The Opportunity of General Education
When freshmen students arrived at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in August to begin their college careers, one of their first tasks involved signing up for courses that fulfill the university's general-education requirement — classes that form the base of the undergraduate curriculum. Almost all colleges have them. At UNC, students are generally supposed to complete them during their first two years of study.
Such requirements have a universal purpose: to inculcate the knowledge and aptitude that a school has determined its students must acquire before they can earn a degree. A student may pursue a major in fine arts, but he must still have some familiarity with the physical sciences — a liberal-arts-and-sciences degree demands it. Students pursuing a business degree still have to take courses in nine other distinct categories — "Engagement with the Human Past," for example, which consists of courses that have some historical angle. In this way, Gen Ed requirements maintain the broader goals of liberal education, which go further than developing skills or training for a future career: They ensure graduates are well rounded as well as adept in a specific field.
And so, last fall's batch of first-year students at UNC said goodbye to their parents, moved into their dorms, met their roommates, chatted about the game against TCU, then checked the registrar for classes that would get a Gen Ed requirement out of the way during the fall semester.
The process wasn't as simple as it sounds. The university offered hundreds of qualifying courses from which to choose and no guidance on how to wade through them. Foundational offerings and advanced seminars appeared without distinguishing marks; "Introduction to Religious Studies" and "Religion, Race, and Inquisition in the Spanish Empire" looked the same. For the "Aesthetic and Interpretive Analysis" category, students could select from "Art of the Aztec Empire," "Media Studies of Japan," or "Cinemas of the Middle East and North Africa." Then there was a happy exhortation of neutrality: "Design Your Course of Study!" Youths but a few months out of high school were expected to consult their own dispositions, to "take ownership of their education," to do the formative planning that professional educators used to do for them.
Aside from offering some basic academic advising and career services, nobody tells students which Gen Ed courses they should take or when they should take them. Nobody informs them that one is better than another in preparing them for what they will encounter after graduation. The curriculum "empowers students to shape their own educational path" — that's the school's beneficent version of the approach. We might rephrase it: "On general matters, we have no advice — you're on your own."
Colleges frame this plethora of choices as bounty and privilege. In truth, it represents a process of disintegration, one that spreads beyond the campus to American society at large.
A NEW KIND OF CORE
The cafeteria-style approach outlined above is typical of Gen Ed requirements at modern universities. It usually involves two components. First, schools identify abstract, high-level categories of knowledge — "Aesthetics & Culture"; "Histories, Societies, Individuals"; or "Science & Technology in Society," to borrow some examples from Harvard University. They then pile ample course selections under each one. This past fall, Harvard offered 37 course options in the "Histories, Societies, Individuals" line-up, many on boutique topics like colonialism in the Caribbean, Mexican food over the ages, and guns in America. At Indiana University, the Arts and Humanities category alone offered 194 choices, including "The Art of the Comic Strip" and "LGBTQ+ Public Issues." Schools call it "general" education, but in truth, it is highly specialized.
The problem isn't just that many of these courses are devoted to overly niche or even unserious subjects; it's that their sheer number ensures students will pass through college without acquiring any concept of shared tradition. There are no events all will have studied or works all will have considered, no common set of readings maintained and accepted as crucial to American or Western society. "No two of you will follow the same path," UNC brags on its curriculum webpage. All of this leads to the dispiriting impression that the past isn't all that important, that an American heritage of finer things and brilliant conceptions and courageous deeds doesn't exist. The monuments aren't so monumental, the creeds not so deserving of respect. A primary element of civic unity is lost.
The variety of courses on offer also has a levelling effect on their value. Opera or hip-hop, take your pick when it comes to the Aesthetic category at UNC. The founding fathers or Muslim communities in America? Either will do for the Civic Values requirement. The high and the low, the heroic and the ordinary, the influential and the transient, all are equal in the eyes of the registrar — and hence, of the students.
The reasons for this levelling are obvious to anyone remotely familiar with academia today. In an essay written a few years ago with the promising title, "The Case for a New Kind of Core," Nicholas Lemann admitted he could not confidently identify "a limited number of books, or specific body of knowledge, that are so universally important that everyone should have mastered them." I'd wager nearly all his colleagues would say the same. They'd refuse to single out the essential or the fundamental or the superior, because doing so would violate the tenets of egalitarianism and diversity, and discomfit colleagues who hold student choice sacred. The result is the opposite of general education. And that doesn't bother them at all.
There is a cognitive rationale for this pick-and-choose approach: It asserts that mastering certain intellectual capacities is more important than acquiring select knowledge. In the article quoted above, Lemann proposes "a methods-based, rather than a canon-based, curriculum," the methods being "a suite of intellectual skills" including "Information Acquisition," "Numeracy," and "Thinking in Time." The Gen Ed curriculum at UNC follows the "IDEAs Approach," where IDEA stands for: "Identify pressing questions, problems, and issues; Discover ideas, evidence, and methods that inform these questions; Evaluate these ideas, evidence, and methods; and Act on the basis of these evaluations." Note that this list does not specify the questions or issues at stake — only the verbs.
Doing, not knowing — that's what counts. Under this model, the content of the curriculum gives way to the evolving mind of the student, the cultivation of critical habits of thought. The University of Wisconsin-Madison summarizes the purpose of Gen Ed requirements as producing "an individual that has attributes appropriate for a university-educated person, such as competence in communication, critical thinking, analytical skills, and the ability to investigate issues raised by living in a culturally diverse society." On another page, Wisconsin places "critical and creative thinking skills" first among learning outcomes. The mental emphasis is clear.
This cognitive approach alters the status of the curriculum's contents. For when critical thinking (a term that goes back to progressive education reformer John Dewey) is the focus of education, the materials on which the student perfects the act become a matter of indifference. Instead of asking undergraduates to learn the high points of American history, we train them to "think historically" — which (supposedly) we can do as easily with a seminar on a narrow time and place as we can with a survey that covers a broad era. Instead of exposing students to the greatest works of Western civilization, we teach them to use "critical thinking skills" to analyze anything from Candide to comic strips. The old conflicts over what the canon includes all but disappear.
The important thing is for students to show their critical talents, be it on a Renaissance painting or a music video. It's a first-year version of what I saw arise in the humanities in the 1980s and '90s, when a class presentation, guest lecture, or conference paper was judged less on how much the speaker understood or revealed about the subject matter and more on how well he performed an interpretation, how adeptly he handled a theory, how much critical thinking he applied. Perhaps he was wrong. But wasn't he clever?
HOW WE GOT HERE
It didn't used to be this way, not at UNC nor at almost any other four-year institution. To earn a bachelor's degree from one of our nation's institutions of higher learning before the 1980s, virtually all undergraduates were expected to be exposed to the most foundational ideas and events of our civilization. If students weren't familiar with the ideas of Plato and Locke; if they couldn't tell you something about the Glorious Revolution or the Second Great Awakening; if they hadn't read any Homer or Dickens or Hemingway, they didn't deserve a credential.
Students would find the same requirements almost anywhere they attended school. In 1956, Stanford inaugurated its General Studies Program that, according to the catalog description, was supposed to "produce a citizen worthy of a free society." A full year of "History of Western Civilization" was characterized by Stanford's history department as "a necessary part of a liberal education." In 1965, Chapel Hill's catalog informed students they had to take 20 courses, 14 of them mandatory; six were left up to the student. Of the 14 required courses, some stood as common formative experiences. Modern Civilization 1 and 2 were examples. Everybody had to take English 21, too, whose core readings consisted of Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton.
Back then, most educators understood that the objects of study in Gen Ed courses can't be numerous or interchangeable; they have to be the best, the most historic, the most foundational. It was inconceivable that, say, the ideas of Cuban militants were equal to those of Machiavelli or Hume. But when it comes to meeting its Gen Ed requirement today, UNC treats them that way. At Indiana, comics are just as good as the works of Michelangelo.
Professors of the mid-century would be horrified by this development, no matter where they stood on the political spectrum. Liberals favored Western-civilization requirements because they regarded the syllabus from Locke and Voltaire forward as a mainly liberalizing one. Conservatives favored them because they revered our society's canons and traditions. Today, it is only the right that advocates a prescriptive, traditionalist Gen Ed curriculum; liberal faculty bow to the multi-culturalist student-choice mandate — and have done so since the 1980s.
When in January 1987 activist students at Stanford marched across campus and chanted "hey hey, ho ho, Western Culture's got to go," they had a Gen Ed course in mind — "Western Culture" — the fate of which faculty were deciding that day. Not surprisingly, the professors complied with the students' demands, altering the course to include more readings from women and minorities. The faculty senate would vote a year later to transform the course into the "Cultures, Ideas, and Values" program, which drew on scholarship in gender, race, and ethnic studies. When in 2023, the trustees of New College of Florida (myself included) announced a revision of the curriculum on traditionalist grounds — one that liberal professors in 1960 would have fully approved — 33 scholarly associations signed a letter deeming our actions "intimidation and censorship" and calling us "would-be indoctrinators of views that undermine the purpose of higher education in a democracy."
The diffuse, incoherent general-education model of today, the bitter "canon wars" that led to its triumph over the old unitary model, student protests against Stanford's and Columbia's core curricula, the tarring of classical education as reactionary — all of this has contributed to the collapse of civic unity in our time.
The burden of conservatism is to reverse the damage, to craft and maintain ways of reintegration. For that to happen, we need to begin by thinking about the problem in different terms.
CONSERVING A COMMON CORE
As conservatives, we recognize what a privilege it is to live in this great democratic republic of ours. We understand the ideas and institutions underlying our republic — the ones for which our ancestors sweat and bled and died — to be an invaluable inheritance passed down to us over millennia. We appreciate the depth of gratitude we owe to our forefathers for what they bequeathed to us. And we know there's no better way to demonstrate our gratitude than to fulfill our duty of preserving that inheritance and passing it down to our children.
For decades, progressive educators have vigilantly denied generations of students this inheritance. They've done this because they understand the conservative value of a common core. Behind the cheery words of "critical thinking" and "student choice" lies a denial of our heritage. In the current system, it is possible — no, probable — that a college student never reads a word of James Madison, hears a note of Beethoven, sets eyes on the Sistine Chapel, or grapples with the significance of the First Amendment, Manifest Destiny, Leaves of Grass, or the Cold War. And that's the point.
In 2022, 2 million Americans earned a bachelor's degree; a million more completed an associate's degree. That means that each year, 3 million Americans are required to take Gen Ed courses. Those 3 million Americans are a captive audience: They must study what we tell them to study. Is there any better instrument for this passage of the republic to rising generations than general education?
Readers may wonder how conservatives can reform Gen Ed requirements when faculty and administrators will inevitably refuse to let them. The answer is that general education is not entirely in the hands of the people on campus: State legislators, too, have the power to set general-education guidelines throughout their state. At public institutions, they may lay out the content professors must teach, just as they do for teachers in high schools. In Florida, for example, the following stipulation appears under regulations for "General education course principles, standards, and content":
Whenever applicable, [educators will] provide instruction on the historical background and philosophical foundation of Western civilization and this nation's historical documents, such as the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, the Bill of Rights and subsequent amendments, and the Federalist Papers.
The law also obligates college presidents, trustees, and boards of governors to review and approve the courses annually. At New College, trustees have to see a syllabus before they will certify the course. In January 2024, the state's Board of Governors removed "Principles of Sociology" from the list of approved classes, judging it too politically skewed to clear the bar of "generality." Faculty and scholarly groups grumbled. But so what? The board was empowered to do so by law, as enacted by the representatives of the state's people.
Elsewhere, in March 2025, the governor of Utah signed a bill creating an independent center at Utah State University to handle all general-education courses. Inspired by a model bill crafted by Stanley Kurtz, Jenna Robinson, and David Randall, the legislation requires students to take three courses on Western civilization (Homer, Plato, Cicero, Shakespeare, and others are mentioned) and one course on American civics (Adam Smith and Tocqueville are offered as examples of important figures). In 2021, South Carolina passed the REACH Act, which requires every undergraduate to "complete a three-credit course that requires, at a minimum, the reading of the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation, five Federalist Papers, and one document foundational to the African American struggle." And in Arkansas in 2025, the legislature passed a bill that banned special-topics courses from general-education selections and required both a survey of American history and an overview of American civics that includes "the essentials of the United States Constitution."
These legislators are doing what professors today refuse to do: naming names and titles, limiting the number of courses, monitoring and evaluating curriculum quality, and prioritizing content that focuses on our American heritage and the broader Western tradition. But we need more of this — much more.
State legislators know of their responsibility to approve learning standards in K-12 subjects like math and English language arts, but I would guess many are unaware of the power they have to shape the general-education curriculum in higher education. Republican lawmakers in particular tend to be uncomfortable with the issue — a symptom of left-wing domination in the field for decades — which is why they often resort to the liberal formulation: "We must teach students not what to think but how to think." That slogan must be dropped, and another must be put in its place: "We must teach students the background and high points of American civics and culture."
The willingness of so many college students to renounce their heritage should motivate lawmakers to prevent this attitude from spreading. What legislatures have done in Florida and elsewhere should embolden them. States needn't devise a unique set of rules from scratch; the model legislation drafted by Kurtz et al. may serve as a template. Ideally, general education would look much the same in four-year and two-year colleges across the nation: Students should learn roughly the same broad subjects, regardless of whether they attend school in New Mexico or Vermont. After all, America's heritage applies equally to all Americans.
A TIME FOR ACTION
Everyone concerned about the future of our republic knows we have a problem. Too many young adults do not see themselves as beneficiaries of a praiseworthy inheritance. They have no meaningful past in their heads, no patriotic gratitude in their hearts. This was clear when I spoke on general education at Chapel Hill in September.
During my speech, I listed some of the necessary contents of courses that fall into the category, including the King James Bible. The first challenge came from a surly voice in the back, a young man asking why not the Quran. I answered that the Bible was present in our language and literature, our form of government, our jurisprudence, our morals, our manners, and our habits from the start. It was foundational to our civilization in a way the Quran was not.
The student did not seem satisfied by this fact. Of course, he was only speaking based on what he'd been taught. The very idea of foundational ideas and works played no part in his judgment of what's important and what isn't. In the formation he'd undergone, the materials of the past, present, and (desired) future mingled on a level playing field. The Gen Ed requirements he'd met sustained a thoroughgoing egalitarianism. No precedence was given to the Bible or to any other foundation. He may never have heard anyone call the Quran a secondary selection, not a primary one.
Legislators can change this. They must do so now. In a widely publicized poll conducted after Charlie Kirk's assassination, only 51% of 18-29-year-olds agreed that political violence is "never justified." Nineteen percent of those surveyed answered "yes, [political] violence can sometimes be justified." If those advocates of violence had taken courses in civics and American history that commended non-violent protest and democratic methods of handling disagreement, and others that recounted bloody episodes of political violence, like the guerilla war in Kansas in the years preceding the Civil War, we may be certain that fewer of them would give their approval.
An introduction to great American speeches, from Washington's farewell address to Booker T. Washington's "Atlanta Compromise" to Ronald Reagan's "A Time for Choosing," would sharpen their judgment of today's oratory, helping shield them from manipulation and demagoguery. Reading Homer, Wordsworth, and Dostoevsky would deepen their understanding of human nature, raising their tastes above the vulgar blandishments of youth culture and social media. Most professors and administrators won't like this and won't want to teach the courses, and they'll grouse and complain if others assume the task. But again, so what? It's an easy, quick, and cost-free reform. Given popular discontent with the job campus dwellers have been doing, coupled with widespread acknowledgment of young Americans' poor civic formation, the most persuasive rationale (in the eyes of politicians) may be at hand: It would represent a political win.
