State and local governments all around the country have failed to set aside enough money to pay for the pensions they have promised to workers in the public sector. They’re also making unrealistic assumptions about their future investment returns, further risking their budgets and the ability to pay for promised pension benefits. Confronting the true cost of future pension payments would force state and local governments to save more now and prevent budget problems in the future.

Last week, the world of colleges was rocked by a scandal in which some students were alleged to have gained admission to universities including Yale, Wake Forest, and Georgetown, as well as the California campuses of Stanford, USC, and UCLA through $25 million in bribes. This occurred through a complex process that often involved admitting students through athletic channels, in which admissions criteria may be considerably different.

Higher-ed institutions have long ignored merit and squelched freedom, all while failing to educate.

In designing an optimal American strategy toward the Middle East, two factors stand out.  One is that now, as most always in the past, the climate of opinion is both “this is the last chance for peace” and “this is a time when nothing can be done”.  The second is that whatever happens in the region at this point in the 21^st century will affect and be affected by negative and dangerous new trends in the other power centers of the world: China, Russia, the U.S., and even the European Union.

A theory of global internet governance underlies Andrew Woods’s analysis of how judicial comity doctrines should apply to cross-border data disputes. First is the principle of sovereignty. Nations are sovereign in the sense that they wield legitimate and usually effective authority within a territory, including authority over data and data infrastructure in the territory, and over the people and firms in the territory that use the data and infrastructure. Second, national boundaries roughly reflect differences in the histories, commitments, cultures, norms, and individual and aggregate preferences that governments roughly want to preserve. 

The 2020 Democratic presidential field continues to take shape, and what’s been more revealing are the people who have decided not to run, as opposed to those who have. Mike Bloomberg, the former Mayor of New York City, would have been a formidable candidate with his wealth and moderate positions on economic issues.  He’s not running.

Hoover Institution fellow Scott Atlas discusses why drug prices in the US are so high and what can be done to reduce the high cost of prescription drugs.

Hoover Institution fellow Paul Peterson discusses a new study which shows that the national achievement gap between low and high-income students has failed to close over the past 50 years.

Hoover Institution fellow Larry Diamond discusses what needs to happen to make an economic agreement with China.

Differences in the performance on math, reading, and science tests between disadvantaged and advantaged U.S. students have remained essentially unchanged for nearly half a century. In a new article for Education Next, Eric A. Hanushek, Paul E. Peterson, Laura M. Talpey, and Ludger Woessmann report that the achievement gap is as wide today as it was for children born in 1954.

Political and economic debate generally divides around two pillars: markets and state.

But at least it’s not getting wider, say authors, who cite decline in teacher quality as offsetting programs like Head Start.

Though this may not be perfect, there is a recent quote attributed to Condoleezza Rice: “I am a firm believer in ‘keep your history before you’ and so I don’t want to rename things that were named for the slave owners. I want us to have to look at those names, and realize what they did.’” Richmond was founded in 1737. London is more than 2,000 years old, as is Paris; Rome was founded in 753 B.C. European cities are beautiful and worthy of visiting because of their history and beautiful monuments. 

What is a college degree really worth these days, as opposed to how much it costs? One of the Democrats’ favorite policy platforms recently has been the call for “free college.” That this message is so popular with the younger generation may be an indication that the increasing cost of a college degree and the ballooning student debt associated with it (now more than $1.5 trillion) has not placed graduates on the fast track to the higher-paying jobs educated professionals once enjoyed.