WASHINGTON—The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy today announced that Adam Kissel has started a one-year visiting fellowship focused on higher education reform.

A former official in the U.S. Department of Education, Kissel has long supported higher education reform through teaching, writing, research, philanthropy, government service, and defense of academic freedom and individual rights for students and professors.

During the Trump administration, Kissel served as the deputy assistant secretary for higher education programs at the Department of Education. He was responsible for more than $2 billion in annual spending and a roughly $2 billion loan portfolio.

At Heritage, Kissel will focus on opening higher education accreditation to competition, stopping politicized accreditors from abusing their power to interfere with institutional autonomy, protecting free speech on college campuses, and shining a spotlight on potential civil rights actions at universities with race-based admission policies and other discriminatory practices.

Kissel will also help shape higher education reforms that are part of Heritage’s 2025 Presidential Transition Project.

“As we look toward 2023 and 2025, it is critically important that conservatives have a proactive, positive higher education agenda ready,” said Lindsey Burke, director of Heritage’s Center for Education Policy. “Adam brings a wealth of experience in higher education policy to Heritage, and we’re thrilled to be working with him over the next year to supersize our work in higher education.”

In addition to being chairman of the West Virginia Professional Charter School Board, Kissel has taught undergraduate classes at The University of Chicago, and he served as the director of civic and higher education programs at the Philanthropy Roundtable.

“The Heritage Foundation has an unmatched national reputation for bold, effective policy leadership. Millions of American college students deserve a better education than they are now getting for their money, and federal programs are often counterproductive. I am delighted to join Heritage’s incredible team,” said Kissel, who is the author of Bad Returns: Student Debt Compared to Earnings.

Kissel joins Heritage while continuing to serve as a senior fellow at the Cardinal Institute, where he advances liberty and opportunity, and a visiting fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.