David H Feldman

I teach in the economics department at William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. I chaired the department from 2011 to 2016, so I have seen how the sausage is made inside the world of academic politics. In my academic career, I have studied or taught at small private liberal arts colleges, a big suburban community college, a major private research university, and a public flagship. The world of American higher education is very complex, and people who oversimplify that world often misunderstand it.

My coauthor (Robert Archibald) and I have been thinking and writing about higher education issues for well over a decade. Our first book was provocatively titled "Why Does College Cost so Much?" We designed it to be accessible to a general audience, not just an academic one. We think anyone who has been to college, who has a relative or child who aspires to go to college, or who is just plain interested in the debate about the rising cost of higher education, will find something of interest in this book. Our take on the subject may intrigue you. It may enlighten you. It may infuriate you. But I doubt it will leave you feeling indifferent.

News: Bill Gates includes "Why Does College Cost so Much?" in his list of the top 7 books he read in 2013.

Story: http://www.thegatesnotes.com/Personal/Best-Books-2013

Our most recent book is titled, "The Road Ahead for America's Colleges and Universities." It was published by Oxford University Press in 2017. Our first book was primarily a look back at the causal forces that pushed cost and price in American higher education over the course of the last century. The Road Ahead, by contrast, is firmly forward looking. We examine the likely path or paths that this complex system may follow over the next thirty years. Some people foresee a technological scythe cutting down much of the higher education system, replacing it with inexpensive and high quality online alternatives. This narrative is suffused with the jargon of disruption. The American system of colleges and universities does indeed face serious demographic, economic, and social problems, and many of these challenges have been accelerated by the COVID pandemic. But we do not see major upheavals wiping out the traditional residential model of higher education. If anything, the pandemic experience with online and remote learning has reinforced the economic and social value of traditional face-to-face and residential education. Yet we are not optimists. The schools most under threat are the small colleges and less selective state universities that serve the bulk of America's lower income and first generation students.

I am now at work on a new book that will explore our policy options for making the American higher education system a better vehicle for promoting social mobility.