Big updates to the Mapping Higher Ed website/data & working paper today. After getting (a lot of, thanks) feedback, I updated to the new Carnegie '25 classifications & made some more updates. Link if you are interested: kylesaunders.com/university-m... (Feedback, shares, etc., welcome!)

And if you want to explore the accompanying website to search for your institution, see the new AI exposure measure, or see the open access materials, here’s a link: kylesaunders.com/university-m...

The DI Board chair used the word "parasitic." A senator called the SCORE Act "fundamentally immoral." The NCAA refused to settle the employment case. And next week they'll vote themselves NFL penalties without a CBA. New college athletics/policy assessment. kylesaunders.substack.com/p/parasitic-...

Can we go back to student samples (maybe in combination with the online diverse convenience stuff done with as many safeguards as possible)? I think that would mitigate a lot of this

This is interesting

Very good piece on the challenges in polling. “The polls-are-broken-because-AI narrative doesn’t really hold for outfits like Marist or Pew or the better state-level operations. When those polls miss, it’s usually the old, hard problem: guessing who’s actually going to show up and vote.“

Here is a video about my "Mapping the Structural Divide" website/work using NotebookLM. It's 7-ish minutes. If you don't know what I am talking about, here's a link to the project website: kylesaunders.com/university-m... More information in the first reply. youtu.be/WDfc6j-pmrA?...

New nerd piece over at the BBQ. It's not "AI is going to kill polling." The real story is weirder. The good pollsters are mostly fine. The scholarly pipeline behind them is not. kylesaunders.substack.com/p/the-pincer...

I've updated my new higher education website "Mapping the Structural Divide" using federal data and Anthropic's AI data. All open access. (Website, full dataset (1,556 inst's), replication code, etc.). Search for institutions on the front page: kylesaunders.com/university-m... Feedback welcome!

AI isn't a policy debate in the Democratic coalition-it's an identity crisis. The credential tht sorted the professional class into the party is what AI threatens most. 20/56 fav/unfav. Leadership response? "Innovation Economy" commission. kylesaunders.substack.com/p/the-credential-is-the-democratic

And someone should ping @profgalloway.com about this! :) (see the "about" tab).

RT-ing again to replace yesterday's, which was since edited and reposted by OP:

Nerd time! :) I mapped every 4-year college in U.S. higher education along two dimensions (institutional resilience & post-college market position) using federal data plus a novel measure of institutional AI exposure I created. Institution search on the front page! kylesaunders.com/university-m...

Hey @profgalloway.com, I hope you check this out. The idea started with your old USS University post coming to mind (cheers)...but I mapped institutional resilience, market position, + AI exposure. the site: kylesaunders.com/university-m... my substack: kylesaunders.substack.com/p/mapping-th...

A week of college sports developments run through the political economy lens. Trump's missing EO. The SCORE Act zombie. The CSC squeezed from every direction. And why the courts keep winning by default. News wrap + updated reform probability table. kylesaunders.substack.com/p/a-week-lat...

On Baudrillard, Habermas, AI, and constructivism’s difficulties amidst all of it… open.substack.com/pub/kylesaun...

To some, artificial intelligence looks like the end of reality. I'd argue that it's actually the end of pretending reality doesn't exist. Baudrillard, Habermas, and why constructivism is having a very bad year. kylesaunders.substack.com/p/reality-ba...

If you’re an academic, you know this to be true. More here: open.substack.com/pub/kylesaun...

Universities aren't really fighting AI. They're fighting what AI reveals about them. kylesaunders.substack.com/p/why-higher...

This essay best captures my experience on how context-aware AI like Claude Code/Codex adds value to my research. AI as a Research Collaborator, Not a Paper Mill modelinganunforeseeablefuture.substack.com/p/ai-as-a-re...

Trump's second college sports EO is taking shape. Dellenger's reporting confirms what the political economy lens predicted--it's stage-setting. But an SBA draft + narrowing legislative window make the congressional picture interesting. Updated probabilities! kylesaunders.substack.com/p/college-at...

I set up a scorecard for when AI would cross from tech policy into real politics. Six weeks later, every box is checked. The twist I didn't expect: Democrats are now the most anti-AI group in America, but their leadership is going the other direction. kylesaunders.substack.com/p/the-scorec...

Fantastic essay: "Why the ATM didn’t kill bank teller jobs, but the iPhone did." davidoks.blog/p/why-the-at... Key point: "it is paradigm replacement, not task automation, that actually displaces workers." In this sense, we're still in the early days of AI's effect on the economy.

kylesaunders.substack.com/p/on-the-ada... 1/ Oracle cut thousands of jobs last week, explicitly targeting roles AI can replace. Entry-level tech hiring fell 25% in one year. UK graduate roles dropped 46%. This isn't a blip. It's a structural shift, and higher ed hasn't caught up yet.

A power conference AD this week: "The people following the rules are being punished and the people circumventing are being rewarded." Trump on Friday: on an athletics executive order, "We'll be sued, and we'll go before the courts, and here we go again." kylesaunders.substack.com/p/when-the-b...

Americans don’t just think government is broken. Increasingly, they seem to think other Americans are bad people. That is worse than a trust problem. It is a moral contempt problem, and it makes democratic repair much harder. My latest: kylesaunders.substack.com/p/americans-...

@danwphilosophy.bsky.social has the best framing I've seen of what LLMs do to public opinion—anti-social media, technocratizing, epistemically converging. I'm (mostly) with him. But "epistemically converging" is the load-bearing claim, so, some thoughts... kylesaunders.substack.com/p/expert-lev...

Dehumanization is usually treated as the endpoint of hatred. Psychologically, it’s the opposite-it makes harm possible in the first place. An essay on motivated reasoning, social identity, disgust, & why ordinary cognition can produce extraordinary cruelty. kylesaunders.substack.com/p/the-psycho...

"Why Higher Education’s AI Backlash Reveals Some of Its Deepest Cracks" This piece has been getting a lot of views and positive feedback, so I thought I'd post it again here. kylesaunders.substack.com/p/why-higher...

Here's the abstract, if you're interested in finding out more about the attitudes and behavior of those who engage in rejecting, considering, or owning bitcoin, ethereum, solana, XRP, dogecoin, or even fartcoin!

Our (w/ Erin Fitz) new work "Who Considers, Who Owns? Multi-Study Evidence on the Behavioral Process of Cryptocurrency Adoption in the United States" is out! (Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services). Paper link: authors.elsevier.com/a/1mhPF3SU%7... Paper explainer cite: www.erinbfitz.com/crypto

Interesting papers and posts on AI. Robert Frank is about to get very fashionable (again?). Social Dynamics of AI Adoption --> www.nber.org/papers/w34488 causalinf.substack.com/p/claude-cod...

Most cryptocurrency research asks: Who owns it? Might be the wrong question about a multi-trillion dollar market, whether you're opposed or a supporter. The more important question for both groups might be: who would consider owning it? New work 👇 Paper link: authors.elsevier.com/a/1mhPF3SU%7...

Highly recommend @kylesaunders.bsky.social on why AI is so unsettling to higher ed - one of the best pieces I have read on this issue: "[U]niversities don’t merely teach. Universities certify, sort, and signal. And AI interferes with all three at once." kylesaunders.substack.com/p/why-higher...

If you're in need of a distraction from war coverage, and are interested in seeing a fun, vibe coded website explaining our newest JRCS article, well, here you go. (NB: you'll find this isn't a pro- or anti-crypto paper--there's lessons here for detractors and supporters.) www.erinbfitz.com/crypto

Here's my political economy look at this week's news in college athletics. It's incentives and collective problems all the way down, folks. kylesaunders.substack.com/p/incentives...

College athletes are getting paid. They’re also getting abused at unprecedented rates. That’s not coincidence. New piece on fan entitlement, sports betting, & the effects of the collapse of the amateurism buffer: kylesaunders.substack.com/p/the-profes...

“High-pressure information environments are dangerous not because they deceive, but because they narrow the space in which disagreement can safely occur.” kylesaunders.substack.com/p/when-persu...

New developments in college athletics litigation point to something more than isolated disputes. Eligibility decisions are increasingly being shaped in court, while institutions try to preserve authority through rules and narrative. My latest:👇 kylesaunders.substack.com/p/litigation...

New out today in Party Politics (w/ Erin Fitz), if you're interested. doi.org/10.1177/1354...

Why do activist tactics from Alinsky to Beautiful Trouble show up across ideologies? It's psychology: identity, outrage, and attention hacks that strain slow democratic institutions. Not anti-activism—just why they work. New essay: kylesaunders.substack.com/p/propaganda... #Propaganda #Activism

College sports keeps drifting toward an employment model while insisting it doesn’t want one. Fines, discipline, eligibility rules, NIL, enforcement — all of it points the same way. Deion isn’t the (only) point. kylesaunders.substack.com/p/when-colle...

Our BPP paper on government shutdowns, need for chaos, and prospect theory (w/ Erin Fitz, @stecula.bsky.social, Matt Hitt, and me). Here's the abstract and link for "Mindset to Gain? Framing Effects, Need for Chaos, and the Limits of 'Burning It All Down'." www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Propaganda is normal. Authoritarianism is what happens when it stops being contestable. When no institution is trusted to referee disputes, every claim looks like a “psyop.” kylesaunders.substack.com/p/propaganda...

Deion Sanders' monetary fine schedule for Colorado football players is like a fact pattern on a sports law final exam. Here's my @sportico.bsky.social take on why the schedule, which resembles the one for NFL players (except that one is bargained), could invite legal problems:

To me artificial intelligence feels like the political story of the next decade (even though, and let's be honest, many don't want it to be). That's why I did this deep dive, putting on my political scientist hat to map the political dimensions of these fast changes. substack.com/home/post/p-...

AI isn’t going to become political because of prompts or AGI debates, it’s going to become political because it hits jobs, power grids, zoning boards, & institutional legitimacy all at once and faster than institutions can adapt. My piece on AI politics: kylesaunders.substack.com/p/artificial...

I thought I'd better re-up this piece today--the number of reads and the level of engagement on this post has been really heartening. Thanks for your time.

Colorado is testing what happens when party competition weakens asymmetrically. When opposition collapses, politics moves inside the dominant party. My piece (after @smotus.bsky.social's excellent piece) CO's progressive primaries, Trump & accountability: kylesaunders.substack.com/p/colorado-a...