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The kids are not alright—and universities are to blame
A message from President Carlos Carvalho. Plus: UATX collaborates with The Boring Company & top students visit Europe.
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America’s elite institutions have failed us because our universities failed them first—and every year we wait, the damage compounds.
Just 18% of Americans under 35 say they’re “extremely proud” to be American—down from 85% a decade ago. Only 31% of young people say religion is “very important” to them. Fewer than a third say having children matters. Marriage, even less. Meanwhile, 62% of young Americans view socialism favorably, and a third hold positive views of communism—ideologies responsible for 100 million deaths.
These numbers point to a generation increasingly untethered from the principles, faith, and civic commitments that built this country.
At UATX, we believe a collapse of academic standards had a lot to do with this. When institutions stop demanding rigor—when they refuse to distinguish between serious scholarship and activism dressed up as scholarship—they stop forming responsible citizens. When you gut the core curriculum, graduates never wrestle with the ideas that shaped Western civilization. When you inflate grades, you reward students for low standards and laziness, rather than inspiring them to be great. And when young people are never challenged to understand their country or its principles, why would they defend them?
UATX was founded to do things differently. We admit on test scores. Our students grapple with the best that’s been thought and written, in small seminars where professors know their names. We don’t inflate grades. We give blue book exams and rank every student. We liberate minds, rather than indoctrinate them.
The results so far are promising: many of our freshmen and sophomores are already building great companies that help our country, taking jobs with investors and entrepreneurs, presenting research in Washington, and competing against students from top engineering programs. They’re growing into the principled, informed leaders America needs.
And with our tuition-free, government-free financial model, we’re proving that a university can be truly accountable—to its students, its supporters, and our country.
Jeff Yass’s $100 million commitment gives us a strong start. But long-term success requires raising another $200 million.
We need your help to get us there. As you consider your year-end giving, I hope you’ll support us. We’re racing the clock as miseducated, unwise, and confused college graduates fill the most important positions in American life. With your help, we can prepare the leaders our country needs—and make sure the days ahead are bright for ourselves, for our children, and for theirs.
Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah,
Carlos Carvalho
President, UATX
Coming Soon: The UATX Applied Engineering Lab, next to The Boring Company.
Two-Week Intensive Courses
In December, many of our undergraduates enroll in two-week, intensive seminars (including by our president). This year, they included:
The Boring Company: Industry Immersion Practicum: Taught by Dean of STEM and retired naval officer David Ruth. From The Boring Company: “Over two intensive weeks, these ten ambitious students got muddy working around the clock on real-world underground detection and communication technologies.”
Political Theology: Taught by Dean of Arts & Letters Patrick Gray. UATX’s first study abroad program, this intensive course included historical tours, cultural events, and meetings with intellectuals across Budapest, Hungary; Cluj-Napoca, Romania (Transylvania); and Vienna, Austria. (See here for the reading list.)
On Capitalism: The Ideas that Build the Modern World: Taught by President Carlos Carvalho, who called this student cohort the finest he’s encountered in his career. (Reading list here.)
Ethics & Politics: Liberalism & Conservatism: Taught by Associate Provost Loren Rotner. (Reading list here.)
Storytelling for Film: Scenes, Structure, and Meaning in the Age of AI: Taught by video producers Aaron and Ethan Webman.
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