Brendan Cantwell

Brendan Cantwell

@cantb.bsky.social

Professor of higher education. Views and speech are mine alone. Might delete.

4.7K followers1.5K following4.1K posts

Brendan Cantwell
@cantb.bsky.social

It really drives me up a wall that line 2/3 of the higher ed policy advocates act like democratic backsliding isn’t happening or if it does it doesn’t matter to higher ed.

Brendan Cantwell reposted

Robert Kelchen
@robertkelchen.com

In one of the first statewide data points for enrollment this fall, Michigan's public universities saw their first collective enrollment decline since 2022. The smallest institution saw a 14% decline in just one year.

highereddive.comMichigan public universities lost over 5,000 students in fall 2026Just three of the 15 institutions, including the University of Michigan, avoided a year-over-year enrollment decline, according to preliminary data.
Brendan Cantwell
@cantb.bsky.social

About a third of the MSU president’s $1.5 million salary is directly by donors; a known group of people who make an annual contribution for the next 5 years to pay a portion of the salary. Anyone know how common this direct donor pay arrangement is? I think not common but I could be wrong.

Brendan Cantwell reposted

Matt Novak
@paleofuture.bsky.social

I’m sure this won’t incentivize the absolute worst people in the world to harass their neighbors by calling the fucking gestapo

Brendan Cantwell
@cantb.bsky.social

Why did we stop calling them creeps and weirdos?

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

JD Vance: "We're self-confident men in the Trump/Vance administration. The president has been noticing a lot about the physiques of everybody lately"

Brendan Cantwell
@cantb.bsky.social

Was asked how far to go back to identify the start of the reactionary attack on higher ed. I'm no historian so probably not qualified, but I gave two answers: 1. All the way back: the Powell memo, Reagan in CA, McCarthy keep going... 2. Scott Walker kicked this off in WI (my preferred answer)

Brendan Cantwell reposted

Don Moynihan
@donmoyn.bsky.social

I don't know that there is a definitive line to cross that makes you say, "I live in a police state now" but when masked gunmen can routinely brutalize the public, citizen or immigrant alike, with impunity, you have reached that point.

Chris Ingraham@cingraham.bsky.social

Kavanaugh stops in action: ICE tackled a non-verbal kid near his school, left him with injuries requiring surgery, and then left the scene when they realized he wasn't the person they were looking for www.independent.com/2026/10/23/i...

independent.comICE Detains Special Needs Student, U.S. Citizen Near Santa Maria High SchoolRapid Response volunteers witnessed the student being tackled and left with injuries requiring surgery.

Brendan Cantwell reposted

Matt Grossmann
@mattgrossmann.bsky.social

Lot of fear of people lying to polls. We don't have much evidence for it & don't need it to explain error. People uncomfortable sharing their choice are more likely to be in the now ~98% of people who don't respond than to take ~20 min survey to lie. Non-response much bigger deal

Brendan Cantwell
@cantb.bsky.social

It feels good to defeat fascism

Reuters@reuters.com

People in Belgrade celebrated following Serbia's Aleksandar Vucic speech conceding defeat to a student-led protest movement in a historic election that ends his long grip on power and heralds a new political era in the Balkan country. reut.rs/4zkXvww

Brendan Cantwell
@cantb.bsky.social

My father-in-law and his wife are on a “mystery cruise” that left Portsmouth and he was convinced that given the time of year it must be heading south. I just checked maritime tracker and the first port of call is Leith Scotland and I am very amused.

Brendan Cantwell reposted

Tressie McMillan Cottom
@tressiemcphd.bsky.social

We resent universities as proof that a touch‘o’socialism is good actually so we blame them for all of capitalism’s externalities.

Brendan Cantwell@cantb.bsky.social

I am consistently vexed by the fact that elite consensus is more interested in holding US colleges and universities accountable for things that they have a little control over - white color wages, rent in Santa Barbara - than things they can influence - campus safety, instructional approach.

Brendan Cantwell reposted

Laura Bassett
@lebassett.bsky.social

Okay but it’s the Cheesecake Factory remark that was condescending to his voters

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com

Trump says Alaska’s ballot is illegal because people don’t know what “incumbent” means

Brendan Cantwell
@cantb.bsky.social

I am consistently vexed by the fact that elite consensus is more interested in holding US colleges and universities accountable for things that they have a little control over - white color wages, rent in Santa Barbara - than things they can influence - campus safety, instructional approach.

Brendan Cantwell
@cantb.bsky.social

I see that several of us who know something about how the political economy of higer ed works were agitated by the paper of record this morning

Brendan Cantwell reposted

Don Moynihan
@donmoyn.bsky.social

Rising costs is a real problem and the writer here focuses on a factor that the university has limit control over, which is housing. But the practice of quoting sticker prices misses that most get discounts or tuition waivers for lower income. UC says most in-state students pay zero tuition.

Karl Jacoby@karl-jacoby.bsky.social

The soaring costs of public universities is a political decision. When these schools predominantly served white students, they tended to be free (UC, CCNY, etc.) But as the number of students of color has increased, funding for the public universities has decreased. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/25/b...

nytimes.comPublic Colleges Are Passing the $50,000-a-Year Mark. For Locals. (Gift Article)At the University of California campuses in Berkeley, Irvine and Santa Barbara, students get an unwitting education in navigating the housing market.
Brendan Cantwell
@cantb.bsky.social

If the Times want's to write a story about hosing costs, it should focus on local market conditions, and the lack of state funding (more of it would require more tax revenue) to support housing. Instead it wants to shift the blame squarely to the campuses.

Brendan Cantwell
@cantb.bsky.social

In places with lower real estate prices, students can get a cheaper place to stay off campus, often in older housing stock that is not especially well maintained. Lowering prices for campus housing would probably require multiple occupancy rooms and communal bathroom facilities.

Brendan Cantwell
@cantb.bsky.social

In places where universities face high building costs, high land, and real estate costs, building new housing will be very expensive. To lower costs for students, they would have to provide big subsidies; in other words loose money. To do that they'd need an infusing of public money to cut elsewhere

Brendan Cantwell
@cantb.bsky.social

I am not letting campus off the hook. It's true that many campuses provide the kind of living quarters that attract students who can afford to pay higher prices, sometimes via public-private ventures, it's also true that students and families of all sorts now expect comfortable on campus living.

Brendan Cantwell
@cantb.bsky.social

It is true that there is not enough on-campus housing for all undergraduates at most large public universities. One reason for this is that students want to move off campus after their first year or two and so university that attempted to cater for 4 or 6 years of enrollment would have empty beds.

Brendan Cantwell
@cantb.bsky.social

I remember my orientation in 2011. They asked us to (a) get grants and (b) avoid having sex with students [in that order of priority]

Micah@rincewind.run

every male college professor apparently needs to be given a starter pack here is your office, here is your chair, here is a buzzer that will shock you every time you think about fucking one of your students

Brendan Cantwell
@cantb.bsky.social

The Democrat in my congressional district, which is a point or two the right of the MI average, is Will Lawrence, a white DSA guy who is to the left of AES, including on foreign policy. All the anti-Lawrence adds are about socialism. All the anti-AES adds are racist and Islamophobic.

Brendan Cantwell
@cantb.bsky.social

My impression is that the racism is more effective than the Red-baiting, because the racism works on a lot of white liberals this cycle but the Red-baiting doesn’t.

Brendan Cantwell reposted

Stephen Nuñez
@socio-steve.bsky.social

If the "Constitution" allows this then it is a bad Constitution and it should be changed

Jeff Stein@jeffstein.bsky.social

Scoop: White House lawyers are weighing preemptive mass pardons for junior staff, sources says Under discussion: Pardoning everyone involved in deportation, war, or trade policy www.washingtonsun.com/whitehouse/w...

washingtonsun.comWhite House Is Weighing Mass Pardons for Junior StaffConservative groups influential with the Trump administration have pressed for the preemptive acts of clemency.
Brendan Cantwell
@cantb.bsky.social

The real question that I have is why he doesn’t spend more?

shauna@goldengateblond.bsky.social

$446 million of his (sometime) reported net worth of $1 trillion means he’s still only spending 0.0446% of his net worth to try to buy elections. put in more concrete terms: if you had $100, this would be like spending less than 5 cents. now tell me again why i should vote against a wealth tax.