This article originally appeared in the National Post. Below is an excerpt from the article.
By Peter MacKinnon, May 21, 2026
Yale is among America’s — and the world’s — finest universities, and we should take note when its president identifies a problem of declining trust in higher education and commissions a faculty committee to examine the problem.
The Committee on Trust in Higher Education submitted its findings and recommendations, which committee members supported unanimously, on April 10. The committee’s report declared that “the issue of declining trust is real, urgent and must be addressed” and identified several reasons for the decline at Yale and other universities. The reasons will not come as a surprise to careful observers of these institutions: the cost of higher education, generally but particularly at Ivy League and private schools, is widely seen as too high; admissions without transparency and often driven by non-academic criteria (read identity, athleticism, family connections and money); pressures toward conformity, intimidation and social shaming; self-censorship; and ideological echo chambers resulting from homogeneity — on the left — in the professoriate. Smart phones and social media contribute to the problems, devaluing the classroom.
The committee also cited a challenge to Yale’s governance model which, in recent decades, “has come under strain from the growth of non-academic administrative functions across the university.” Canadian universities can relate; they have administrators and supports that outnumber academic personnel, sometimes by multiples.
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Peter MacKinnon is an Officer of the Order of Canada, a King’s Counsel, and a former president of three universities.
