Higher Education is a Path to Purpose

Every American deserves a chance to find purpose. (This is really important to me.) That purpose may come from a four-year university, but it can also come from community college, apprenticeship, the trades, military service, or entrepreneurship. My concern, both as a college administrator and as an American, isn’t simply expanding access to education, but ensuring the education we provide—at every level—is rigorous, meaningful, and directed toward preparing young people for lives of responsibility and community.

Higher education should not be a one-size-fits-all assembly line. Purpose can be found in a classroom, a laboratory, on a military base, a construction site, or in a garage. I don’t want every young person to be pushed into the same mold, but instead given the tools, standards, and opportunities to live meaningful lives.

I have made it my own mission to fight for strong colleges and strong communities—because throwing money at education or lowering standards won’t solve the real problems. Young men and women deserve more than slogans; they deserve a path to purpose.

  • Too often, we send a message that the only respectable path is one that involves a university. That leaves many young men and women feeling alienated or like failures if they don’t follow that route. Purpose should be honored whether it’s found on a university campus or elsewhere.

  • Expanding access means little if what students access is watered down or overtly ideological. Colleges and universities must resist both lowering standards and implementing ideology and division. What matter more are truth-seeking, knowledge, and excellence.

  • Too many young people are adrift, falling behind academically and socially. And too often they turn to destructive influences for meaning. Education—broadly defined—can and should offer them a healthy path forward.

  • Purpose-driven citizens, whether college graduates or skilled tradespeople, strengthen families, communities, and the nation as a whole.

Why it Matters

  • Encourage parity of esteem between community colleges, trades, apprenticeships, and military service—so no young person feels their path is “lesser” if it doesn’t involve a four-year degree.

  • Push back against lowering admissions or curricular standards; excellence and rigor must remain at the heart of higher education.

  • Incentivize programs that prioritize mentorship, civic education, and personal growth—not just career placement.

    Furthermore, students ought to be trained in skills and to be productive members of the community, not rank-and-file political activists.

  • Expand access to high-quality community college-sponsored vocational training and apprenticeships so students graduate into purpose-filled lives, whether they attend a four-year institution or do something else.

  • Support reforms that make both college and trades training affordable, while holding institutions accountable for student outcomes.

Policies that Work

Higher education institutions must definitely support students, but institutions should not be defined by political projects, including social justice activism. Colleges and universities should not elevate one ideological mission above others, and if we would be wary of turning colleges into instruments for advancing patriotism or nationalism, we should be equally cautious about turning them into instruments for advancing social justice or critical theory.

I believe that a central purpose of colleges and universities is to provide a space where competing ideas can be examined, debated, and challenged rather than institutionally prescribed. Higher education institutions may contribute to liberty, justice, and equality, but their legitimacy rests on their commitment to student success, truth-seeking, and intellectual inquiry—not on advancing any particular political goal. When a college or university defines itself primarily by a political mission, it risks undermining the qualities that make higher education valuable in the first place.