How the Trump Spending Bill Undermines U.S. National Security—and Strengthens China and Russia

The Trump-backed spending bill, now back in the U.S. House after passing the Senate, is a masterclass in short-term thinking and long-term self-destruction. Framed as a “Big, Beautiful” plan to restore fiscal discipline and American greatness, the legislation guts the very pillars of U.S. national power: public education, scientific research, clean energy innovation, and social stability. While it throws billions at the Pentagon and fossil fuel subsidies, it slashes the public investments that actually determine whether a country can compete in the 21st century.

By hollowing out education, defunding clean energy programs, and dismantling the civilian R&D infrastructure, the bill hands strategic advantages to authoritarian competitors like China and Russia. It weakens America not through direct confrontation—but through willful neglect of the systems that make a nation resilient, adaptable, and globally influential.

Gutted: America's Brainpower and Knowledge Economy

The spending bill imposes major cuts to federal funding for public colleges, student aid programs, and agencies like the National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and Department of Energy’s Office of Science. These institutions are not bureaucratic waste—they are engines of innovation that fuel entire sectors of the U.S. economy and form the intellectual backbone of national security.

China knows this. Its government has expanded investment in top-tier universities, AI, green tech, biotech, and quantum computing. In contrast, the U.S.—once the global leader in research and discovery—is now flirting with intellectual disarmament. Russia, though economically weaker, has also retained strong state control over critical research in energy and defense.

Clean Energy Sidelined—A Strategic Blunder

Perhaps the most dangerous provision in the bill is its rollback of clean energy investments. In a global race to dominate the energy systems of the future, this bill puts the U.S. in reverse. Key provisions from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)—including tax incentives for solar, wind, battery manufacturing, and electric vehicle production—are defunded or delayed. Climate-related research and Department of Energy grants are also on the chopping block.

This isn’t just bad environmental policy—it’s a geopolitical gift to Beijing and Moscow. China is already the world leader in solar panel manufacturing, electric vehicle production, and battery supply chains. Russia, meanwhile, depends on continued fossil fuel dominance. By kneecapping its own clean tech industry, the U.S. effectively cedes both economic and strategic terrain to its rivals.

Social Fragmentation: A National Security Threat

National security isn’t only about military power—it’s also about internal cohesion. By making college less accessible, eliminating student loan forgiveness, and worsening inequality, the Trump spending bill undermines the social contract. Millions of Americans, particularly young people, will see fewer paths to stability, upward mobility, or meaningful civic participation. That growing sense of abandonment is exactly the kind of vulnerability that foreign disinformation campaigns exploit.

Adversaries don't need to defeat the U.S. militarily if it’s already imploding internally. The seeds of unrest, division, and despair are sown by domestic policy—especially when it prioritizes tax cuts for the rich and weapons systems over education, climate resilience, and economic fairness.

Civilian Tech and Cybersecurity Left Exposed

The bill fails to support civilian cybersecurity, privacy infrastructure, and next-generation technologies outside of military procurement. Yet most cyber vulnerabilities and technological innovations originate in the civilian sector, much of it publicly funded. Cutting university research, technology transfer programs, and broadband expansion weakens America's ability to counter cyberattacks and AI-driven threats from China and Russia.

Meanwhile, China’s “Military-Civil Fusion” ensures that academic research, industrial policy, and military planning operate in lockstep. The U.S. is doing the opposite—undermining the very institutions that can build democratic resilience in the face of hybrid warfare.

A Blueprint for Decline

This legislation is not just a spending plan. It’s a strategic realignment—one that favors corporate profits, fossil fuels, and elite donors while undercutting the nation’s human and technological foundations. In the long run, no number of tanks or tax cuts can make up for a collapsed education system, a dead-end economy, and a planet on fire.

If passed in the House and signed into law, the Trump-backed spending bill will accelerate America's decline and embolden its adversaries. It is a self-inflicted wound dressed up as patriotism—and China and Russia are watching, patiently and profitably.

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Sources:

• The Hill: “Student Loans Become Flashpoint in Trump-Backed Senate Spending Bill” (July 1, 2025)

• Politico: “Inside the GOP's 'Big, Beautiful' Spending Reconciliation Plan” (June 30, 2025)

• DOE FY2025 Budget Summary (retrieved from House Committee on Appropriations)

• National Science Board: The State of U.S. Science and Engineering 2024

• Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS): “China’s Tech Rise and Civil-Military Fusion”

• Rhodium Group: Clean Energy Investment Trends, 2025

• BloombergNEF: Global Race for Clean Tech: U.S. vs China

For more investigative journalism on education, inequality, and public power, visit Higher Education Inquirer.

“The Big Beautiful Bill”: A Catastrophic Blow to College Affordability

The so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” pushed through the Senate as part of a massive reconciliation package, represents one of the most aggressive federal overhauls to higher education funding in modern history. Masked behind rhetoric of “budget responsibility” and “efficiency,” the legislation systematically guts key pillars of college affordability—Pell Grants and federal student loans—placing the greatest burden on working-class families, part-time students, and graduate borrowers.

The bill slashes the foundation of federal student aid by redefining Pell Grant eligibility in ways that dramatically reduce access. Students who receive full-ride scholarships or other substantial grants would no longer qualify for Pell, regardless of their economic need. Part-time students—who make up a substantial portion of today’s college population, particularly in community colleges—are completely excluded. The credit threshold for receiving a full Pell award jumps from 24 to 30 credit hours per year. This effectively penalizes students who work while studying or attend school at night, demanding a pace that many cannot maintain.

Even for those who still qualify, Pell awards may shrink or disappear. According to the Congressional Budget Office, more than 10 percent of current Pell recipients would lose their grants entirely, and over half would see reductions. The bill’s language also includes a provision to count foreign income in determining eligibility, starting in the 2026–2027 academic year—a move that disproportionately affects immigrant and dual-national families.

In a superficial nod to stabilization, the bill allocates $10.5 billion to prevent near-term Pell shortfalls. But this does nothing to address the deep structural harm inflicted by these new restrictions. The House and Senate remain divided over the specific credit-hour thresholds, but both versions aim to cut costs at the expense of the most vulnerable students.

On the student loan front, the legislation is equally ruthless. Subsidized federal loans are eliminated entirely, forcing interest to accrue while students are still in school. This shift alone will increase student debt burdens by thousands of dollars per borrower. Graduate PLUS loans, a vital resource for those pursuing advanced degrees in education, health care, and social work, are eliminated. Parent PLUS loans, used heavily by middle-income families, are capped at $65,000—regardless of tuition inflation or program costs.

Income-driven repayment plans, including the Biden administration’s SAVE plan, are scheduled for termination in 2026. In their place, borrowers will be offered a limited menu: a standard 10- to 25-year fixed repayment plan or a newly created “Repayment Assistance Plan” tied to adjusted gross income. Gone are provisions for economic hardship deferments. Time spent in medical, legal, or other professional residencies will no longer count toward loan forgiveness. For future professionals in high-demand fields, this is not just a technical change—it is a direct economic assault.

The bill’s architects claim these cuts are necessary to “streamline” federal spending and fund tax reductions. But the effect is clear: stripping away the scaffolding that allows millions of Americans to pursue higher education. Private lenders stand to gain the most, as students increasingly turn to high-interest loans to fill the financial vacuum.

This is not a plan to reform education—it’s a plan to ration it.

For years, policymakers have debated whether the federal government should play a leading role in making college accessible and affordable. This bill answers that question with chilling clarity: the market will decide who gets educated, and debt will decide who succeeds. Low-income and first-generation students, single parents, and adult learners will be the first casualties in this new regime. Graduate education, once seen as a ladder to mobility, becomes a privilege for the already wealthy.

The higher education sector is already under enormous strain from declining enrollments, rising costs, and growing skepticism about the value of a degree. This legislation pours gasoline on that fire. Institutions serving working-class students, especially public regional colleges and community colleges, will be hit hardest. We are witnessing not just a rollback of financial aid but the strategic dismantling of public higher education as a gateway to opportunity.

The “Big Beautiful Bill” is not beautiful. It is brutal.

It deserves not only scrutiny but resistance—from students, educators, and every citizen who believes that education should be a public good, not a private luxury. The damage this bill will do cannot be overstated. But it must be understood—and it must be challenged.

Senate GOP’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” Reshapes Student Finance and Higher Ed Policy

In a 51–50 vote on July 1, 2025, the U.S. Senate passed the sweeping Republican reconciliation measure known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, with Vice President J.D. Vance casting the tie-breaking vote. While the bill still awaits passage in the House, its provisions already signal a significant realignment of federal policy on student loans, Pell Grants, and institutional accountability.

One of the most dramatic elements of the legislation is the overhaul of federal student loan repayment options. The measure consolidates repayment into just two plans: a traditional fixed plan and a streamlined income-driven plan that eliminates many borrower protections. Under the new income-driven plan, repayment extends up to 30 years, with higher monthly minimums and limited forgiveness options, effectively rolling back much of what had been enacted under the Biden administration's SAVE plan.

The bill also imposes strict borrowing caps on Parent PLUS and Grad PLUS loans, a move likely to affect middle-income families and graduate students attending high-tuition programs. These changes may push more families into private lending markets with higher interest rates and fewer protections.

Pell Grant eligibility is also tightened. Although not as harsh as initial proposals in the House, the Senate bill still raises the threshold for full-time enrollment to 15 credits per term. This shift could make it harder for low-income, part-time, and working students to receive full federal aid.

On the institutional front, the bill introduces more aggressive accountability measures by restricting aid to programs whose graduates fail to meet specific earnings benchmarks. While such rules may redirect federal funds away from low-performing programs, they also risk disproportionately harming community colleges and regional universities that serve working-class students and historically marginalized populations.

Graduate and professional schools, particularly in medicine, have raised alarm bells. By capping federal borrowing, the bill could hinder enrollment in essential programs, exacerbating workforce shortages in healthcare and other critical sectors.

Republican leaders have framed the bill as a fiscally responsible response to ballooning student debt and a needed correction to federal higher education policy. Critics, however, describe it as punitive, short-sighted, and regressive. The Student Borrower Protection Center has called it a “crushing blow” to borrower protections, arguing it will increase financial strain for millions of Americans and widen the racial and class divides in higher education.

The legislation now heads to the House, where further amendments and political maneuvering are expected. Though the final version of the bill could differ, institutions and students are already bracing for major disruptions. With its aggressive restructuring of student finance, the One Big Beautiful Bill represents more than just a budget—it's a statement about who deserves access to higher education in America, and under what conditions.

Sources:

• The Hill: https://thehill.com/homenews/education/5379988-student-loans-senate-reconciliation-bill-trump-budget-gop-big-beautiful/

• MarketWatch: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/gop-megabill-poised-to-change-the-way-americans-borrow-and-repay-student-loans-56c49da3

• Time: https://time.com/7299237/budget-could-cut-pell-grants/

• The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/02/trump-administration-news-today

• Student Borrower Protection Center: https://protectborrowers.org/republican-controlled-senate-advances-big-terrible-bill-delivering-massive-tax-cuts-to-billionaires/

• Houston Chronicle: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/education/article/san-jacinto-college-pell-20391500.php

• Vanity Fair: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/president-donald-trump-big-beautiful-bill-july-4th-deadline

The Untimely Disappearance of Investigative Reporter Mike Vasquez

Michael Vasquez, a veteran investigative journalist known for his dogged reporting on the for-profit college industry and higher education corruption, appears to have been quietly laid off by The Chronicle of Higher Education in 2024—even though he is still listed on their website as a senior investigative reporter.

Vasquez's last byline for The Chronicle appeared in August 2024, with no public announcement of his departure from the publication. His silence since then has raised questions among media observers and watchdogs who followed his work. Given the importance of his investigations—often exposing powerful institutions that exploit vulnerable students—his absence is conspicuous and troubling.

Before joining The Chronicle, Vasquez led education coverage at Politico and served as a longtime reporter at The Miami Herald. His career has been marked by award-winning investigations into fraudulent colleges, political influence in higher education, and the failings of accreditation and oversight systems. In a time when public interest journalism is shrinking, his work stood out for its rigor, clarity, and impact.

That Vasquez was laid off in a year of wider cutbacks and financial uncertainty in journalism is hardly surprising. But his continued listing on The Chronicle's website could reflect an industry practice of obscuring layoffs to protect institutional reputation, or a lack of transparency about the ongoing hollowing out of serious investigative reporting.

His departure comes as the for-profit college industry appears to be regaining political momentum under a second Trump presidency, and as student borrowers, whistleblowers, and contingent faculty face mounting challenges. Without voices like Vasquez’s, the public may lose one of its fiercest advocates for truth and accountability in U.S. higher education.

If Michael Vasquez has moved on to other work—or has been pushed out by institutional pressures—he hasn’t said so publicly. But the silence speaks volumes.

Public Higher Education is Splitting in Two (Robert Kelchen)

Even though there have been longstanding ideological differences across states, higher education leadership was largely insulated against these differences over the last half-century. Yes, they popped up in meaningful ways on topics such as South African divestment, affirmative action, and antiwar protests, but it was possible for university leaders to move from red states to blue states and vice versa. It helped to share the state’s political leanings, but it was generally not a requirement.

The last month has clearly shown that potential presidents now must pass an ideological litmus test in order to gain the favor of governing boards and state policymakers. Here are three examples:

Santa Ono’s hiring at Florida was rejected by the system board (after being approved by the campus board) due to his previous positions in favor of diversity initiatives and vaccine mandates. He tried to pivot his views, but it was not enough for Republican appointments on the board.Six red states, led by Florida and North Carolina, are seeking to launch a new accreditor to break free from their longtime accreditor (which was the only major institutional accreditor to never have a DEI requirement, although their diversity page is now blank). Florida Governor Ron DeSantis used his press conference to go on a tirade against higher education, but the North Carolina system’s statement was more cautious, focused on academic quality.
The Trump administration’s Justice Department effectively forced out University of Virginia president James Ryan over his alleged noncompliance in removing diversity initiatives from campus. This effort was successful because Virginia’s Republican governor also supported removal and has the ability to push the institution’s governing board to take action.

While there has been a long history of politicians across the ideological spectrum leading universities (such as Mitch Daniels at Purdue, John King at the State University of New York, and Dannel Molloy at Maine), these politicians have generally set aside most of their ideological priors that are not directly related to running an institution of higher education. But now a growing number of states are expecting their campus presidents to be politicians that are perfectly aligned with their values.

There are two clear takeaways from recent events. The first is that college presidents are now political appointments in the same way that a commissioner of education or a state treasurer would be in many states. Many boards will be instructed (or decide by themselves) to only hire people who are ideologically aligned to lead colleges—and to clean house whenever a new governor comes into power. The median tenure of a college president is rapidly declining, and expect that to continue as more leaders get forced out. Notably, by threatening to withhold funding, governors do not even have to wait for the composition of the board to change before forcing a change in leadership. New presidents will respond by requesting higher salaries to account for that risk.

Second, do not expect many prominent college presidents to switch from red states to blue states or vice versa. (It may still happen among community colleges, but even that will be more difficult). The expectations of the positions are rapidly diverging, and potential leaders are going to have to choose where they want to be. Given the politics of higher education employees, blue-state jobs may be seen as more desirable. But these positions often face more financial constraints due to declining enrollments and tight state budgets, in addition to whatever else comes from Washington. Red-state jobs may come with more resources, but they also are likely to come with more strings attached.

It is also worth noting that even vice president and dean positions are likely to face these same two challenges due to presidential transitions and the desire of some states to clean house within higher education. That makes the future of the administrative pipeline even more challenging.

[This article first appeared at the Robert Kelchen blog.]

The Dark History of Yale University: Power, Privilege, and Complicity in Genocide

Yale University, long celebrated for its intellectual prestige and political influence, has carefully cultivated an image of moral and civic leadership. But beneath the carefully constructed brand lies a history mired in racism, elitism, secrecy, and direct complicity in acts of violence—including genocide. From its early support of settler colonialism to its modern entanglements with war profiteering and imperial policy, Yale has not simply been a passive observer of atrocity, but in many cases, an active participant or enabler.

Founded in 1701 on land taken from the Quinnipiac people, Yale’s earliest benefactors enriched themselves through slavery, land theft, and violent religious expansionism. The institution was deeply tied to Puritan theology and settler colonialism, which justified the displacement and extermination of Native peoples in New England and beyond. Yale College educated generations of ministers, judges, and politicians who championed Manifest Destiny and Indian removal policies—ideologies and practices that resulted in the deaths and forced migrations of hundreds of thousands of Indigenous people across the continent. In this sense, Yale was not only born of colonialism; it helped write and preach the intellectual and religious justifications for genocide.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Yale’s scientific and anthropological institutions played an instrumental role in legitimizing eugenics and racial pseudoscience. Professors affiliated with Yale promoted theories of white supremacy, while the university's alumni became architects of U.S. imperialism abroad. Yale graduates were deeply involved in violent campaigns in the Philippines, Latin America, and the Caribbean—campaigns that destroyed communities, repressed national movements, and imposed economic and racial hierarchies through military and corporate force.

In the 20th century, Yale became an incubator for the Cold War security state. The university cultivated close ties with the CIA and other intelligence agencies. Skull and Bones, Yale’s secret society, became a recruitment pipeline for covert operations that supported right-wing dictatorships and death squads across the Global South. Yale men were involved in U.S.-backed coups in Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Chile (1973), and Indonesia (1965)—many of which led to mass killings and long-term political repression. Some of these operations resulted in genocidal violence, such as the U.S.-supported extermination of hundreds of thousands of suspected communists in Indonesia.

Yale's complicity has continued into the 21st century. The university and its alumni were instrumental in shaping the so-called War on Terror, which led to the invasion of Iraq—a war based on lies, responsible for hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths and the displacement of millions. Yale Law School graduates like John Yoo and Harold Koh wrote or defended legal justifications for torture, targeted killings, and indefinite detention. Others helped normalize drone warfare, which has devastated communities in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Afghanistan. These are not merely policy failures—they are crimes against humanity in which Yale-educated policymakers, lawyers, and think tank intellectuals have played central roles.

Yale’s investments also raise questions about complicity in structural violence. The university’s massive $40+ billion endowment is largely hidden from public scrutiny, but investigative reporting and activist pressure have revealed connections to fossil fuel companies, weapons manufacturers, and multinational corporations that profit from land dispossession, labor exploitation, and environmental degradation. Yale’s refusal to fully divest from these industries—despite sustained student and faculty protests—aligns it with forces that contribute to ecological collapse and human displacement on a global scale.

In recent years, Yale has made limited efforts to confront its dark history. These include renaming buildings previously honoring staunch defenders of slavery and colonialism, sponsoring research projects on the university’s ties to slavery, and promoting diversity initiatives. However, these gestures, while notable, are overwhelmed by the institution’s long record of harmful acts. The scale and depth of Yale’s complicity in oppression and violence far outstrip these piecemeal reforms, leaving the university’s fundamental structures of power intact and unchallenged.

This is not merely a matter of history. As the world confronts genocide in Gaza, ethnic cleansing in Myanmar, the repression of Uyghurs in China, and the persecution of Indigenous communities in the Amazon, Yale has failed to take meaningful stands. Its silence on current atrocities, particularly those committed or enabled by U.S. allies and business partners, reflects a persistent institutional cowardice masked as neutrality. The university continues to host and celebrate figures implicated in these atrocities while marginalizing the voices of those calling for justice.

Meanwhile, Yale benefits from the labor of underpaid staff and the gentrification of New Haven, all while operating as a tax-exempt institution that hoards wealth rather than redistributing it. Yale’s rhetoric of inclusion and social justice cannot obscure its structural role in global systems of domination and violence.

The dark history of Yale is not a footnote—it is central to understanding how elite education functions in a global empire. Yale has helped shape the world not only through scholarship and leadership, but through conquest, secrecy, and the normalization of genocide. To confront this truth requires more than renaming buildings or commissioning reports. It demands reparations, divestment, decolonization, and a total reimagining of what higher education can and should be.

The Higher Education Inquirer will continue to report on these institutional contradictions, shining a light on the real consequences of elite complicity. As long as Yale and its peers remain unaccountable, they will continue to reproduce the very systems they claim to critique.

Neg Reg Day 2: Still Turning Borrowers into Political Pawns (Student Borrower Protection Center)

 

Day 2 of the U.S. Department of Education (ED)'s Neg Reg aimed at weaponizing Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) was… just as damning as Day 1. Here’s the recap: Session Summary: The session got SPICY right off the bat. ED began the day by presenting their newly revised language. Here are some key moments: Abby Shafroth, legal aid negotiator, stated CLEARLY for the record that this Neg Reg is not about protecting PSLF; it’s about the Department of Education (ED) using it as a tool to coerce nonprofits and universities to further the Trump Administration’s own goals. The government’s response was not convincing. Watch her remarks here. Betsy Mayotte, the negotiator representing consumers, brought more fire: “When reading the statute of PSLF, I don’t see where the Education Secretary has the authority to remove employer eligibility definition from a 501(c)(3) or government organization…but my understanding of the regulations and executive order is that they cannot be contrary to the statute. There are no ifs, ands, or buts under government or 501(c)(3).” Watch the exchange here. In a heated discussion on ED’s proposal to exclude public service workers who provide gender-affirming care to transgender minors, Abby further flagged that no one in the room had any medical expertise, so no one had qualifications to weigh in on medical definitions like “chemical and surgical castration.” The non-federal negotiators held a caucus to talk about large employers that fall under a single federal Employer Identification Number. They are CONCERNED that the extreme breadth of this rule could potentially cut out thousands of workers only because a subset of people work on issues disfavored by this Administration—all without any right to appeal. Negotiators plan to submit language that would allow employers to appeal a decision to revoke PSLF eligibility by ED. Borrowers and other experts and advocates came in HOT with public comment today—calling out ED for using this rulemaking to unlawfully engage in viewpoint discrimination and leave borrowers drowning in debt, unable to keep food on their tables, or provide for their families. Missing From the Table: Today, our legal director, Winston Berkman-Breen, who was excluded from the committee (but still gave powerful public comment yesterday!) has some thoughts on what was missing from the conversation: For two days now, negotiators have raised legitimate questions and important concerns about the Secretary of Education’s authority to disqualify certain government and 501(c)(3) employers from PSLF. And for two days now, ED’s neg reg staff—inlcuding the moderator!—have engaged in bad faith negotiations. Jacob, ED’s attorney, asserted that the Secretary has broad authority in its administration of the PSLF program—true, but only to an extent. The Secretary cannot narrow the program beyond the basic requirements set by Congress. When pushed for specific authority, Tamy—the federal negotiator—simply declined. It doesn’t stop there—ED representatives sidestepped, dismissed, or outright ignored negotiators’ questions and concerns. That’s because this isn’t a negotiation—it’s an exercise in gaslighting. ED is proposing action that exceeds the Secretary’s statutory authority and likely violates the U.S. Constitution—all the while telling negotiators to fall in line. The kicker? By pushing this proposal, ED itself is engaged in an activity with “substantial illegal purpose.” Let that sink in. Public Comment Mic  Drops: And Satra D. Taylor, a student loan borrower, Black woman, and SBPC fellow, who was also not selected by ED to negotiate, shared more thoughts during public comment: “I am disheartened and frustrated by what I have witnessed over the last few days… It has become clear that this Administration is intent on… making college once again exclusive to white, male, and wealthy individuals. These political attacks, disguised as rulemaking, are inequitable and target communities from historically marginalized backgrounds. The PSLF program has provided a vital incentive for Americans interested in serving our country and local communities, regardless of their political affiliation. The Department’s efforts to engage in rulemaking and to change PSLF eligibility are directly related to the goal of Trump’s Executive Order and exceed the Administration’s authority…”

Watch Satra's Public Comment

That’s it for Day 2, we’ll be back again tomorrow for the LAST DAY of this Neg Reg charade. In solidarity, Brandon Herrera Communications and Digital Strategist Student Borrower Protection Center

Failing Students by Design: Strategic Inefficiency in US Higher Education

Southern New Hampshire University isn’t the only institution quietly unraveling. Across the U.S. higher education landscape, millions of students are being failed not by accident—but by design.

Financial aid systems are convoluted. Mental health services are threadbare. Loan forgiveness programs are bureaucratic nightmares. Advising and support services are being outsourced or cut altogether. And as universities continue to raise tuition, slash labor costs, and celebrate "efficiency," it becomes increasingly clear: these aren’t unfortunate oversights. They are intentional. The failure is the strategy.

This is what scholars and critics call strategic inefficiency—the deliberate maintenance of confusing, slow, or inaccessible systems to limit responsibility and reduce costs. In other words, when students slip through the cracks, it's often because the cracks were engineered that way.

At every level of higher education, we see systems designed to frustrate and exhaust the very people they're supposed to help. Financial aid forms get lost. Transfer credits vanish. Borrower Defense claims sit idle for years. Campus disability services are underfunded and overwhelmed. Counseling waitlists stretch for months. The result is a student experience marked by delay, confusion, and denial—not because schools can’t do better, but because they choose not to.

This isn't just negligence. It is institutional betrayal. Colleges and universities advertise themselves as spaces of care, opportunity, and transformation, but then they abandon students when they are most vulnerable. The betrayal is especially cruel because it wears the mask of benevolence. The smiling brochures, the mission statements, the student-first slogans—all serve as cover for a business model that exploits rather than supports.

Meanwhile, respected voices in academia are stepping away from this battlefield. Steven Mintz’s recent farewell to Inside Higher Ed exemplifies this retreat. He chooses to move toward quieter explorations of literature, aesthetic experience, and cultural inquiry. While his Substack musings on Bob Dylan, T. S. Eliot, and the inner life of students may be intellectually rich, they avoid the urgent reality facing most people in higher education today. The house is on fire, and some of our most thoughtful voices are choosing to paint watercolors instead of sounding the alarm.

But who benefits from this design? Not students. Not faculty. Not families. The winners are university executives, educational tech vendors, loan servicers, and financiers. These stakeholders thrive in a system where services are minimal and revenues are maximized. It’s no coincidence that tuition climbs as instruction quality declines, or that the most visible innovation in higher ed is financial packaging, not pedagogical reform.

And above it all, the rich and powerful quietly reap the benefits. They need their soldiers, and underfunded community colleges and for-profit trade schools supply them. They need their sex workers, and the crushing weight of student debt pushes desperate students into survival economies, including cam work and transactional relationships. They need a compliant, credentialed workforce that is obedient, overworked, and drowning in debt—unable to organize, challenge authority, or dream of another way. What they do not need is a generation of radical thinkers or empowered critics. They do not want philosophy majors with housing security or history graduates with zero debt. They want streamlined, segmented, and indebted labor—perfectly positioned to serve, not to resist.

Higher education is not broken. It is operating exactly as designed, serving the interests of power while selling the illusion of mobility. The rhetoric of opportunity masks the machinery of extraction. Every unpaid internship, every unanswered financial aid ticket, every overwhelmed advisor is a cog in that machine.

Real reform won’t come from think pieces about ambiguity or nostalgia for the humanities. It will come from student and worker organizing. From lawsuits and public exposés. From demanding transparency and refusing to be treated as liabilities. From confronting the fact that this system is not failing. It is succeeding at doing precisely what it was built to do.

Until that truth is widely recognized, students will keep being misled, mismanaged, and monetized—by design.

The Higher Education Inquirer will continue to name that design and expose those who profit from it.

Steven Mintz’s Exit from Inside Higher Ed: A Thoughtful Retreat or Quiet Surrender?

After more than a decade of weekly columns on the shifting terrain of academia, Steven Mintz—professor, public intellectual, and longtime contributor to Inside Higher Ed—has stepped away from his platform, “Higher Ed Gamma.” In his farewell post, Mintz characterizes the move as a philosophical shift, not a retreat. But for those engaged in the daily battles to defend the public mission of higher education, his withdrawal from one of the few widely read, accessible venues for higher ed critique feels like something else: a concession at a moment when visibility and resistance are needed more than ever.

Mintz says he is no longer as interested in “reacting to headlines,” preferring instead to explore the quieter realms of cultural inquiry—grappling with themes like grief, historical consciousness, and the inner lives of students through essays on Bob Dylan, T. S. Eliot, and opera. His transition to Substack, where he will continue to write freely and thoughtfully, signals an intentional shift toward what he calls “a different rhythm.”

But what happens when thought leaders retreat from public forums just as the foundations of higher education are being dismantled?

Mintz’s departure from Inside Higher Ed comes amid a historic and escalating assault on higher education’s core values: the elimination of DEI programs, political meddling in public institutions, massive layoffs, closures of small colleges, and a crisis of labor precarity among adjuncts and graduate students. It is a time of culture war, economic shock, and administrative capture—one that demands vigilance, confrontation, and critical dialogue. The silence of well-respected voices like Mintz, even when artfully composed, leaves a vacuum at precisely the wrong moment.

To be sure, Mintz has always occupied an ambiguous space in the higher ed discourse: never quite a radical, but often reflective and open to challenging assumptions. He offered important insights about student success, the role of the humanities, and institutional reform. But his columns were also marked by a cautious optimism that sometimes failed to account for the structural brutality many faculty, staff, and students experience daily—from exploitative adjunct labor to debt peonage and corporate takeovers of the academy.

In retreating from Inside Higher Ed—a public-facing, open-access platform—and into Substack, a more insular, self-selecting venue, Mintz risks preaching to a smaller choir. His musings on literature, aesthetics, and ambiguity, while intellectually rich, come at the cost of direct engagement with the high-stakes political and economic struggles now engulfing academia. In a word: the move feels safe.

But there is no safety for the contingent instructor evicted from their job mid-semester. No retreat for students saddled with unpayable debt. No intellectual sanctuary for librarians, counselors, and staff facing layoffs. The reality of higher ed today demands more than reflective essays on opera and poetry; it demands solidarity, analysis, and resistance.

To be fair, Mintz is not abandoning the field entirely. He promises to continue writing “sometimes about higher ed, sometimes about what it means to be human.” That is a noble aim. But as the privatization and defunding of higher education accelerate, and as faculty governance erodes in favor of corporate management, the fight to preserve the very possibility of the humanities and liberal inquiry depends on public intellectuals remaining in the arena, not retreating to side chambers of culture.

Mintz closes his farewell with an affirmation that “education—real education—is still worth defending.” We agree. But the defense requires more than aesthetic reflection. It requires naming enemies, calling out injustice, and staying embedded in the public struggles that define this moment in American education.

For those of us who continue the work of muckraking, exposing inequality, and sounding alarms about the corporatization of the university, Mintz’s exit from Inside Higher Ed is less a turning of the page than a missed opportunity to stand firm. The page is burning, and too many are still waiting for the writers to put out the fire.

Without a Union, Expect More Layoffs: Southern New Hampshire University Employees Face Corporate Restructuring and Uncertainty

Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU), once hailed as a pioneer in online learning and educational innovation, is now facing growing unrest among employees as the institution continues down a path of corporate-style restructuring. Recent anonymous posts from internal forums reveal widespread fear, frustration, and anger following another round of layoffs—despite the university publicly celebrating its financial milestones.

“We are no longer people at SNHU—we’re financial liabilities,” one employee wrote. “Update your resumes. Prepare for the worst.”

The layoffs, reportedly targeting senior staff and long-time employees, come on the heels of previous job cuts last year—cuts that were soon followed by executive bonuses. Employees describe this tactic as a way to soften the blow while giving the remaining workforce a false sense of stability. That illusion, insiders say, is long gone.

This is no longer the institution led by Paul LeBlanc, the former president widely respected for his student- and staff-centered approach. Since the transition to President Lisa Marsh Ryerson, many employees say the university’s priorities have shifted toward financial engineering and aggressive cost-cutting.

One employee remarked, “Lisa’s mission is to operate the university like a business where dollars mean more than the people who made the university what it is. This would have never happened under Paul’s leadership.”

Even as SNHU publicly announced it had met its 6% financial growth target, more jobs were slashed—raising questions about the true motivation behind the downsizing. “Can we expect layoffs every nine months moving forward?” another asked.

A disturbing pattern is emerging: layoffs before the fiscal year closes, speculation about keeping operations just shy of the $1 billion revenue threshold, and vague communications about “regular assessments,” interpreted by employees as a euphemism for frequent cuts.

Adding to the frustration are apparent contradictions between internal messaging and actual spending. A former ITS (Information Technology Services) staffer recounted that for over a year before the layoffs began, leadership warned technical teams—especially at University Management (UM)—about “just keeping the lights on.” However, these austerity signals were contradicted by internal requests to research high-cost specialty equipment for UM ITS staff. “I guess the lights aren’t that important to her,” the employee said, referencing CF, a decision-maker believed to have pushed the tech purchases despite the budget warnings.

This kind of internal inconsistency is emblematic of the confusion and distrust now rampant among SNHU staff. Mixed signals, strategic ambiguity, and cost-cutting cloaked in business jargon have eroded morale.

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The Missing Shield: Why SNHU Workers Need a Labor Union

At the heart of SNHU’s internal crisis is the glaring absence of worker protection. Simply put: without a union, there is no defense against what’s coming next.

Layoffs. Outsourcing. Pay stagnation. Arbitrary restructuring. All of these are happening in the dark, without employee input, transparency, or any mechanism to push back. At SNHU—despite its size and influence—there is no faculty or staff union. And that leaves every worker vulnerable.

A labor union would change the power dynamics. With collective bargaining rights, employees could demand transparency in budgeting, negotiate job protections, and ensure that executive bonuses are not prioritized over staff livelihoods. Unions also provide grievance procedures, democratic voice in institutional decisions, and solidarity against exploitative management practices.

The pattern at SNHU is clear: it’s not a temporary adjustment—it’s a business model. A model that treats human beings as “cost centers” to be trimmed, regardless of their contributions or years of service.

One employee wrote, “They’re going to outsource everything they can.” Without a union, there’s little stopping that from happening.

While public university systems often have unionized faculty and staff with some degree of insulation from abrupt cuts, SNHU’s private, nonprofit status allows leadership to operate with near-total discretion. The only viable counterbalance is organized labor.

If SNHU employees want to end the cycle of fear, protect their jobs, and begin rebuilding an institution that values people, they will need more than nostalgia for past leadership—they will need solidarity, and a union to anchor it.

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The warning is clear. And the lesson is simpler still: without a union, expect more layoffs.

Songs for the Student Loan Struggle

In the United States, where over 43 million people carry more than $1.7 trillion in student debt, it’s no wonder that the crisis has made its way into the bloodstream of American music. Across genres—hip-hop, punk, folk, pop, indie, and beyond—artists have given voice to the quiet desperation and loud frustration of a generation who bought the dream of higher education, only to find themselves overworked, underpaid, and perpetually in debt. 

Student loans aren’t just a financial burden—they’re a cultural trauma. They delay marriages and children, block homeownership, exacerbate mental health struggles, and fuel cycles of economic precarity. For many, they are the symbol of a promise broken. Music has become one of the only honest mirrors left—naming what politicians won’t and exposing what marketing campaigns obscure.

Few songs capture this generational malaise as directly as Twenty One Pilots’ “Stressed Out.” In one of its most pointed lines, Tyler Joseph sings:

“Out of student loans and treehouse homes we all would take the latter.”

The lyric, delivered like a casual aside, cuts to the heart of the matter. The dream of adulthood has been replaced by nostalgia for childhood. Treehouse homes—imaginary, fragile, idealized—are preferred to the very real pressure of loans that never seem to shrink. The song became an anthem not just because of its catchy hook, but because it gave voice to a shared longing to escape a system that feels rigged from the start.

In folk and Americana, the tradition of protest lives on through artists like David Rovics, who sings candidly about capitalism, debt, and the false promise of meritocracy. Anaïs Mitchell’s “Why We Build the Wall,” from Hadestown, offers a parable of entrapment that mirrors the moral logic behind lifelong indebtedness—“we build the wall to keep us free,” the characters insist, as they cage themselves in the name of security.

Hip-hop, born from systemic exclusion, has long offered some of the most unflinching commentary on education, class, and race. Dee-1’s “Sallie Mae Back” is a rare moment of triumph—his celebration of paying off his loans is joyful, but also revealing: the milestone is treated like beating a boss in a video game, an exceptional feat in a system designed to trap. Meanwhile, J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar, and Noname have all touched on the disillusionment that comes from pursuing education and still being locked out of wealth and opportunity.

In the indie and emo scenes, debt doesn’t always appear as a headline—it’s in the background, a persistent hum of dread. Phoebe Bridgers’ ballads of suspended adulthood and unfulfilled expectations capture the emotional aftermath of investing in a future that hasn’t arrived. Bright Eyes’ early 2000s work resonated with disaffected students who already sensed that the system was cracking. Their songs are not about loans explicitly, but about what loans represent: being stuck, being lied to, being tired.

Punk, true to form, skips subtlety. DIY bands across the country scream out titles like “Broke and Educated” and “Loan Shark Nation” to crowds of kids who know the words by heart. These songs aren’t just cathartic—they’re organizing tools, naming the shared betrayal of a generation taught that college was a way out. Instead, it became a life sentence.

Country music has added its voice too, quietly but powerfully. Artists like Sturgill Simpson and Tyler Childers have used old-school storytelling to critique modern economic realities. Their characters are often trying to make ends meet in a world that seems designed to keep them down, and college debt is one of many invisible fences. Kacey Musgraves, in her ballads of broken dreams and gentle rebellion, speaks to the emotional toll of chasing a version of success that was never really for us.

In pop and R&B, the mood shifts but the themes remain. Lizzo’s affirmations of self-worth have become survival anthems for those trying to thrive despite systemic sabotage. Billie Eilish, with her whispered melancholy, captures the numbness that often follows years of grinding toward a goal that keeps moving.

Even instrumental genres reflect the weight of education debt. Jazz musicians and conservatory-trained artists emerge with six-figure loans and few stable jobs. Their music may not name the debt, but it carries its echoes—in the tension, the improvisation, the repetition of unresolved progressions.

Taken together, these songs form a shadow archive of student debt in America. This is not a playlist of protest songs in the traditional sense, but a collective cultural record of what it feels like to be promised opportunity and handed obligation. To be sold a degree and saddled with interest. To be told to work hard, only to discover the rules were never fair.

Twenty One Pilots’ “Stressed Out” may have sounded playful on first listen. But for many borrowers, that line about choosing treehouses over loans is all too real. It’s a cry for retreat—but also a quiet act of rebellion. It reminds us that the system has failed and that we are not alone in feeling crushed by its weight.

Let the music play. Let it say what policymakers won’t. Let it remind us that while the loans may be individual, the struggle is collective—and the chorus of resistance is still growing louder.

[Editor's note: A 2019 version of this article is here.]

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Playlist: Songs for the Student Loan Struggle

1. Stressed Out – Twenty One Pilots

2. Sallie Mae Back – Dee-1

3. Why We Build the Wall – Anaïs Mitchell

4. Brackets – J. Cole

5. Alright – Kendrick Lamar

6. Broke and Educated – DIY punk band (Bandcamp)

7. Kyoto – Phoebe Bridgers

8. Landlocked Blues – Bright Eyes

9. Call to Arms – Sturgill Simpson

10. High Horse – Kacey Musgraves

11. Truth Hurts – Lizzo

12. everything i wanted – Billie Eilish

13. Guillotine – Death Grips

14. Everything Can Change – David Rovics

15. Good as Hell – Lizzo

16. We Are Nowhere and It’s Now – Bright Eyes

AFSCME Municipal Workers Local 33 (Philadelphia) on Strike

After the latest marathon with the city, which ended without a deal, Philadelphia's largest blue-collar union, AFSCME Local 33, is moving toward going on strike at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday.

Scientific Publishers Flooded with Fake Research: A Growing Crisis in Academia

A recent article in Het Financieele Dagblad (FD) has exposed a deepening crisis within the academic publishing world: a tidal wave of fraudulent research papers infiltrating scientific journals. These papers, often generated by so-called "paper mills," represent a form of organized academic fraud that is overwhelming the traditional safeguards of scholarly publishing. The consequences are dire, not just for publishers and researchers, but for the integrity of science itself.

Scientific publishers are increasingly struggling to detect and stop the flow of fabricated articles. In 2023 alone, more than 10,000 papers were retracted globally—a record high that signals a broken system under immense strain. At the heart of the problem are industrial-scale operations that mass-produce articles, manipulate data and images, and even sell authorship to desperate or unscrupulous academics. The incentives are clear: in countries such as China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, India, and Iran, academic advancement is frequently tied to publication metrics, with researchers pressured to publish frequently, regardless of quality. This "publish or perish" culture is not limited to these countries—it has become a global phenomenon that distorts academic priorities and undermines the values of honest scholarship.

Some of the world’s most established publishers are now being forced to act decisively. Wiley, one of the largest academic publishers, recently shut down 19 journals and retracted more than 11,000 articles—primarily from its Hindawi imprint—as part of a sweeping response to paper mill infiltration. These actions follow investigations revealing widespread manipulation of peer review, citation rings, and the use of template-based writing tools designed to mimic legitimate scientific prose. Other publishers have followed suit, quietly retracting hundreds of suspicious papers and investing in forensic software to detect plagiarism, image manipulation, and statistical anomalies.

What makes this crisis particularly alarming is the erosion of public trust in science and higher education. When fraudulent papers appear in supposedly peer-reviewed journals, the entire academic enterprise is called into question. Resources—both financial and intellectual—are wasted as real researchers chase the ghosts of fake findings, sometimes basing their own work on completely fabricated data. This undermines the credibility of entire disciplines and can have far-reaching effects, especially in areas such as biomedical research, public health, and environmental science.

In response, publishers are deploying increasingly sophisticated tools, including artificial intelligence, to flag suspicious manuscripts. Programs like the Problematic Paper Screener and Papermill Alarm are being used to scan thousands of articles for telltale signs of fraud. However, these technological solutions are playing catch-up to a rapidly evolving problem. Some journals have also established editorial task forces focused solely on fraud detection, and industry-wide collaboration is beginning to take shape. Watchdog organizations such as Retraction Watch continue to highlight egregious cases, drawing attention to a problem that still receives too little scrutiny in mainstream academia.

The FD article makes clear that the fight against paper mills is not just about bad actors; it’s about a system that rewards quantity over quality. Until institutions, funders, and governments change the metrics by which academic success is measured, the paper mill industry will continue to thrive. The push for more rigorous standards, better peer review, and a reorientation toward research integrity must become a priority, especially for university leaders and regulators.

At the Higher Education Inquirer, we’ve tracked many scandals across higher education—from student loan exploitation to for-profit college fraud—but the explosion of fake science is especially insidious. It reaches into the very foundation of higher learning and research. If we fail to address it systemically, the damage could be lasting. Scientific knowledge is built incrementally, and when falsehoods pollute the record, progress grinds to a halt—or worse, proceeds on false premises.

The academic community must confront this crisis with transparency and resolve. Anything less would be a betrayal of the public trust and of the countless researchers striving to produce knowledge that genuinely advances our understanding of the world.

Forced Birth, Broken Systems: What Happens When Medicaid Is Cut, Planned Parenthood Is Defunded, Abortion Is Illegal, and Pell Grants Are Slashed

The United States is entering a reproductive and economic crisis with profound and long-lasting effects, not only on public health but on higher education, labor markets, and the basic social contract. With proposed Medicaid cuts threatening to remove 11 to 14 million people from coverage, the defunding of Planned Parenthood already underway in multiple states, abortion outlawed or criminalized in much of the country, and Pell Grants—long the financial lifeline for working-class students—now on the chopping block, the consequences for vulnerable Americans are becoming existential.

Medicaid currently funds 43 percent of all births in the United States, serving as a critical support system for low-income families and especially for women of reproductive age. Cutting this program will mean millions of people, including many students, will lose access to contraception, prenatal care, or safe childbirth. The simultaneous defunding of Planned Parenthood eliminates one of the few affordable sources of reproductive healthcare for millions more, including STI testing and abortion referrals. In states where abortion is now illegal or nearly impossible to access, people without resources are being forced into parenthood—regardless of age, circumstance, health risks, or consent.

The result is not a resurgence of “family values” but a public health disaster. Maternal and infant mortality will rise, especially among Black, Indigenous, and Latina women who already face disproportionate risk. Rural and underfunded hospitals will be pushed to the brink, taking on a wave of uncompensated labor and delivery cases they cannot afford. Many of these same states reject Medicaid expansion and other social supports, leaving poor women and their children with no safety net at all.

And now, the same lawmakers pushing forced birth are demanding cuts to federal student aid. Pell Grants, the cornerstone of college affordability for low-income students, are under threat of restructuring and reduction—some proposals aim to tie eligibility to higher credit loads or academic benchmarks that working students with family responsibilities often cannot meet. Forcing students to take 15 credits a semester to qualify for full funding, while stripping away healthcare, reproductive autonomy, and economic security, creates an impossible trap. The cruelty is calculated.

The consequences for college students—especially women, people of color, and those from working-class backgrounds—will be devastating. A student who becomes pregnant without access to abortion and Medicaid may be forced to carry the pregnancy to term without adequate medical care. Without affordable childcare or family support, many will be unable to complete their degrees. Financially, these students face lifelong setbacks: medical debt, increased student loans, and diminished earning potential.

Planned Parenthood has long been a crucial resource for college students seeking contraception, health screenings, or reproductive counseling. Mental health will suffer across campuses, with increased trauma, anxiety, and depression tied to forced pregnancy, criminalization, and economic desperation. College counseling centers are not equipped to manage this crisis.

Criminalization of abortion and related care also threatens student safety and autonomy. Students could face surveillance, arrest, or disciplinary action for seeking abortion pills, traveling out of state for care, or even sharing information. Faculty and staff may be legally targeted for offering assistance or referrals. The chilling effect on campuses will be immediate and severe, undermining both student health and academic freedom.

Meanwhile, slashing Pell Grants will make college completely unaffordable for thousands. Many will be forced to take out higher-interest loans—or drop out altogether. These financial constraints will disproportionately affect students at community colleges and regional public universities, the very institutions most likely to serve student parents and low-income learners. With every cut to Pell, with every denial of childcare, with every forced birth, the ladder of social mobility collapses further.

This is not just a reproductive rights issue or an education issue. It is a deliberate strategy of control and abandonment. The same communities being forced into parenthood are being stripped of the tools to escape poverty—higher education, healthcare, and bodily autonomy. This is economic warfare dressed in moral righteousness. And it is reshaping the future of who gets to survive, succeed, or dream in America.

Colleges and universities cannot remain silent. Faculty, administrators, and student organizations must speak out against the coordinated assault on reproductive freedom and educational access. Campus activism is already rising, but it is likely to be met with increased repression—funding cuts, surveillance, and political intimidation. Institutions that claim to support equity, justice, and student success must match words with action.

This moment demands more than statements and symbolic gestures. It requires direct resistance and solidarity. It requires fighting for healthcare as a human right, for fully funded Pell Grants and student supports, and for the fundamental freedom to make decisions about one’s own body and future.

In this looming dystopia—where reproductive autonomy is criminalized, education is devalued, and poverty is legislated—the very notion of a democratic and just society is at risk. If higher education is to mean anything at all, it must stand against this assault. Otherwise, it becomes just another engine in the machinery of inequality and control.

Higher Education Inquirer's Long History, Sudden Rise

Since its founding in 2016, the Higher Education Inquirer has steadily established itself as a reliable, independent source for reporting on the less visible dimensions of American higher education. With a focus on institutional decline, labor conditions, and the growing influence of private interests, the publication has grown from a modest blog into a respected outlet for analysis and first-hand accounts. In June 2025, it surpassed 150,000 views, a milestone that reflects both the persistence of its contributors and the relevance of its subject matter.

HEI's development can be traced through its evolving approach to research and storytelling. In its early years, it introduced the phrase college meltdown to describe the financial and enrollment stress afflicting many institutions, particularly small colleges and for-profits. It later popularized the term edugrift, referring to the role of consultants, investors, and online program managers whose involvement in the sector often escapes scrutiny. These terms were not intended for provocation, but as practical shorthand—frameworks for understanding trends that might otherwise be overlooked or mischaracterized.

Throughout its reporting, the Inquirer has placed a premium on documentation and primary sources. Public records, government datasets, and legal filings form the basis of many investigations. Contributions from whistleblowers have added firsthand depth, while independent experts have offered context and critique. Collectively, these elements have allowed the publication to trace patterns not always visible from press releases or institutional communications.

The work has been shaped by a small group of persistent writers and researchers. In addition to its founding contributors, the platform has featured the voices of David Halperin, Henry Giroux, Bryan Alexander, Michael Hainline, Gary Roth, and Annelise Orleck. Each brings a different lens—legal, sociological, historical—but shares a commitment to rigor and accessibility.

Rather than emphasizing single events, the Higher Education Inquirer has tended to focus on slow-moving structural change: the decline in enrollment at non-selective institutions, the tightening of state budgets, the casualization of academic labor, and the steady rise of administrative cost centers. It has also monitored the effects of algorithmic tools and automation in admissions, advising, and teaching, raising questions about accountability and oversight.

Over time, its readership has broadened to include students, faculty, policy analysts, and reporters seeking an alternative to promotional narratives. The site's growth has been slow but consistent, its audience largely built by word of mouth and citation.

The Inquirer has not positioned itself as a substitute for mainstream coverage, but rather as a complement—an archival and analytical space that focuses on enduring issues rather than fleeting controversies. In doing so, it has provided a place where difficult questions about the purpose and direction of higher education can be raised without distraction.