The Silence of the Strategists: How Higher Ed Elites Withhold the Truth While Others Step Up

In an era when transparency should be the bedrock of ethical journalism and consulting, author and higher education commentator Jeff Selingo—alongside consultancy powerhouse EY Parthenon—are knowingly keeping critical information from the public. Despite having access to privileged data that identifies several hundred U.S. colleges and universities in serious financial trouble, they have refused to disclose the names of these institutions. This silence is not just unhelpful—it is immoral.

For years, EY Parthenon has conducted private studies and analyses for higher ed clients, tracking key indicators like declining enrollment, shrinking endowments, deteriorating debt ratios, and unsustainable tuition discounting. Jeff Selingo, through his writing and speaking engagements, has amplified some of these findings, warning of a looming wave of closures and consolidations. But while they hint at a coming crisis, they deliberately avoid naming names.

This concealment does a disservice to students, families, faculty, and communities. Stakeholders deserve to make informed decisions, especially when their financial futures and professional lives are on the line. Prospective students and their parents may unwittingly enroll in institutions that are likely to shutter or slash services. Faculty and staff remain in the dark about the viability of their jobs. And entire towns—especially those reliant on small, tuition-driven colleges—are left exposed to economic collapse.

Their rationale is predictable: naming struggling colleges could cause panic, accelerate closures, or lead to lawsuits. But this argument places institutional reputation over human consequences. It protects endowments and administrators while sacrificing those least able to weather the fallout—first-generation students, underpaid adjuncts, and vulnerable staff.

Jeff Selingo brands himself as a guide for navigating the college admissions maze, and EY Parthenon markets itself as a strategic advisor. But what good is strategy or guidance without accountability? What ethical framework justifies withholding the truth from the very people their work claims to serve?

This isn’t merely about transparency—it’s about power. When Selingo and EY Parthenon hoard vital information, they are reinforcing a system in which the elite manage decline behind closed doors, while the public bears the brunt of their silence.

Fortunately, there are others working in good faith to inform the public. Gary Stocker’s College Viability App offers accessible financial data and tools to evaluate the long-term sustainability of U.S. colleges, helping families, students, and educators make smarter decisions. Similarly, Mark Salisbury’s TuitionFit project democratizes college pricing information, giving prospective students real access to the true cost of college—information institutions often obscure. These efforts stand in sharp contrast to the guarded secrecy of the higher ed elite, and they deserve recognition and support.

It’s time for the higher ed establishment—including those profiting from its slow-motion collapse—to face the moral consequences of their choices. Either name the schools or admit that your silence is complicity.

The Higher Education Inquirer calls on Jeff Selingo, EY Parthenon, and others with access to this critical data to do what is right: tell the truth, in full. Anything less is a betrayal of the public trust.

“Dream School” vs. Harsh Realities: Comparing Jeff Selingo’s Hopeful Guide to the Critical Work of Gary Roth and Peter Cappelli

 Jeff Selingo’s Dream School: Finding the College That’s Right for You arrives this September with an uplifting premise: students and families can reframe their college search by looking beyond brand-name schools and toward institutions that truly match their needs, values, and goals. It’s a hopeful, user-friendly guidebook for navigating a system in crisis.

But how does this vision compare to more critical takes on higher education, like Gary Roth’s The Educated Underclass or Peter Cappelli’s Will College Pay Off? These books don’t offer roadmaps—they offer warnings.

Together, these three works highlight the gap between the dream of higher education and its troubling socioeconomic realities.

Jeff Selingo: Navigating Within the System

Selingo’s Dream School leans into optimism. Drawing on years of reporting and interviews, he offers practical tools to help families think more holistically about fit, outcomes, and experience. He acknowledges the pressures of student debt and market uncertainty, but ultimately believes that better choices can lead to better results. His book is about informed agency: using available resources to make strategic decisions in a system that still—despite its flaws—offers life-changing opportunities.

Importantly, Selingo writes for a very different audience than Roth or Cappelli. His core readers are middle- and upper-middle-class families, high school counselors, and education-minded parents who are already invested in the idea of college. His book is not a systemic critique—it’s a self-help manual for those trying to optimize their place within the system. He assumes readers have at least some cultural capital, if not financial capital, to navigate the process.

That contrasts sharply with Roth’s and Cappelli’s work, which more directly speaks to broader questions of inequality, economic risk, and the failure of higher education to deliver on its promises for the working class and lower-middle class.

Gary Roth: Education as Class Reproduction

Gary Roth’s The Educated Underclass: Students and the False Promise of Social Mobility tells a darker story. For Roth, the U.S. higher education system has become a mechanism for class reproduction, not mobility. Degrees no longer guarantee a middle-class life. Many graduates enter an economy saturated with credentialed labor and devalued degrees, especially in the humanities and social sciences. Roth argues that working-class and first-generation students are often funneled into less selective schools that provide limited return on investment while saddling them with debt.

Roth’s educated underclass is not a group of empowered dreamers, but of frustrated and underemployed degree-holders. His is a structural critique: the system is rigged to absorb ambition but deny reward. From that angle, Dream School could be seen as encouraging students to better decorate their cages, not escape them.

Peter Cappelli: A Risky Bet in a Shifting Market

Peter Cappelli’s Will College Pay Off? occupies a middle ground between Selingo’s optimism and Roth’s pessimism. Cappelli, a labor economist at the Wharton School, unpacks the complex relationship between degrees and economic outcomes. He emphasizes that some degrees from some institutions in some fields pay off—but the variability is enormous, and the risk increasingly falls on students and families.

Cappelli also warns that the job market is no longer tightly aligned with higher education. Employers want experience and specific skills, not just credentials. In this climate, college becomes a speculative investment with uncertain return, especially for students who choose the wrong major, drop out, or attend low-performing institutions.

Cappelli would likely agree with Selingo’s emphasis on “fit” and outcomes, but caution that even the best-laid plans can be undone by macroeconomic forces and institutional failures. His argument underscores the need for stronger public data, better advising, and more employer accountability.

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Competing Visions of the College Experience

Author	Core Message	Systemic Critique	Hope Offered	Primary Audience
Jeff Selingo	Find the school that fits you best	Mild	Yes – through smarter choices	College-bound middle- and upper-middle-class families
Gary Roth	The system reproduces inequality	Strong	No – the system is broken	Working-class students, critical scholars
Peter Cappelli	College may or may not pay off – it’s a gamble	Moderate	Conditional – depends on strategy and luck	Policymakers, economists, pragmatic families

Final Thoughts: Hope, Strategy, or Exit?

Dream School provides an encouraging map for families still trying to believe in the American higher education promise. But Roth and Cappelli serve as stark reminders that the terrain is treacherous—and for many, the dream may already be out of reach.

Jeff Selingo offers hope within the system, assuming the reader has the resources to navigate it. Gary Roth questions the system’s core legitimacy. Peter Cappelli urges caution and calculation. Together, these authors paint a more complete picture of what college means in 21st-century America: a dream for some, a trap for others, and a high-stakes gamble for nearly everyone else.

Sources:
Jeff Selingo, Dream School (2025)
Gary Roth, The Educated Underclass (2020)
Peter Cappelli, Will College Pay Off? (2015)
National Center for Education Statistics, College Scorecard
Federal Reserve Bank reports on student debt and labor outcomes