Tag: Hillsdale

  • Right-Wing Hillsdale College Targeting MSN Readers for Donations

    Right-Wing Hillsdale College Targeting MSN Readers for Donations

    Hillsdale College—a small, private Christian liberal arts institution in Michigan—has increasingly turned to digital advertising, including Microsoft’s MSN platform, to extend its reach and solicit donations. Known for its conservative ideology and its refusal to accept any federal or state funding, Hillsdale is relying more than ever on mass digital engagement to sustain its growing national influence.

    Hillsdale sponsors content across digital news aggregators like MSN using native advertising platforms such as Taboola. These sponsored links promote Hillsdale’s free online courses in subjects like the U.S. Constitution and Western political philosophy. Readers who click are typically prompted to provide an email address, after which they are placed into a recurring stream of newsletters and donation appeals. Hillsdale’s marketing strategy combines educational branding with ideological and political themes designed to deepen audience loyalty and increase donor conversion.

    The school’s strategy is informed by its unique financial model. Unlike most colleges, Hillsdale accepts no Title IV federal funds and avoids other forms of government support. While this independence allows Hillsdale to circumvent Department of Education oversight, it also necessitates a highly developed fundraising operation. Hillsdale reportedly raises between $100 million and $200 million annually through private donations, which support its growing campus, online educational infrastructure, Imprimis publication, and a national network of affiliated classical charter schools.

    Hillsdale’s digital fundraising and brand-building efforts align closely with its broader ideological mission. On February 19, 2025, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk delivered a keynote lecture at Hillsdale’s National Leadership Seminar in Phoenix. Titled “Hitting the Ground Running: The Trump Transition and Early Priorities,” the event illustrated how Hillsdale fuses academic outreach with conservative political messaging. The speech was promoted on Hillsdale’s social media platforms and streamed via its Freedom Library website.

    [Charlie Kirk speaks at Hillsdale College in February 2025.] 

    Hillsdale’s collaboration with platforms like MSN reflects a wider shift in how politically-aligned institutions use digital media ecosystems to bypass traditional gatekeepers. Because MSN blends sponsored content into its main news feed using algorithmic curation, promotional material from ideological institutions can appear alongside conventional journalism—without the benefit of editorial transparency or disclaimers. For Hillsdale, this means access to millions of readers, many of whom may not realize they’re engaging with sponsored political content masked as civic education.

    This convergence of ideology, education, and marketing raises critical questions about the future of higher education outreach and the role of big tech platforms in shaping political narratives. Hillsdale’s success in these spaces underscores how easily lines between education, influence, and revenue can blur in the digital age.

    Sources

    https://online.hillsdale.edu/courses/promo/constitution-101

    https://freedomlibrary.hillsdale.edu/programs/national-leadership-seminar-phoenix-arizona/hitting-the-ground-running-the-trump-transition-and-early-priorities

    https://about.ads.microsoft.com/en/solutions/ad-products-formats/display

    https://www.hillsdale.edu/about/frequently-asked-questions/

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsdale_College

    https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu

    https://www.facebook.com/hillsdalecollegemichigan/posts/livestream-today-1000-pm-et-watch-charlie-kirks-speech-hitting-the-ground-runnin/905074171834140

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  • White House Partners With Hillsdale for Lecture Series

    White House Partners With Hillsdale for Lecture Series

    President Donald Trump is tapping a familiar institution, Hillsdale College, to produce a video lecture series for the U.S. sestercentennial, the administration announced on social media.

    “On July 4, 2026, we will celebrate 250 years of American Independence. The White House has partnered with @Hillsdale to tell our story of a rag-tag army defeating the world’s mightiest empire and establishing the greatest republic ever to exist,” the administration posted Tuesday.

    The first installment in the series, according to the post, was a seven-and-a-half-minute video featuring patriotic imagery and comments from Hillsdale president Larry Arnn, who emphasized the importance of knowing American history in order to commemorate the 250th anniversary. 

    In introducing the video series, Arnn cast Trump in the mold of Abraham Lincoln. 

    “Part of the purpose of this series of lectures is to remember. President Trump does this in part I think—I don’t speak for him—but the word ‘again’ is important to him. He has a famous slogan that I will not repeat here, but everybody knows what it is,” Arnn said. “He wants to do something again. Something [that’s] already been done, he wants to see it happen again.”

    Arnn argued that Trump’s campaign slogan, Make America Great Again, “places him somewhere near the politics of Abraham Lincoln,” who sought to build on the foundation laid by George Washington.

    The video focused on the Declaration of Independence and start of the Revolutionary War. The second installment in the series is about the Battles of Lexington and Concord.

    A Hillsdale spokesperson told Politico the college did not take “a dime of federal money” for the video lecture series, which it is providing in partnership with the White House and the Department of Education. (Hillsdale, a private, Christian institution in Michigan, does not accept federal financial aid.)

    The Trump administration also worked with Hillsdale at the end of the president’s first term. In early 2017, Hillsdale officials were part of a commission, chaired by Arnn, that produced the 1776 Report, a widely ridiculed document that academics dismissed as unserious scholarship. Critics argued the 1776 Report provided a whitewashed view of American history, omitted Native Americans entirely and had multiple citation issues.

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