People who read the College Meltdown are missing a great deal of information if they are using the mobile format. I'm putting information here that you can see in the standard format.
The most important links for me are in the section titled Activists, Coalitions, Innovators, and Alternative Voices; these people are trying to make a difference and some can use your support. If you think anybody else should be included in the first section, please comment here or email me at CollegeMeltdown@protonmail.com
This article also includes my updated Bibliography of the College Meltdown. While all of the references are important, I have bolded some of the most vital books, from AJ Angulo's Diploma Mills to Craig Steven Wilder's Ebony and Ivy. Books are located at the bottom of this article.
Activists, Coalitions, Innovators, and Alternative Voices
- I Am Ai
- Student Loan Justice
- Debt Collective
- Strike Debt Portland
- Condemned to Debt (Richard Fossey)
- Con Job: Stories of Adjunct and Contingent Faculty
- Adjunct Crisis
- College is a Risky Business (Thomas B. Walsh)
- Outside the Law School Scam
- Jim Wolfston and the Social Mobility Index (CollegeNet)
- The Simplest Way to Bring Down the Cost of College (Mark Salisbury)
- Student Borrower Protection Center
- Harvard Project on Predatory Student Lending
- ITT Tech Warriors
- Bryan Alexander (Futurist)
- Charles Hugh Smith
- Diane Ravitch (K-12)
- Jonathan Kozol (K-12)
- Student Debt Crisis
- Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor
- Higher Ed Not Debt
- Adjunct Nation on Twitter
- New Faculty Majority (Adjuncts)
- SEIU Faculty Forward (Adjuncts)
- Confessions of a College Professor (Professor Doom)
- Remaking the University
College Choice and Career Planning Tools
- TuitionFit
- Hechinger Report College Fitness Tracker
- NBC News Investigation: Certificate schools are leaving many students in debt and unable to find jobs
- 2/3s of US Employees Regret Their College Degrees (CBS News)
- Free Tuition in 15 states (Century Foundation/Inside Higher Education)
- Free Community College (CNBC)
- The Future of Work Won't Be About College Degrees (CNBC, Stepane Kasriel)
- Student Loan Meltdown (Dave Ramsey)
- Permanent Underemployment for College Grads (Burning Glass Technologies)
- College Is A Risky Proposition For The Working Class (Jon Marcus, Hechinger Report)
- 15 Things College Doesn't Teach You
- Best Colleges for Social Mobility (CollegeNet)
- The Case Against Higher Education (Bryan Caplan)
- College May Not Pay Off For Everyone (Liberty Street Economics/NY FED)
- Online Education Has Questionable Outcomes (IHE)
- Colleges Where Most Students Borrow and Few Repay (TICAS)
- Broke, Busted, and Disgusted Trailer (Student Loan Debt)
- The Confusing Information Colleges Provide Students About Financial Aid (The Atlantic)
- Apprenticeship Finder (US Department of Labor)
- Best Value Colleges (PayScale)
- College Affordability and Transpareny Center (ED)
- Washington Monthly College Rankings
- Public College Dropout Factories (Third Way)
- Outcomes By Major (NY FED)
- College Navigator (NCES)
- Third Way
- College Scorecard (NCES)
- GI Bill Comparison Tool (VA)
- Top 10 Tips For Veterans (Veterans Education Success)
- 8 Tips to Help Vets Pick the Right College (Military Times)
- Warrior Scholar (For Veterans)
- Service to School (For Veterans)
- Peer Advisors for Veteran Education (PAVE)
Innovation and Reform
- Strategies for Improving Student Success (Inside Higher Education)
- Gap Year Basics (NYU)
- Union Plus Free College
- NC Promise
- Free College In Six States (Century Foundation)
- Maryland Student Loan Debt Relief Tax Credit
- Canceling Student Loan Debt Would Grow Economy and Add Jobs (Levy Institute)
- Beyond Tuition: Promises for Affordability, Quality, and Accountability in Higher Education (Center for American Progress)
- Georgia State Turnaround (CHE)
- Spelman Health Initiative (IHE)
- University of Kansas: BA In Three Years
- Shady Grove: Nine Campuses in One (WAPO)
Selected Articles
- 41% of Recent Grads Work in Jobs Not Requiring a Degree (Inside Higher Education)
- College Students Losing SNAP Benefits (Inside Higher Education)
- Colleges Slash Budgets in the Pandemic, With ‘Nothing Off-Limits’ (Shawn Hubler, NY Times)
- Permanent Budget Cuts Are Coming (Robert Kelchen, CHE)
- A Separate And Unequal System of College Admissions (Anthony Abraham, NY Times)
- House Democrats Drop Canceling Student Loans (Kery Murakami, IHE)
- College Town Economies Brace for Covid Blow (WSJ)
- 30 college towns that could face economic ruin if schools don't reopen or have to close again this fall (Madison Hoff, Business Insider)
- Laureate Education to Sell Walden University to Adtalem Global Education (Market Watch)
- 'It's going horribly': College towns fret about census count (ABC News)
- Student Loans Plummeted for the Summer Term (Kevin Miller, The Century Foundation)
- University of Arizona Acquires Ashford University (IHE, Lindsay McKenzie)
- The Nightmare That Colleges Face This Fall (Adam Harris, The Atlantic)
- No students. No graduation. ‘Total devastation’ in college towns during coronavirus pandemic (Zoe Nicholson and Ed Semmler,Yahoo Finance)
- University Leaders Are Failing (François Furstenberg, Chronicle of Higher Education)
- The Coming Disruption of Higher Education (New York interview with Scott Galloway)
- Demand for refunds intensifies among college students (Jessica Dickler, CNBC)
- Latest Coronavirus News (Inside Higher Education)
- Coronavirus Pushes Colleges to the Breaking Point, Forcing 'Hard Choices' about Education (Wall Street Journal)
- Adjuncts Barely Getting By (Colleen Flaherty, IHE)
- Students are considering dropping out of college because of coronavirus (Abigail Hess, MSN.com)
- Will Parents Pay? (Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed)
- Masters of None (Grace Gedye, Washington Monthly)
- Public Colleges Face Looming Financial Blow (Kery Murakami, Inside Higher Education)
- With May 1 'Decision Day' Looming, 69 Percent of Parents and 55 Percent of Students Say Coronavirus Has Impacted Their Ability to Pay for College (KPVI)
- ‘I Was Horrified’: For Millions of Borrowers, the Coronavirus Stimulus Law Offers No Relief (Danielle McLean, Chronicle of Higher Education)
- Preparing for a Fall Without In-Person Classes (Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Education)
- Presidents Fear Financial, and Human, Toll of Coronavirus (Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Education)
- Will spring breakers become super-spreaders? (Politico)
- The Real Lesson of the College Closures (Saahil Desai, The Atlantic)
- To Fight Coronavirus, Colleges Sent Students Home. Now Will They Refund Tuition? (Melissa Korn and Douglas Belkin, Wall St. Journal)
- The Covid-19 Crisis Is Widening the Gap Between Secure and Insecure Instructors (Megan Zahneis, Chronicle of Higher Education)
- Moody's lowers higher ed outlook to negative amid coronavirus crisis (Jeremy Bauer-Wolf, Education Dive)
- What Is a College Education in the Time of Coronavirus? (NY Times Opinion)
- Community Colleges and the Coronavirus (Madeline St. Amour, Inside Higher Education)
- California AG sues Betsy DeVos for overturning Obama-era rule aimed at for-profit colleges (Aarthi Swaminathan, Yahoo Finance)
- Coronavirus and Admissions Fears (Scott Jaschick, Inside Higher Education)
- Already stretched universities now face huge endowment losses from market meltdown (PBS, Jon Marcus)
- Uncertain Fate for Support Staff (Lilah Burke, IHE)
- 41% of Recent Grads Work in Jobs Not Requiring a Degree (Inside Higher Education)
- New Jersey Passes Contingent Faculty Bill of Rights (The Adjunct Crisis)
- Many Nonprofit College Programs Would Fail Gainful Test (Inside Higher Education)
- The College Wealth Premium Has Collapsed (Annie Lowrey, The Atlantic)
- Trump DOJ Compels NACAC to Soften Ethics for College Admissions (Inside Higher Education)
- Student Debt Is Transforming the American Family (Hua Hsu, New Yorker)
- Community college enrollment down 25% nationally since 2011, Census Bureau estimates (Cleveland.com)
- Break Up the BA Cartel (Frederick M. Hess, National Review)
- Wealthy Students' Borrowing Spikes (Rick Seltzer, Inside Higher Education)
- Behind Closed Doors in Washington, Here’s What Colleges Fight For (Kevin Carey, NY Times)
- Preparing for the Great Enrollment Crash (Inside Higher Education)
- List of 946 Financial Ailing Colleges Kept Secret (Inside Higher Education)
- How Colleges Can Survive the Coming Enrollment Crash (Rob Jenkins, James G. Martin Center)
- Colleges, face up to the rocky financial reality (CNN opinion)
- Trump education official to resign and call for mass student loan forgiveness (Josh Mitchell, Wall Street Journal)
- Colleges Ill-prepared for the Future (Inside Higher Ed)
- Has the Chamber of Commerce Hijacked YOUR Education System? Engineering Students For A Low-Wage, Gig Economy (Wrench in the Gears)
- The Educated Underclass (Gary Roth)
- Sallie Mae execs tan at Maui retreat while student debt crisis tops $1.6 trillion (NBC News Investigates)
- Flagship Universities are Unaffordable to Most Citizens (IHEP)
- 99% Rejected For Student Loan Forgiveness - Again (Zack Friedman, Forbes)
- The other victims when colleges decline or close: their hometowns (Hechinger Report)
- HBCUs Plan Cuts After Congress Misses Funding Deadline (Inside Higher Education)
- Trump Administration Hires McKinsey to Evaluate Student-Loan Portfolio (Wall Street Journal)
- Campus Facilities Facing Debt Crisis and Staffing Cuts (Sightlines)
- TCF Analysis of 70+ University-OPM Contracts Reveals Increasing Risks to Students, Public Education
- DOWNFALL OF NCAA WOULD IMPROVE AMERICAN EDUCATION (Randall Collins)
- Academy Fight Song (Thomas Frank)
- Ripple Effect of College Closings on Hometowns (Hechinger Report)
- Wall Street and Human Capital Contracts (EdSurge)
- Less Transparency in Gainful Employment (NACAC, 2019)
- Private OPMs Taking Over US Colleges (Highline)
- The Higher Education Apocalypse (USA Today, Lauren Camera)
- Colleges Manipulating Student Loan Default Numbers (Inside Higher Education)
- Schools Obfuscating Net Price Calculators (Inside Higher Education)
- Student Loans Are a Massive, Generational Scam (Matt Taylor, Vice)
- Scientists Leaving Academia in Droves (Inside Higher Education)
- Unmet Financial Need Is Rising (Inside Higher Education)
- 34% of College Students Treated for Mental Health Issues (American Psychological Association)
- Student-Loan Debt Is Crushing Millennials (Bloomberg)
- The Student Loan Debt Crisis Is About to Get Worse (Bloomberg)
- 59% Say College is Not Worth the Cost (AARP-NORC)
- Most Americans See Higher Ed Headed in Wrong Direction (IHE/Pew)
- College students predicted to fall by more than 15% after the year 2025 (Hechinger Report)
- Student Loan Debt and Divorce
- For-Profit College Students Share Sagas Of Debt And Disillusionment (Charlene Crowell, Center for Responsible Lending)
- Despite the economic recovery, student debtors' 'monster in the closet' has only worsened (CNBC, Annie Nova)
- Here's How Higher Education Dies (The Atlantic)
- College Is A Risky Proposition For The Working Class (Jon Marcus, Hechinger Report)
- What Happens If Higher Education Collapses? (IHE)
- The Student Debt Problem Is Worse Than We Imagined (Ben Miller/NYT)
- Death By Degrees (Thomas Frank)
- College Scorecard Cuts the Context (New America)
- Panicked Universities In Search of Students Are Adding Thousands of New Majors (Washington Post)
- Student Loans Are Starting To Bite The Economy (Bloomberg)
- Trump Era Deregulation (CHE)
- The Case Against Transparency In Higher Education Finance (IHE/Matt Reed)
- A Worrisome Trend for Higher Education: Declining Enrollments (James G. Martin Center)
- College Opportunity At Risk (UPenn IRHE)
- Enrollment Shrinking At Many US Public Colleges (Richard Vedder)
- For Small, Private Colleges, Fewer Students Means More Worries (Boston Globe)
- Malcolm Gladwell: Americans Spend Too Much On 'Meaningless Education' (CNBC)
- Peril for Small Private Colleges: A Survey of Business Officers (IHE)
- Yet Another Way Student Debt Keeps People from Buying Homes (The Atlantic)
- Student Loan Debt Is A Hurdle For Many Would-be Mothers (CNBC)
- How Student Debt Can Ruin Home Buying Dreams (NY Times)
- The Looming Collapse of Student Loan Asset Backed Securities (Bloomberg)
- Class Privilege and Education (The Atlantic)
- Shutting Low-Income Students Out of Public Four-Year Higher Education (NCAN)
- With Colleges Shifting to Adjuncts, Teaching Quality May Suffer (James G. Martin Center)
- Moody’s Downgrades Higher Ed’s Outlook From ‘Stable’ to ‘Negative’ (CHE)
- NCES Projecting Stagnant College Enrollment Numbers
- Moody's: Declining Enrollment Is Squeezing Tuition Revenue (Inside Higher Education)
- Student Loan Rates Will Rise 13% This Summer (Forbes)
- Anemic Growth For State Higher Eduction (IHE)
- Shakeout for Online Managers (IHE)
- Foreign Students Crowding Out Americans From Elite Colleges (WAPO)
- Colleges Manipulate Student Loan Default Numbers (GAO, Washington Post)
- Visa Mills (Center for Immigration Studies)
- Student Loan Payments Becoming Costlier (FED)
- Colleges and Universities Owe $280B (Hechinger Report)
- Parent Plus Loans Lead to Increasing Inequality (Hechinger Report)
- Gloomy College Financial Forecast (Washington Post)
- Community College Enrollment + Finances (IHE)
- College Sports and Educational Opportunity: Exposing the (Half) Truth (James G. Martin Center)
- Liberty University Boiler Room (NY Times)
- UMUC No Better Than For-Profit College (National Review)
- 25 Wealthiest Universities
- Adjuncts Ask to See the Books (Hechinger Report)
- Why is College Tuition Rising So Much?
- When College Choice Is a Fraud
- The Danger of Subprime Colleges
- Charting the College Meltdown
- Community Colleges at Heart of College Meltdown
- Bibliography of the College Meltdown
Data Sources
- Academic Labor Force Trends (AAUP)
- College Closing Projections (EY)
- College Closings (PEPS)
- College Costs Increasing Over Time (College Board)
- College Debt Inhibits Home Buying (CNBC)
- College Inc. (PBS/Frontline)
- College Meltdown Video
- Debt by Degrees (Pro Publica)
- Department of Defense
- Education Statistics by Institution
- Enrollment Numbers
- Hechinger Report
- Heightened Cash Monitoring
- Inside Higher Education
- Long-term Student Loan Default Rates
- National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA)
- National Center for Education Statistics
- School Counselor Numbers (ASCA)
- Scientists Leaving Academia in Droves
- Starving the Beast: The Battle to Disrupt and Reform America’s Public Universities
- State by State College Debt (TICAS)
- Student Loan Debt By State (Urban Institute)
- Student Loan Debt Clock
- Student Loan Debt Inhibits Home Buying (CNBC)
- Student Loan Default Projections (Brookings)
- Subprime Colleges (David Halperin)
- Third Way Reports
- Transfer Credit Problems (GAO)
- University Business Officers Reports
- Veterans Affairs (GI Bill)
- Veterans Education Success
Bibliography
- Angulo, A. (2016). Diploma Mills: How For-profit Colleges Stiffed Students, Taxpayers, and the American Dream. Johns Hopkins University Press.
- Archibald, R. and Feldman, D. (2017). The Road Ahead for America's Colleges & Universities. Oxford University Press.
- Armstrong, E. and Hamilton, L. (2015). Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality. Harvard University Press.
- Arum, R. and Roksa, J. (2011). Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses. University of Chicago Press.
- Bennett, W. and Wilezol, D. (2013). Is College Worth It?: A Former United States Secretary of Education and a Liberal Arts Graduate Expose the Broken Promise of Higher Education. Thomas Nelson.
- Berg, I. (1970). "The Great Training Robbery: Education and Jobs." Praeger.
- Berman, Elizabeth P. (2012). Creating the Market University. Princeton University Press.
- Berry, J. (2005). Reclaiming the Ivory Tower: Organizing Adjuncts to Change Higher Education. Monthly Review Press.
- Best, J. and Best, E. (2014) The Student Loan Mess: How Good Intentions Created a Trillion-Dollar Problem. Atkinson Family Foundation.
- Bogue, E. Grady and Aper, Jeffrey. (2000). Exploring the Heritage of American Higher Education: The Evolution of Philosophy and Policy.
- Bok, D. (2003). Universities in the Marketplace : The Commercialization of Higher Education. Princeton University Press.
- Bousquet, M. (2008). How the University Works: Higher Education and the Low Wage Nation. NYU Press.
- Brennan, J & Magness, P. (2019). Cracks in the Ivory Tower. Oxford University Press.
- Brint, S., & Karabel, J. The Diverted Dream: Community colleges and the promise of educational opportunity in America, 1900–1985. Oxford University Press. (1989).
- Caplan, B. (2018). The Case Against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money. Princeton University Press.
- Cappelli, P. (2015). Will College Pay Off?: A Guide to the Most Important Financial Decision You'll Ever Make. Public Affairs.
- Carney, Cary Michael (1999). Native American Higher Education in the United States. Transaction.
- Childress, H. (2019). The Adjunct Underclass: How America's Colleges Betrayed Their Faculty, Their Students, and Their Mission University of Chicago Press.
- Cohen, Arthur M. (1998). The Shaping of American Higher Education: Emergence and Growth of the Contemporary System. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
- Cottom, T. (2016). Lower Ed: How For-profit Colleges Deepen Inequality in America
- Donoghue, F. (2008). The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities.
- Dorn, Charles. (2017) For the Common Good: A New History of Higher Education in America Cornell University Press.
- Eisenmann, Linda. (2006) Higher Education for Women in Postwar America, 1945–1965. Johns Hopkins U. Press.
- Espenshade, T., Walton Radford, A.(2009). No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal: Race and Class in Elite College Admission and Campus Life. Princeton University Press.
- Faragher, John Mack and Howe, Florence, ed. (1988). Women and Higher Education in American History. Norton.
- Freeman, Richard B. (1976). The Overeducated American. Academic Press.
- Gaston, P. (2014). Higher Education Accreditation. Stylus.
- Ginsberg, B. (2013). The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All Administrative University and Why It Matters
- Gleason, Philip. Contending with Modernity: Catholic Higher Education in the Twentieth Century. Oxford U. Press, 1995.
- Golden, D. (2006). The Price of Admission: How America's Ruling Class Buys its Way into Elite Colleges — and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates.
- Goldrick-Rab, S. (2016). Paying the Price: College Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American Dream.
- Ihle, Elizabeth L., ed. Black Women in Higher Education: An Anthology of Essays, Studies, and Documents. Garland, 1992.
- Johnson, B. et al. (2003). Steal This University: The Rise of the Corporate University and the Academic Labor Movement
- Kelchen, R. (2018). Higher Education Accountability. Johns Hopkins University Press.
- Kezar, A., DePaola, T, and Scott, D. The Gig Academy: Mapping Labor in the Neoliberal University. Johns Hopkins Press.
- Kinser, K. (2006). From Main Street to Wall Street: The Transformation of For-profit Higher Education
- Labaree, David F. A Perfect Mess: The Unlikely Ascendancy of American Higher Education. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017.
- Lucas, C.J. American higher education: A history. (1994).
- Lukianoff, Greg and Jonathan Haidt (2018). The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure. Penguin Press.
- Marti, Eduardo (2016). America's Broken Promise: Bridging the Community College Achievement Gap. Excelsior College Press.
- Mettler, Suzanne 'Degrees of Inequality: How the Politics of Higher Education Sabotaged the American Dream. Basic Books. (2014)
- Newfeld, C. (2011). Unmaking the Public University.
- Newfeld, C. (2016). The Great Mistake: How We Wrecked Public Universities and How We Can Fix Them.
- Paulsen, M. and J.C. Smart (2001). The Finance of Higher Education: Theory, Research, Policy & Practice. Agathon Press.
- Rosen, A.S. (2011). Change.edu. Kaplan Publishing.
- Reynolds, G. (2012). The Higher Education Bubble. Encounter Books.
- Roth, G. (2019) The Educated Underclass: Students and the Promise of Social Mobility. Pluto Press
- Ruben, Julie. The Making of the Modern University: Intellectual Transformation and the Marginalization of Morality. University Of Chicago Press. (1996).
- Rudolph, F. (1991) The American College and University: A History (1991).
- Selingo, J. (2013). College Unbound: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students.
- Sinclair, U. (1923). The Goose-Step: A Study of American Education.
- Stodghill, R. (2015). Where Everybody Looks Like Me: At the Crossroads of America's Black Colleges and Culture.
- Tamanaha, B. (2012). Failing Law Schools. The University of Chicago Press.
- Taylor, Barret J. and Brendan Cantwell (2019). Unequal Higher Education: Wealth, Status and Student Opportunity. Rutgers University Press.
- Thelin, John R. (2019) A History of American Higher Education. Johns Hopkins U. Press.
- Tolley, K. (2018). Professors in the Gig Economy: Unionizing Adjunct Faculty in America. Johns Hopkins University Press.
- Vedder, R. (2004). Going Broke By Degree: Why College Costs Too Much.
- Veysey Lawrence R. (1965).The emergence of the American university.
- Washburn, J. (2006). University Inc.: The Corporate Corruption of Higher Education
- Wilder, C.D. (2013). Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America's Universities.