WSJ Historically Speaking: A History of the Unloved Electoral College

Opponents have ranged from John Adams to Richard Nixon. Why has the system survived?

PHOTO: THOMAS FUCHS

The 2016 election results caused plenty of bitterness—not the least of which had to do with the Electoral College. Donald Trump won the presidency a year ago this week but lost the popular vote—something that has happened a handful of times in the republic’s history and twice in the past two decades. In a December press conference, President Barack Obama declared the system to be past its sell-by date: “It’s a carry-over from an earlier vision of how our federal government was going to work.”

What were the Founding Fathers thinking? At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, they created a unique system for choosing the president. Each state got a number of electors based on the total of its U.S. senators (two) and U.S. representatives (as set by census). Each state legislature could decide the method of picking electors, but if the electors’ vote was inconclusive, the choice would be sent to the House of Representatives. “The original idea,” wrote Federal Election Commission official William C. Kimberling in 1992, “was for the most knowledgeable and informed individuals from each State to select the president based solely on merit and without regard to State of origin or political party.” Continue reading…

The Sunday Times: The Real Value of a University Degree

Amanda Foreman (lower right) at Sarah Lawrence College in 1988

In four days’ time several hundred thousand 18-year-olds will be having a collective freakout. Finally, after weeks of sweaty waiting, they will receive their A-level results. You may be one of those waiting. Or you may be one of the relatives and friends bracing themselves for impact. Either way, there’s a date with destiny at midnight on Thursday. That’s when all first-choice university applications will have cleared the system. Continue reading…

The Sunday Times: Water slides and breadth of study: the gulf between US and UK universities

My view of US college life before I got there was based on the 1978 film Animal House. I assumed everyone had sex with their professors; that sharing a joint was the best way to start a conversation; and that college football was a religion. It was only once I arrived on campus that I realised how times had changed: pot was for kids, college was about getting creative in the lab.

Photo courtesy of The University of Missouri

Photo courtesy of The University of Missouri

Yet even though Animal House is pushing 40, it’s still a useful guide for anyone thinking about going to America to study.

If you’re a girl you’ll be warned that university life can be a minefield of drunken gropings and sexual assaults. If you’re a boy you’ll learn that joining one of the roughly 5,500 fraternities throughout the country will mean being subjected to initiation rites — hazing, as it’s known — that wouldn’t be out of place in a category A prison. I’m not exaggerating: there have been dozens of hazing-related deaths in the past 15 years.

Leaving aside the pitfalls of unsupervised behaviour, Animal House hints at something else American students take for granted: a campus lifestyle that is jaw-droppingly luxurious. Believe me, it has only improved since 1978. The universities are locked into an amenities arms race. In 2013 almost $11bn (£7.2bn) was spent on upgrades and building projects.

Continue reading…