It's a fraught time for colleges and universities. Enrollment is down. Public support is flagging. Academic freedom and race-based admissions are under attack.

Yet beneath the surface, ideas are in play—some new, others old but reemerging—that can dramatically turn things around. The Washington Monthly’s 2023 College Guide and Rankings issue lays out these ideas and the writers and academics who contributed to the issue will discuss then in a pair of back-to-back panels presented by New America. 

The first panel will focus on how colleges are finding new ways to increase diversity on campus, despite the Supreme Court’s recent ruling banning affirmative action in admissions. In the second, legendary journalist James Fallows and higher education historian Jonathan Zimmerman will dig into American higher education’s past to show that the sector has a bright future if it recommits to its founding principle: affordable college for all.

Please join New America and the Washington Monthly on Wednesday, October 4, 2023 from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. ET.  
 
Join the conversation online using #WaMoRankings and following @NewAmericaEd and @monthly.

Introduction:

Kevin Carey

Vice President for Education Policy, New America 

Opening Remarks:

Katie Berger

Strategy Director for Federal Policy, Lumina Foundation

Panel on Diversity in Higher Education: 

Moderator:

Paul Glastris

Editor in Chief, Washington Monthly

Featured Speakers:

Jamaal Abdul-Alim

Education Editor, The Conversation

Will Norris

Editor, Washington Monthly

Raquel Rall

Associate Professor of Higher Education, Graduate School of Education, University of California, Riverside

Panel on the History and Future of Higher Education:

Moderator:

Anne Kim

Contributing Editor, Washington Monthly

Featured Speakers:

James Fallows

Contributing Editor, Washington Monthly

Board Member, New America

Jonathan Zimmerman

Professor in Education Policy, Organizations, Leadership, and Systems Division, University of Pennsylvania