Peak Higher Ed: How to Survive the Looming Academic Crisis

  

By Bryan Alexander

John Hopkins University Press, 2026

Reviewed by David F. Beer

Editor’s Note:  Readers probably recognize that this work is somewhat distant from our usual material. However,  author and futurist Bryan Alexander is one of our regular reviewers and contributors, and I always try to support their work. Also, Bryan's book covers a topic of great importance to all of us. MH

Bryan Alexander at a Georgetown University Event

In the week since getting Bryan Alexander’s latest book on higher education I have noticed four articles in our local newspaper on topics Bryan seriously and methodically explores in one way or another. The first article was on how graduating seniors at the University of Texas are having a tougher time finding jobs this spring and another was on how universities are becoming concerned about grade inflation. In another, a local reporter described a mock funeral, complete with ancient horse-driven hearse, which took place one recent afternoon near our campus protesting how politicians and administrators are "killing" the university. The fourth article was a charming but bittersweet piece by a father whose young daughter had anxiously asked him if “everyone has to go to college.” The dad, who a few years back would have answered with a definite yes, realized now he isn’t so sure.

These incidental bits of information probably caught my attention due to having spent almost all my working life as a teacher in a university. So reading Bryan Alexander’s Peak Higher Ed: How to Survive the Looming Academic Crisis has turned out to be what I feel is the most accurate and impactful study on the futures of higher education that any of us could hope to currently encounter. This is a recent publication by the author, and his previous books have pointed to what he so elegantly deals with in this one: the possible futures of the Academy—namely, where our endangered universities and colleges are headed and how we will survive and hopefully prosper within new circumstances and forces.

Order HERE

In eight chapters, with a full introduction and copious notes (plus an index) the author examines the current state of America’s higher education and admits that all is not well. Simply put, we have over-built and over-extended. So where do we go from here and what possibilities does the future hold? These two questions are analytically described, investigated, evaluated, and (in my opinion) as thoroughly processed and answered as is possible at this time. Read the book and you will see what I mean.

David F. Beer

P.S.  If you would like to see how America's higher ed responded to the challenge of the First World War, read our articles on the experiences of Penn State HERE and Clemson HERE