QTRS June 12, 2025

Graphs, commentary, and interesting content for the curious

As I see it…

When you profess that one of the values of your product is that you teach critical thinking skills and reflection, then it is a really bad look when you don’t do that yourself. I find it frustrating when I read articles like 5 Steps to Defend Higher Ed -How to stand up for academe in this era of constant attacks from federal and state governments (6/3/2025), with the main thesis of the problem of higher ed being that “It turns out, we’re bad at this activism stuff.” In other words, higher ed really has a marketing problem.

While I was a competitive rower, I picked up two adages about racing from one particular coach. Row like your life depends on it and take complete responsibility for the outcome of the race.

As I see it, higher education needs to reform what it offers as if their jobs depend on it and take complete responsibility for society’s view of what they do. Competition for students is increasing as high school graduates decline (see U.S. population declines by age 5/6/2025) and will continue to increase until enough colleges close to balance out supply and demand.

Meanwhile, trust in higher education is declining because, for one, many people are beginning to question whether the cost of tuition is justified by the outcomes they receive. Further, there is little question of the left bias on campuses, which, if nothing else, leads to a disconnect between the views and values of faculty and those of much of society. Throw in AI as a disruptive force to add further skepticism about what students are learning, and it isn’t difficult to see that higher ed doesn’t have a marketing problem; it has a product problem.

I do think higher education has been and can be a positive, but right now I spend more of my time shaking my head as I watch supposedly smart people point blame at everything but their actions. My advice: start by taking complete responsibility for outcomes, whether that be government attacks, declining societal trust, or students that don’t get a return on their investment.

Let’s go to some data.

To attend college or not

The chart here is from the Gallup report Learning in Focus: Examining Iowa Students' Engagement in Grades Five Through 12 (2025). I’m not sure I’d say the results are representative of the entire country, but they probably aren’t far off.

The female-male gap in interest in attending college in the future is large. Referring back to the introduction, higher education can either blame this situation on males "not getting it," or they can take responsibility for not providing something that males consider valuable. Given enrollment challenges, one would think there would be more focus on this.

This chart from the same report illustrates how men are typically less engaged than women. Those are large green plusses for music, learning new skills, and art. If these were reversed, there would be lots of energy spent in higher education studying why females weren’t engaged and how to fix it. This type of hypocrisy isn’t lost on much of society.

On Norway's electric vehicles

You may have heard that almost all the new cars sold in Norway in 2024 were electric. I’m sure climate activists will be pointing to this as proof that EVs are viable. Meanwhile, I’ll put this Washington Post headline up for the most deceptive of the year: Most new cars in Norway are EVs. How a freezing country beat range anxiety. (5/30/2025) As a bonus this is categorized under Climate Solutions.

About halfway down the article, you will encounter this paragraph.

While the push for EVs has played to people’s green sensibilities, the real driver, arguably, has been economic: Generous government incentives, supported at least indirectly by the country’s fossil fuel profits, have brought down the cost of owning and operating an EV.

So, how generous are those government incentives? Keep going in the article:

The government estimates that between 2007 and 2025, it will have forgone approximately 640 billion kroner (about $62 billion) in various vehicle-related taxes, mostly because of EVs.

Over about two decades, Norway spent $62 billion pushing EVs. Let’s put that into perspective. From 2007 to 2025, Norway’s population has grown from about 4.5 million to 5.5 million. I’ll use 5 million as an estimate to get $11,272 spent per person, regardless of age, to push electric vehicles. At the same cost per person, the U.S., with about 320 million people on average over that time, would have to spend 320,000,000 x 11,272 = 3,607,040,000,000, or about $3.6 trillion. This calculation didn’t make it into the article. Norway “beat range anxiety” by making electric cars a lot cheaper, and it isn’t scalable. Note that this cost does not include the money spent on building their charging network of “9,771 fast chargers in 1,684 locations.”

How did Norway pay for this?

The country is Europe’s largest oil and gas producer, which helps support Norwegians’ aspiration to live green. Norway has invested its fossil fuel profits into what has become the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, a nest egg worth $1.7 trillion. Returns from that fund help cover government expenses, which in turn makes it easier to accommodate climate-friendly tax exemptions.

So, while Norway was going “green” from 2007 to 2025, here is its natural gas production.

and its oil production.

No, this data didn’t make it into the article. Norway has used its oil and gas revenues to heavily subsidize electric vehicles, and it is still producing fossil fuels. Why? Because there is money to be made. What they don’t need for their cars will be sold to someone. There is nothing particularly virtuous about Norway.

The spinning CD

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Please tell me if you believe I expressed something incorrectly or misinterpreted the data. I'd rather know the truth and understand the world than be correct. I welcome comments and disagreement. I encourage you to share article ideas, feedback, or any other thoughts at briefedbydata@substack.com.

Bio

I am a tenured mathematics professor at Ithaca College (PhD in Math: Stochastic Processes, MS in Applied Statistics, MS in Math, BS in Math, BS in Exercise Science), and I consider myself an accidental academic (opinions are my own). I'm a gardener, drummer, rower, runner, inline skater, 46er, and R user. I’ve written the textbooks “R for College Mathematics and Statistics” and “Applied Calculus with R.” I welcome any collaborations.