensive, it discouraged two-parent households, and it locked families into government dependence. Even with President Ronald Reagan’s efforts and advocacy, Washington couldn’t solve the problem. But Republican governors like Wisconsin’s Tommy Thompson and Michigan’s John Engler stepped up. Their state-level reforms, such as requiring work and limiting cash benefits, proved successful. These ideas pushed their way into the GOP’s 1995 Contract with America and ultimately served as the backbone for the bipartisan, landmark welfare reform act of 1996.
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Around the same time, Americans were growing exasperated with K-12 education. Too many kids were assigned to consistently failing schools, teachers’ unions wielded excessive influence, and student achievement suffered. In 1989, 49 of the nation’s 50 governors assembled in Charlottesville, Virginia to develop a reform agenda. The first wave of resulting policy changes focused on rigorous standards and assessments. Before long, states were also creating school-choice and charter school programs, issuing school report cards, improving educator-certification rules, changing funding formulas, and designing teacher-evaluation systems. Though federal initiatives like No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top received significant attention, the hard work of reform was led, again, by GOP governors, including Lamar Alexander, Tom Kean, William Weld, Jeb Bush, Mitch Daniels, and Chris Christie.
For decades, conservatives have complained about higher ed. Costs have skyrocketed—driven substantially by the growth of administrative positions of dubious academic value—with little to no evidence that student learning has traveled the same upward trajectory. Studies repeatedly showed that faculty and leadership had moved far to the left politically, and video evidence revealed countless examples of conservative speakers being shouted down on campus.
Still, the Right had little success gaining traction with the broader public on the issue. Maybe Americans had fond memories of their college days and a soft spot for their alma maters. Maybe they had decided that radical campus behavior was annoying but not worth political engagement. Whatever the reason, conservative critics of higher ed found themselves playing small ball, offering recommendations for reforming student-loan programs and improving the return-on-investment of degrees.
With the benefit of hindsight, we can now see that public disaffection had been growing quietly. Mimicking Hemingway’s description of bankruptcy, the American public turned on higher education “gradually, then suddenly.” Recent public-opinion surveys reveal that trust in higher education has collapsed. Families have grown tired of exorbitant costs and mountains of debt. They no longer believe degrees are worth their price tag. Many Americans are infuriated by campus encampments and anti-Semitism. College increasingly seems less like an educational investment than an expensive political indoctrination.
As with the early days of welfare and K-12 reform, initial state action has proved fruitful. Elected officials have pushed public universities to rein in costs, prioritize the return on investment of degrees, shift from activism to institutional neutrality, and scale back DEI initiatives. More states are creating campus-based institutes for “civic thought” that prioritize free inquiry and training for citizenship. These reforms seem popular, and a growing number of efforts are led by faculty and administration themselves. Harvard, for example, is raising money to hire politically diverse faculty. A Yale faculty committee has issued a report recommending reforms long favored by conservatives. And a growing number of other academic leaders embrace “viewpoint diversity” initiatives.
Now is the time for governors to step up. Governors have enormous power over public higher education. Whereas K-12 schools are governed by locally elected boards, most public colleges and universities are overseen by board members primarily selected by the governor. Indeed, in my recent Manhattan Institute report, I show that 87 percent of students in public four-year institutions attend schools whose boards are controlled by governors. These boards can hire and fire university presidents and set policies on everything from tuition and academic programs to athletics and graduation requirements. Moreover, nearly two-thirds of these students reside in states won by Donald Trump in 2024.
An agenda created and executed by reform-minded red state governors could be far-reaching. Yes, it would address prominent issues typically associated with campus insularity—exorbitant costs, questionable ROI, politicization, grade inflation, and lack of viewpoint diversity. But it could also address forces not caused by higher education but relevant to the sector’s future: the rise of AI, the growth of non-degree workforce credentials, and the educational and employment struggles of boys and men.
The public is eager for change in higher education, and no one is better positioned to lead it than America’s governors. A generation ago, creative, courageous, and conservative governors reformed two major sectors of government policy. Today’s governors should make higher education the third.