Cory Doctorow’s theory of enshitification—originally coined to describe how digital platforms decay over time—perfectly captures the grim evolution of U.S. higher education. Institutions that once positioned themselves as public goods now exist primarily to sustain themselves, extracting revenue, prestige, and labor at the expense of students, faculty, and the broader public.
In the post–World War II era, higher education in the United States was broadly seen as a driver of social mobility, economic growth, and democratic citizenship. The GI Bill and substantial state funding opened college doors to millions. Tuition at public institutions was minimal or nonexistent. Academic freedom, faculty governance, and research for the common good were foundational ideals.
By the 1980s, neoliberal policies began to reshape the higher education landscape. Public disinvestment led institutions to rely more heavily on tuition, philanthropy, corporate partnerships, and student debt. Universities became more bureaucratic and brand-conscious. Students were reframed as consumers, and education as a commodity. Faculty positions gave way to underpaid adjunct labor, and Online Program Managers like 2U, Academic Partnerships (aka Risepoint) and Kaplan emerged to monetize digital learning. Marketing budgets ballooned. Classrooms and research labs became secondary to enrollment targets and revenue generation.
A 2019 Higher Education Inquirer report revealed how elite universities joined the downward spiral. Institutions like Harvard, Yale, and USC outsourced online graduate programs to 2U, employing aggressive recruitment tactics that resembled those of discredited for-profit colleges. Applicants were encouraged to take on excessive debt for degrees with uncertain returns. Whistleblowers likened it to fraud-by-phone—evidence that even the most prestigious universities were embracing an extractive model.
Doctoral education offers a deeper glimpse into how enshitification has hollowed out academia. Sold as a noble pursuit of truth and a path to secure academic employment, the Ph.D. has become, for many, a journey into economic instability, psychological distress, and underemployment. Only a small percentage of doctoral students land tenure-track jobs. Graduate schools continue to admit far more students than they can responsibly support, while providing little preparation for careers outside academia. Mentorship is often lacking, and financial support is frequently inadequate. Many graduate students rely on food pantries, defer medical care, or take on gig work just to survive. Meanwhile, universities benefit from their labor in teaching and research.
International graduate students face even steeper challenges. Promised opportunity, they instead encounter a saturated job market, low wages, and immigration precarity. Their labor props up U.S. research and rankings, but their long-term prospects are often bleak.
The rise of career-transition consultants—like Cheeky Scientist and The Professor Is In—has become a booming cottage industry, a byproduct of the failed academic job pipeline. For most Ph.D.s, what was once considered “alternative academia” is now the only path forward.
Financial hardship compounds the crisis. Graduate stipends in many programs are far below local living wages, especially in high-cost cities like San Francisco, Boston, or New York. Few programs provide retirement benefits or financial literacy resources. The financial toll of earning a doctorate is often hidden until students are years deep into their programs—and years behind in wealth accumulation.
Meanwhile, university medical centers—often affiliated with elite institutions—offer a parallel example of institutional enshitification. These hospitals have long histories of exploitation, particularly of poor and minority patients. Even today, these facilities prioritize affluent patients and donors, while relying on precariously employed staff and treating marginalized communities as research subjects. The disparities are systematic and ongoing. The rhetoric of innovation and healing masks a legacy of racial injustice and extractive labor practices.
Legacy admissions further entrench inequality. While race-conscious admissions have been rolled back, legacy preferences remain largely untouched. They serve to maintain elite networks, ensuring that wealth and access remain intergenerational. These policies not only contradict the rhetoric of meritocracy but also deepen structural inequities in the name of tradition.
Today, higher education serves itself. Institutions protect billion-dollar endowments, award executive salaries in the millions, expand sports programs and real estate portfolios, and depend on underpaid faculty and indebted students. Campuses are rife with inequality, surveillance of student protest, and performative gestures of inclusion, even as DEI initiatives are gutted by state governments or internal austerity.
The consequences are clear. Enrollment is declining. Campuses are closing. Faculty are being laid off. Public trust is eroding. And even elite institutions are feeling the strain. Doctorow’s theory suggests that once a system has fully enshittified, collapse becomes inevitable. The College Meltdown is not hypothetical—it’s here.
And yet, collapse can be a beginning. Higher education must be radically reimagined: public investment, tuition-free education, student debt relief, labor protections, honest admissions policies, and genuine democratic governance. The alternative is more of the same: a system that costs more, delivers less, and cannibalizes its future to feed its prestige economy.
Selected Sources
Caterine, Christopher L. Leaving Academia: A Practical Guide. Princeton University Press, 2020.
Cassuto, Leonard. The Graduate School Mess: What Caused It and How We Can Fix It. Harvard University Press, 2015.
Kelsky, Karen. The Professor Is In: The Essential Guide to Turning Your Ph.D. into a Job. Three Rivers Press, 2015.
Roberts, Emily. Personal Finance for Ph.D.s. https://www.pfforphds.com
Shaulis, Dahn. “2U Expands College Meltdown to Elite Universities.” Higher Education Inquirer, Oct. 4, 2019. https://www.highereducationinquirer.org/2019/10/college-meltdown-expands-to-elite.html
Shaulis, Dahn. “The Dark Legacy of Elite University Medical Centers.” Higher Education Inquirer, Mar. 13, 2025. https://www.highereducationinquirer.org/2025/03/the-dark-legacy-of-elite-university.html
Doctorow, Cory. “TikTok's Enshittification.” Pluralistic.net, Jan. 21, 2023. https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/
American Association of University Professors. Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession, 2023. https://www.aaup.org
National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Current Term Enrollment Estimates, 2024. https://nscresearchcenter.org
Newfield, Christopher. The Great Mistake: How We Wrecked Public Universities and How We Can Fix Them. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016.
Goldrick-Rab, Sara. Paying the Price: College Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American Dream. University of Chicago Press, 2016.
Roth, Gary. The Educated Underclass: Students and the Promise of Social Mobility. Pluto Press, 2019.
Teen Vogue. “The Movement Against Legacy Admissions.” Jan. 2, 2025. https://www.teenvogue.com/story/movement-against-legacy-admissions
The Guardian. “‘Affirmative Action for the Privileged’: Why Democrats Are Fighting Legacy Admissions.” Aug. 11, 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/aug/11/college-legacy-admissions-affirmative-action-democrats
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