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Higher-Education Critics Launch University of Austin 

Higher-Ed Critics Create University With Summers Among Advisers

A group of public figures, many of whom are vocal critics of higher education in the U.S., are creating a new university in Austin, Texas. 

Their goal for The University of Austin is to address “a gaping chasm between the promise and the reality of higher education,” Pano Kanelos, the former president of St. John’s College in Annapolis wrote in an announcement on Bari Weiss’s Substack newsletter.

The board of advisers for the new endeavor includes co-founder of Palantir Technologies Inc., Joe Lonsdale, former Harvard University President Larry Summers, former ACLU President Nadine Strossen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and playwright David Mamet and historian Niall Ferguson of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University among others.

The new university, which does not yet offer degrees, was trending on Twitter on Monday morning. According to the announcement website, the university plans to launch its summer program in 2021, start a graduate program in 2022, expand the graduate program in 2023 and establish the undergraduate college in 2024.

Summers and Ferguson are paid contributors to Bloomberg.

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