North America

Americans believe in meritocracy in principle. Polls show that significant majorities — between 67 percent and 70 percent since Gallup began asking the question in 2003 — believe that, when it comes to university admissions, “applicants should be admitted solely on the basis of merit.” Yet in practice Americans don’t believe in meritocracy at all. A significant number of wealthy Americans have no problem at all with the idea of hereditary privilege, so long as they are spared the social obligations of traditional aristocracy.

Millions of Americans have served in the U.S. military and returned to civilian life since our nation was attacked on 9/11. Many more will join them in the years ahead. By 2019, America’s post-9/11 veterans population will exceed three million people.

Our nation owes an enormous debt to these new veterans. Indeed, they have earned recognition as America’s “New Greatest Generation.” And our universities need to support them to the fullest extent possible, including through the Yellow Ribbon Program, which removes financial barriers that often stand in the way.

Will higher education the next big bubble to pop? Niall Ferguson, a noted historian and member of the Belfer Center's Board of Directors, thinks so. In a new op-ed, Ferguson argues that despite the United States having 22 out of the top 30 world universities, "all is far from well in the groves of American academe."

"As Harvard celebrates its 375th birthday and America celebrates its 235th, it is worth considering what they have in common. Both have proud traditions of great accomplishment. Both lead the world. Both are widely envied and even more widely observed," writes Lawrence Summers. "Both face a future quarter century as challenging as any in their long history....Both have powerful traditions and strong and loyal constituencies.... [and] both must overcome the besetting sin of the long preeminent - complacent self regard protective of present comforts and averse to disruptive innovation," the former president of Harvard writes.

“There are decades when nothing happens, and then there are weeks when decades happen.”  So Lenin once observed, and as the impetus for the revolution that transformed Czarist Russia into the Communist Soviet Union, he had grounds for this insight.  In the spaces analyzed by those of us at the Belfer Center, more things seem to be happening more rapidly with greater impact on a broader array of American interests than any time in recent memory.

James R. Schlesinger, chair of the Belfer Center International Council and Harvard alumnus, has been honored by Harvard Kennedy School’s establishment of the James R. Schlesinger Professorship of Energy, National Security, and Foreign Policy.

"The analogy between key elements of legal professionalism and potential elements of business "professionalism" is imperfectly assessed, indeed significantly overstated, from the point of view of this lawyer who has served in big law, big government, and big business. It does not represent the realities (and failings) of the legal profession nor the ferment in law schools."

Testimony of Calestous Juma before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health, Hearing on Food Security in Africa: The Impact of Agricultural Development