Biography
Visiting scholar Ben Wildavsky is a veteran higher education writer, strategist, speaker, and podcast host. He is working on a book for Princeton University Press on the ideal combination of broad and targeted education, skills, and social capital needed for career success. He spent many years as a journalist with publications in U.S. News & World Report, National Journal, the Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and Foreign Policy. He is the author of The Great Brain Race: How Global Universities Are Reshaping the World (Princeton University Press, 2010). In addition, he has co-edited books on the reinvention of higher education (Harvard Education Press, 2011) and standardized testing and college admissions (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018).
He has been a senior scholar at the Kauffman Foundation, guest scholar at the Brookings Institution, policy professor at SUNY-Albany, and director of higher education studies at the Rockefeller Institute of Government. He has held leadership positions at U.S. News, the College Board, and most recently Strada Education Network. As Strada’s senior vice president for national engagement, he launched and hosted the Lessons Earned podcast, led major partnerships with Lumina and Deloitte, shaped strategy, and spoke regularly at national events.
Education
B.A., Yale University, 1986