Adam Kissel has supported higher education through teaching, writing, research, philanthropy, government service, and the defense of academic freedom and individual rights for professors and students. He has taught undergraduates at the University of Chicago and master's students online at Liberty University. He serves on several university and nonprofit boards including those of the University of West Florida, Southern Wesleyan University, the National Association of Scholars, and the American Institute for Economic Research. In 2017-2018, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Higher Education Programs at the U.S. Department of Education. 

His book with two coauthors, Slacking: A Guide to Ivy League Miseducation, critiques the general education courses across the Ivy League and contrasts a Great Books/Great Conversation vision of undergraduate education with the distributional “ways of knowing” approach of most Ivy League institutions. He also chairs a state advisory committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.