Elite Higher Education and the Epstein Files

The Jeffrey Epstein scandal is not just about the crimes of one man—it is a window into the pathology of elite power in America. At the center of Epstein’s network were not only celebrities and financiers, but the leaders of elite universities, powerful legal minds trained at Ivy League institutions, former presidents, cabinet officials, and judges. These individuals and institutions helped legitimize Epstein, enabled his abuse, and later participated in the cover-up—directly or through willful silence.

Epstein built his power not just through money, but through proximity to institutions that conferred prestige and trust. Harvard University accepted more than $9 million in donations from Epstein, even after his 2008 conviction for soliciting sex from a minor. Epstein was granted office space, invited to events, and listed in directories like a visiting fellow. Harvard only conducted an internal investigation years later, long after the damage had been done. MIT, through its Media Lab, secretly accepted Epstein’s donations while attempting to conceal his involvement. Director Joi Ito was forced to resign, but no criminal or civil penalties were imposed on university leadership. Stanford, the Santa Fe Institute, and other elite academic hubs welcomed Epstein into their conferences, roundtables, and salons. Some researchers claimed ignorance of his criminal record. Others looked away in exchange for funding.

The most visible defenders and enablers of Epstein included powerful figures in law and politics with close ties to elite academia. Alan Dershowitz, Harvard Law professor emeritus and one of Epstein’s longtime attorneys, was not only his legal defender but also named in sworn affidavits as someone to whom Epstein trafficked underage girls. Dershowitz has denied all allegations and launched a years-long legal campaign to discredit accusers and journalists. Yet Harvard has remained largely silent about his conduct, choosing not to distance itself meaningfully from a man who helped give Epstein the shield of institutional legitimacy.

Former President Bill Clinton, a Yale Law graduate and darling of global academic initiatives, flew on Epstein’s private jet over two dozen times. He has denied visiting Epstein’s private island or engaging in any misconduct, but flight logs, meeting records, and photos raise questions. Epstein donated to the Clinton Foundation, which partnered with numerous universities and research institutions. Clinton’s elite credentials helped whitewash Epstein’s image, just as Epstein used those connections to advance his own agenda.

The most disturbing developments have occurred more recently, with mounting evidence of a high-level cover-up that has delayed justice and protected powerful men. Government officials tied to elite education—Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Stanford—have played key roles in suppressing evidence. Former U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta, a Harvard Law graduate, brokered Epstein’s original 2008 plea deal in Florida. Acosta later claimed he was told Epstein “belonged to intelligence.” When Epstein was arrested again in 2019 and died in federal custody under suspicious circumstances, then–Attorney General William Barr oversaw the investigation. Barr, a Columbia graduate whose father once hired Epstein at the elite Dalton School despite Epstein lacking a degree, later insisted that the death was a suicide. No one in government has ever been held accountable for the failures that followed.

Federal judges reviewing Epstein-related cases and redacting the names of associates have largely come from the Ivy League pipeline. These judges, some of whom clerked for Supreme Court justices, have delayed the release of court documents, citing privacy concerns—often for public figures with deep institutional affiliations. The result has been a legal process that drags on for years while survivors wait for truth and the public is left in the dark.

This convergence of elite academia, elite law, and elite governance shows that the Epstein case is not an outlier but a reflection of a closed system. Epstein embedded himself in elite universities not to learn or teach, but to launder his image and buy access. The universities, desperate for funding and star power, let him. Government officials, trained by and connected to the same institutions, protected him. And when the truth threatened to surface, they slowed the release of files, discredited whistleblowers, and hid behind legal formalities.

What makes this scandal different from others in higher education is not just the scale of abuse, but the depth of institutional complicity. Universities cannot hide behind the claim of ignorance. Government officials cannot pretend to be impartial arbiters of justice when they are protecting their own.

If elite higher education wants to regain any moral authority, it must reckon honestly with the Epstein files—not just the names of those involved, but the systems that allowed it all to happen. That means disclosing donor histories, creating independent oversight mechanisms, and ending the culture of secrecy that shields the powerful. Otherwise, these institutions are not bastions of knowledge—they are sanctuaries for predators in suits and ties.

The real legacy of Jeffrey Epstein is not confined to courtrooms or island estates. It is inscribed in the halls of elite universities, in sealed court records, and in the offices of high-ranking officials who quietly ensured that justice was delayed and distorted. The question is not how this happened—but how many more like him remain hidden, protected by the same structures of prestige and power that allowed Epstein to thrive.

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Sources
Harvard University Office of the General Counsel, Report Concerning Jeffrey Epstein’s Donations, May 2020
Julie K. Brown, Perversion of Justice: The Jeffrey Epstein Story, Harper, 2021
The New Yorker, “How an Elite University Research Lab Hid Its Relationship with Jeffrey Epstein,” Ronan Farrow, September 2019
The New York Times, “Jeffrey Epstein Visited Clinton White House Multiple Times,” January 2022
Giuffre v. Maxwell court filings, U.S. District Court, SDNY, 2024
Department of Justice, Inspector General reports, 2020–2024
Public statements and court documents from Alan Dershowitz, Alex Acosta, William Barr
MIT Media Lab internal emails obtained by The New Yorker
Law.com reporting on Kirkland & Ellis’ involvement with Epstein’s legal defense
Dalton School employment records and biographical history of William Barr and Donald Barr

Harvard Faculty Union Threatens Resistance to Any Deal with Trump Administration

Faculty at Harvard University are warning that they will "strongly oppose" any agreement the university might strike with the Trump administration regarding ongoing threats to federal funding and alleged civil rights violations. The Harvard chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), representing more than 300 faculty members, issued the warning amid secretive negotiations between Harvard leadership and federal officials.

In recent months, the Trump administration has escalated efforts to discipline elite universities, accusing Harvard of failing to protect Jewish students and violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. The Department of Education has threatened to withhold all federal funding from the university, a move that could disrupt billions of dollars in research and student aid. While Harvard has filed suit to block the funding cuts, concerns have emerged that university leaders may quietly negotiate a settlement to avoid further political retaliation.

Harvard faculty say they were not consulted about the negotiations and reject any deal that would compromise academic freedom, institutional autonomy, or faculty governance. Kirsten Weld, president of the AAUP chapter, told the Boston Globe that “the red line of academic freedom… has already been crossed” if administrators are making decisions without full faculty participation. Professor of Classics Richard Thomas emphasized that any arrangement that gives the government influence over curriculum, hiring, or research is unacceptable, stating, “I expect that the AAUP and the faculty will react very strongly against any sort of deal.”

The AAUP’s position is backed by a recent survey reported by The Harvard Crimson, showing that 71 percent of responding faculty oppose any agreement with the Trump administration, while 98 percent support Harvard’s legal efforts to block the federal funding freeze. The faculty response reflects not only opposition to political interference, but also frustration with what they see as a lack of transparency from Harvard’s top leadership.

The university's conflict with the federal government began after the administration accused Harvard and other elite schools of fostering environments hostile to Jewish students, citing demonstrations and social media posts in the wake of the Israel-Gaza conflict. Critics argue that these investigations are politically motivated and designed to suppress speech critical of U.S. foreign policy or Israeli actions. By threatening to cut off Title IV funds and research grants, the administration is leveraging unprecedented financial pressure on higher education institutions.

Harvard’s AAUP chapter, like others formed in recent years, lacks formal collective bargaining rights under U.S. labor law. But its members are prepared to organize using petitions, public pressure, and other means of faculty protest. As universities become central targets in broader culture wars, the line between political influence and academic control continues to blur. Faculty organizers view this moment as a test case not only for Harvard’s values, but for the future of academic freedom across the country.

For the Higher Education Inquirer, which has long stood in support of labor rights and academic self-governance, this case highlights the growing need for faculty and student workers to assert their roles in shaping institutional responses to political coercion. Whether Harvard’s leadership will listen to its faculty remains to be seen. But the message from the AAUP is clear: any backroom deal with the federal government that sacrifices core academic principles will face fierce and public opposition.

Sources
The Boston Globe, July 6, 2025: “Harvard professor union will ‘strongly’ oppose any deal between school and Trump, members say”
The Harvard Crimson, July 2025: “Faculty Oppose Deal With Trump Administration, Survey Finds”
The Washington Post, April 21, 2025: “Harvard sues the Trump administration in escalating confrontation”
Politico, April 17, 2025: “The Ivy League resistance is just getting started”

Harvard, Russia, and the Quiet Complicity of American Higher Education

In the fog of elite diplomacy and global finance, some of the United States' most prestigious universities—chief among them, Harvard—have long had entangled and often opaque relationships with authoritarian regimes. While recent headlines focus on China’s influence in higher education, far less attention has been paid to the role elite U.S. institutions have played in legitimizing, enabling, and profiting from post-Soviet Russia’s slide into oligarchy and repression.

The Harvard-Russia Nexus

Harvard University, through its now-infamous Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID), was a key player in Russia's economic transition following the collapse of the Soviet Union. During the 1990s, HIID, backed by millions of dollars in U.S. government aid through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), provided advice on privatization and market reforms in Russia. This effort, touted as a cornerstone of democracy promotion, instead helped consolidate power among a small class of oligarchs, fueling the economic inequality and corruption that ultimately laid the foundation for Vladimir Putin's authoritarian rule.

Harvard’s involvement reached scandalous proportions. In 2001, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Harvard, economist Andrei Shleifer (a professor in Harvard's Economics Department), and others for self-dealing and conflict of interest. Shleifer and his associates were found to have used their insider access to enrich themselves and their families through Russian investments, all while supposedly advising the Russian government on behalf of the American taxpayer. Harvard eventually paid $26.5 million to settle the case.

Though the scandal damaged HIID's reputation and led to its closure, the broader complicity of the academic and financial elite in exploiting Russia’s vulnerability during the 1990s has received little sustained scrutiny.

Lawrence Summers and the Russian Connection

At the center of this story sits Lawrence Summers—a former Harvard president, U.S. Treasury Secretary, and one of the most powerful figures in the transatlantic economic order. Summers was both mentor and close associate of Andrei Shleifer. During the critical years of Russian privatization, Summers served as Undersecretary and later Secretary of the Treasury under President Clinton, while Shleifer operated HIID’s Russia project.

Despite the blatant conflict of interest, Summers never publicly disavowed Shleifer's actions. After returning to Harvard, he brought Shleifer back into the university’s good graces, protecting his tenured position and helping him avoid serious institutional consequences. This protection underscored the tight-knit nature of elite networks where accountability is rare and reputations are guarded like intellectual property.

Summers himself has invested in Russia through various vehicles over the years, and has held lucrative advisory roles with financial firms deeply enmeshed in post-Soviet economies. He also played an advisory role for Russian tech giant Yandex and has appeared at events sponsored by firms with deep Russian connections. While Summers has since criticized the Putin regime, his earlier role in enabling the very conditions that empowered it is seldom discussed in polite academic company.

A Broader Pattern of Complicity

Harvard is not alone. Institutions like Stanford, Yale, Georgetown, and the University of Chicago have produced scholars, consultants, and think tanks that helped construct the framework of neoliberal transition in Russia and Eastern Europe. These universities not only trained many of the Russian technocrats who later served in Putin’s government, but also quietly benefited from international partnerships, fellowships, and endowments tied to post-Soviet wealth.

Endowments at elite institutions remain shrouded in secrecy, and it is not always possible to trace the sources of foreign gifts or investments. But it’s clear that Russian oligarchs—many of whom owe their fortunes to the very privatization schemes U.S. economists championed—have made donations to elite Western universities or served on their advisory boards. Some sponsored academic centers and fellowships designed to burnish their reputations or reframe narratives about Russia’s transformation.

The Death of a Dissident

The failure of Western academic institutions to reckon with their role in Russia’s descent into authoritarianism became all the more glaring with the death of Alexei Navalny in February 2024. Navalny, a fierce critic of corruption and Putin’s regime, was imprisoned and ultimately killed for challenging the very system that U.S. advisers like those from Harvard helped engineer. While universities issued public statements condemning his death, few acknowledged the deeper complicity of their faculty, programs, and funders in building the oligarchic structures Navalny spent his life trying to dismantle.

Navalny repeatedly exposed how Russian wealth was funneled into offshore accounts and Western real estate, often aided by a global network of enablers—including lawyers, bankers, and academics in the West. His death is not just a symbol of Putin’s brutality—it is also a damning indictment of the institutions, both in Russia and abroad, that failed to stop it and, in many cases, profited along the way.

Where is the Accountability?

Despite the Shleifer scandal and Russia’s authoritarian consolidation, there has been no independent reckoning from Harvard or its peer institutions about their role in the failures of the 1990s or the long-term consequences of their economic evangelism. The neoliberal ideology that fueled these efforts—steeped in faith in free markets, minimal regulation, and elite technocracy—remains dominant in elite policy circles, even as it faces growing critique from both left and right.

Meanwhile, institutions like Harvard continue to influence global policy through their academic prestige, think tanks, and alumni networks. They remain powerful arbiters of truth—shaping how the public understands foreign policy, democracy, and capitalism—while rarely acknowledging their own entanglement in the darker chapters of globalization.

Elite Academia and Oligarchy

The story of Harvard and Russia is not just a tale of one institution’s failure; it is emblematic of the broader failure of elite American academia to confront its own role in the spread of oligarchy, inequality, and authoritarianism under the banner of liberal democracy. In an age when higher education is under increased scrutiny for its political and financial entanglements, the need for critical journalism and public accountability has never been greater.

The Higher Education Inquirer will continue to investigate these complex relationships—and demand transparency from the institutions that claim to serve the public good, while operating behind a veil of privilege and power. Navalny’s sacrifice deserves more than hollow statements. It requires a full accounting of how the system he died fighting was built—with help from the most powerful university in the world.

Harvard and Yale Selling Off Private Equity Stakes

Harvard and Yale—titans of American higher education and longtime bellwethers of endowment strategy—are quietly offloading billions in private equity holdings. These moves, confirmed through multiple reports and market insiders, signal a significant shift in institutional investing, with potential ripple effects across the higher ed landscape and beyond.

The two Ivies, boasting the largest university endowments in the world ($50.7 billion for Harvard, $40.7 billion for Yale as of 2024), have long championed the “Yale model” of endowment investing: high allocations to illiquid assets such as private equity, venture capital, hedge funds, and real assets like timberland and oil. But the bloom is off the rose.

From Darling to Dilemma

Private equity once promised high returns, portfolio diversification, and access to elite deals not available to public investors. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, as traditional markets stagnated, institutions doubled down on alternative investments. For years, this strategy paid off—at least on paper.

But cracks have been forming.

Private equity valuations have come under scrutiny as deal activity has slowed, interest rates have risen, and exits through IPOs and acquisitions have dried up. Many private equity funds are now sitting on aging portfolios—so-called "zombie funds"—that have not returned capital in years. Meanwhile, limited partners like universities are increasingly liquidity-constrained, especially as operating costs rise and tuition-dependent revenues remain fragile.

Harvard Management Company and Yale’s Investment Office, once aggressive buyers, are now sellers on the secondary market. Reports indicate both institutions are using intermediaries to quietly market stakes in private equity funds—often at discounts of 10% to 20%, or more, below net asset value.

A Broader Retreat?

This retreat isn’t just about balance sheet management. It’s a broader reassessment of what endowments should be doing—and what risks they should be bearing.

Universities face mounting scrutiny over their massive, tax-advantaged endowments and their relationships with Wall Street. Critics question why institutions with social missions are entangled in opaque, leveraged, and sometimes predatory industries. Private equity firms, after all, have been deeply involved in sectors like healthcare, housing, for-profit education, and prison services—areas where returns often come at the cost of public welfare.

Moreover, the mismatch between the long lock-up periods of private equity investments and the growing need for financial flexibility is becoming more apparent. University administrators now must navigate volatile geopolitical conditions, student protests over divestment, and uncertain federal funding. Liquidity matters more than it did a decade ago.

The End of the Yale Model?

David Swensen, Yale’s late investment chief, revolutionized university finance with his embrace of illiquid alternatives. But times have changed. While the strategy made Yale’s endowment a model for copycats, today it may represent an outdated orthodoxy.

Harvard and Yale’s pivot may be the beginning of the end for the “Yale model” as we know it. Other institutions—especially smaller endowments that tried to mimic the Ivies—may find themselves stuck with toxic assets, unable to unload them without taking steep losses.

In fact, some mid-tier and small colleges may have to choose between covering operational costs and holding on to underperforming private equity positions. For those with limited financial cushions, the fallout could be existential.

Higher Ed’s Reckoning with Risk

The endowment shift also raises a philosophical question: What is the purpose of university wealth?

As elite schools back away from the riskier corners of Wall Street, perhaps it's time for a broader reckoning—about not just how universities invest, but why. Should institutions built on ideals of knowledge, access, and social progress be hand-in-glove with industries known for wage suppression, regulatory arbitrage, and asset stripping?

Harvard and Yale may be late to that moral realization. But their financial pivot is a sign that even the most powerful players can’t ignore reality forever.

In the age of growing student debt, declining public trust, and ballooning inequality, selling off a few private equity funds is a small move. But it could be the start of a larger shift—one where higher education finally begins to question whether its financial strategies align with its educational mission.

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If you have insights into university endowment strategies or are a whistleblower inside the private equity world, contact us confidentially at Higher Education Inquirer. 

Higher Education in Retreat (Gary Roth)

 [Editor's note: This article first appeared in the Brooklyn Rail.  We thank the Brooklyn Rail for allowing us to repost this.]

For decades, the top-tier colleges and universities—often represented by Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, but including a few dozen other private and public institutions as well—have reshaped themselves to accommodate the rapidly-changing demographic profile of the United States.1 From all appearances, the universities were also in harmony with the sensibilities and preferences of the country’s leading citizens. Key moments, like the sanctioning of gay marriage that found support from wide-spread sectors of the upper class, seemed to solidify the drift towards a diverse and tolerant social order, one that resonated not only domestically but internationally as well.

The future evolution of civil society was, in this way of thinking, firmly and finally in hand. Bitter acrimony might characterize the political world or single-issue items like abortion, but actual developments outweighed the leftover pockets of resistance, which in any case were thought to be localized in less significant parts of the country and the world and could at best only slow the inevitable. How hard people pushed for change would ultimately determine the future.

This somnambulistic mode of thought pervaded the university world and also wide swaths of the liberal public. It helps explain the ease with which parts of the university community, after an initial round of caution, joined hands with its political opposition to suppress the campus protests that developed in response to Israel’s brutality towards Palestinian civilians.

Appeasement and accommodation, while regrettable within the academic community because of the retreat from sacrosanct ideas such as freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, nonetheless set the stage for developments that followed the national elections at the end of last year. Martin Niemöller’s self-confession about his support—as a Lutheran pastor—for the German fascists during the 1930s captures nicely the corner into which the higher education community had boxed itself:

When the Nazis came for the Communists, I kept quiet; I wasn’t a communist.
When they came for the trade unionists, I kept quiet; I wasn’t a trade unionist.
When they jailed the Social Democrats, I kept quiet; I wasn’t a social democrat.
When they jailed the Jews, I kept quiet; I wasn’t a Jew.
When they came for me, there was no one left who could protest.2

Without a vibrant protest movement already in place to push against harsh and arbitrary actions, the universities seemed to have little choice but to acquiesce to a regime that seems interested in flattening the population into an undifferentiated mass.3

Because appeasement and accommodation have been embraced as proactive survival tactics, resistance has centered on a judicial system thought to be less conservative than the groups that have come to dominate the executive and legislative branches of government, a judiciary conceptualized as a mediator rather than an initiator and enforcer of social conflict. Given the legal system’s history, this too becomes another moment of sleep walking. It is a huge distance from the dynamism that characterized the world of higher education not long ago.

Among the most dynamic institutions have been the privately-governed universities like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Not just their social vision, but their great wealth allowed them to embrace initiatives that stand at the forefront of attempts to remold institutional behavior. Front and center have been efforts to diversify the upper ranks of corporate, governmental, and non-profit establishments such that they too reflect the diversity of the population at large.

Previous attempts to diversify the collegiate student body by means of affirmative action programs that focused on underrepresented groups, especially African Americans and Latines, were struck down by the judiciary. Anti-affirmative action backlash took aim at the admissions policies at highly-competitive graduate programs, such as elite law and medical schools, and on prestigious scholarship programs. The backlash, in other words, concentrated on the byways that provided access into the upper levels of society.

Schools and programs that served the remainder of the population were not of particular concern. Graduate programs in public administration, for instance, where the training of mid-level administrators is the aim, rarely came under attack, whether located at medium-sized liberal arts colleges or regional state universities. These types of institutions also suspended their affirmative action initiatives, but mostly as preemptive moves to avoid future litigation. By strategically targeting the institutions at the top, the entire system was enticed to reorient itself.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives were one of the responses to both past and recent judicial rollbacks. These were initiatives directed toward the recruitment and retention of underrepresented groups rather than their admission and funding. DEI initiatives, though, did not deal with the cost of attendance, which at the elite private institutions is beyond everyone’s means except for the wealthy. For tuition, room, and board to attend as an undergraduate, the current cost for the 2025–26 school year at Princeton, for example, is $82,650. Fees are extra.4

Financial incentives based on socioeconomic status, however, were a strategy that seemingly silenced all critics. The most generous programs encompass virtually all applicants from either a working or middle class background; that is, everyone except the elite is covered as long as household or parental income is below $200,000 annually. At Princeton, the limit is $100,000, pegged considerably above the level of median household income in the United States.5

This allows the institutions to be “needs-blind” and recruit students no matter their financial situation. A tuition-free college education—once a hallmark of publicly-funded institutions—has been revived at the upper end of the spectrum, a profound assertion by these institutions of their intent to further the socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic integration of the upper class.

One consequence of these cost-free programs is that it is often cheaper to attend an elite college like Princeton than to attend the nearby publicly-funded state university, the flagship institution—in this case, Rutgers University-New Brunswick. These figures are drawn from government calculations that show actual expenses for families at different tiers of the socioeconomic spectrum:6

CHART 1 – ANNUAL UNDERGRADUATE NET COST OF ATTENDANCE

Family income	PRINCETON	RUTGERS-NEW BRUNSWICK
Less than $ 30,000	$  2,518	$15,885
$30,001 - $ 48,000	$  4,682	$15,532
$48,001 - $ 75,000	$  7,652	$17,578
$75,001 - $110,000	$13,849	$24,020
Over $110,001	$39,943	$33,460

 

A significant reversal has taken place. The elite privates have become the exemplars for the entire system of higher education, not just academically but economically as well. It makes economic sense for the poor to attend elite private institutions (assuming they are offered one of the few open slots) and for the rich to attend publicly-funded ones. Because student loans are not part of these aid packages, students at elite colleges graduate with less debt than students at nearby public flagships.7

We find, then, that the more selective the college—Princeton admits five percent of applicants, Rutgers-New Brunswick sixty-five percent—the cheaper it is to attend, and the more likely you are to graduate—at Princeton ninety-eight percent, at Rutgers-New Brunswick eighty-four percent—the less that debt encumbers you afterwards. And what’s true about the comparison of Princeton and its nearby publicly-funded flagship is true in other states also: Harvard and University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Yale and the University of Connecticut at Storrs, and so on.

Just as important, student socioeconomic profiles parallel those at nearby public flagships. At Princeton, one in five (twenty percent) of its students receives a Pell Grant. These are the federally-funded grants awarded when family income is below, roughly, $50,000. Pell Grants thus serve as a reasonable measure of the density of students from working class and poor backgrounds at a particular institution. At Rutgers-New Brunswick, it is one in four students (28 percent).

Socioeconomic programs like the one at Princeton exist at more than a hundred public and privately-governed college institutions. Taken altogether, there has been a quiet undermining of commonly-accepted assumptions regarding elite institutions and their public counterparts. That the private elite institutions often outperform the public sector ones in matters traditionally considered the latter’s prerogative shows how deeply intertwined the private and public sectors have become.

Yet for all their efforts, the elite institutions still do not reflect the demographics of the population at large. This is true for the elite privates and also for public flagships. Nationally, thirty percent of students receive Pell Grants, a measure of the degree to which the working class has become a substantial part of the university community. At top-tier schools, however, fewer of their students receive Pell Grants. At Harvard, it is seventeen percent; at Yale, nineteen percent; at the Texas flagship, UT Austin, twenty-five percent; at the Florida flagship, UF Gainesville, twenty-three percent.8

That socioeconomic diversity is lower at elite privates and public flagships than is the national norm is not surprising, given the amply-documented correlation between parental finances and scholastic performance.9 Students from wealthier backgrounds, as a rule, perform better academically and are more likely to attend prestigious institutions. Still, the top-tier institutions have come a long way from the times in which they represented, with few exceptions: only the elite.

At places like Princeton, the student body is nearly as diverse racially and ethnically as at the nearby state flagship. According to the broad demographic categories used in government publications and legislation, we find that at both Princeton and Rutgers-New Brunswick, there are no majorities, only minorities:10

CHART 2 – RACE AND ETHNICITY AT TOP-TIER INSTITUTIONS

(in percents)	PRINCETON	RUTGERS-NEW BRUNSWICK
Asian	24	33
Black (African American)	9	7
Hispanic (Latine)	10	16
White	36	31
Non-Resident Alien (International Students)	12	7
Two or More Races (Multiracial)	7	4

 

Immigration and migration initially produced majority-less campuses at urban public institutions; in other words, at institutions located in major metropolitan areas—places where jobs are numerous and resistance to newcomers often diffuse and undirected. At Princeton and other elite institutions, however, it is not demographics, but merit—in combination with these economically-based financial aid packages—that drive the dynamic.

Forty-five years ago, individuals self-identified as white represented eighty-four percent of all undergraduates but only seventy-seven percent of eighteen to twenty-four year-olds (Chart 3). Higher education was a significant cultural dynamic for this group. A major reversal has since taken place, in which the white population now accounts for fifty-two percent of eighteen to twenty-four year-olds and the same percentage of college students. Their lead has been lost.

Every other group has moved in the opposite direction, increasing its presence within the collegiate system faster than their increase in either population or the prime college-attending age cohort (eighteen to twenty-four year-olds). The latter group has been relatively stable within the Black population, for instance, only increasing one percentage point from thirteen to fourteen percent during those decades. But the presence of Black students among undergraduate college students has increased from nine to thirteen percent. Among the Latine (Hispanic) population, the increase has been dramatic. While their share of eighteen to twenty-four year-olds tripled from eight to twenty-four percent, their share among undergraduates increased more than five-fold.

Affirmative action and DEI initiatives fostered the importance of a college education as a means to circumvent obstacles within the economy:11

CHART 3 – RACIAL & ETHNIC DIVERSITY

	18-24 YEAR-OLDS		HIGHER EDUCATION
(in percents)	1980	2022	1980	2022
Asian	2	6	2	8
Black	13	14	9	13
Hispanic	8	24	4	22
White	77	52	84	52
Two or More Races	—	4	—	4

 

Over the past half century, a leveling of the population has taken place, with the Black, Latine, and white communities all participating in post-secondary education at rates equivalent to their respective shares of the prime college-attending age group (eighteen to twenty-four year-olds).

This equalization is an aspect of reality that has been neglected by the academic community, which has generally focused on the advantages members of the white community have both educationally and occupationally due to kinship and parental networks, friendship circles, neighborhood contacts, and a lack of discrimination based on skin color. Implicit in this view is that whites need not rely on the educational system as heavily as other groups, since alternative avenues of advancement are available.

In many of the top institutions, the fall-off of white students is quite pronounced:

CHART 4 - DIVERSITY AT PRIVATE ELITES AND PUBLIC FLAGSHIPS

(in percents)	Higher Education	Harvard	Yale	Columbia	UPenn	UT Austin	UF Gainesville
Asian	8	22	23	18	28	25	12
Black	13	9	9	8	9	5	5
Hispanic	22	12	16	16	11	28	24
White	52	33	32	30	30	32	50
Non-Resident	—	14	11	18	12	4	2
Two/+ Races	4	7	7	6	5	4	5

 

During the decades in which affirmative action and DEI programs have attempted to bring some measure of equal access and equal achievement to educational endeavors, parts of the white community were drifting away. This blind-spot within the academic community’s understanding of social dynamics meant that concepts of relative disadvantage might have fit the situation just as well as ones of privilege and advantage.12

Increased funding in order to include whites in DEI initiatives is a possible solution, although a fundamental rethinking of inclusivity is also called for. Instead, the elimination of services and programs has become a mandate to ensure that no group will be helped to rise out of an undifferentiated mass. If government and higher education are taken out of the picture, social advancement, which always requires additional resources, then hinges solely on the wherewithal of individual families.

The university community, with its emphasis on inclusion and diversity, has represented a last outpost of a kind of thinking—of governmental spending and educational activism—that was once heralded under the label of Keynesianism and dates back to the immediate post-World War II period when everything seemed possible. Like the fate of the white population, society itself has gone through a long-winded period of evolution and transformation despite the tenacity of modes of thought initially generated in previous times.

Because colleges and universities depend so heavily on external funding for research grants and student loans, the political world has laid claim to its governance in ever-aggressive ways. The opening thrust has concentrated on the elite privates—Columbia, UPenn, Harvard, and Princeton among them. The integration of the two worlds of politics and education, in this sense, signals the remaking of higher education into a sphere of government in which the political world functions as its own type of board of directors. While the federal Department of Education is in the process of dissolution, the entire system of higher education is being reduced to the level of a federal department. This is part of an overall effort to curtail civil society and reign in its independence, in which scientists—initially those whose work concentrates on the environment or on global public health issues—have been a major focus.

Perhaps it is in this sense that we can understand the reluctance of university executives to confront directly what at first seemed to be scattershot criticisms aimed at various parts of their enterprises and why they did not push back harder at the assertion that criticism of Israeli policies is a form of antisemitism. It is not just that the higher education community was unprepared for the level and intensity of the criticisms, but that it was so highly vulnerable.

The top-tier institutions are the gonfaloniers of modern times, targets whose capture on the battlefield disorients the troops that follow their lead. To intimidate and diminish the top-tier institutions sends a message to the wider educational community about the punitive actions that non-compliance may bring. It effectively shifts the center of gravity throughout a major portion of society. In the conflict between the government and the educational community that depends on it, the latter can only lose, even if the degree to which it loses is still to be determined. The universities are a highly strategic and, as it turns out, easy target, ideologically and in terms of government expenses.

That the university community has also served as a base and breeding ground for liberal politics is still another reason for its subjugation.13 The overall result gestures in the direction of a shrunken and harshly repressed and repressive educational system that cowers to executive mandates because of the certainty that if not, legislative enactments will follow.14 Highly successful white males are the driving force behind all this. Their goal: a system that encourages no exceptions except for people who mimic themselves.

The world we have known is disappearing, an unraveling that would take considerable time to now reassemble. It is unclear whether and to what degree colleges and universities will remain as sanctuaries for the expression of ideas inconsonant with the political establishment. Perhaps some solace is to be found in this quip by Mother Jones, herself a fierce labor movement advocate at the turn of the nineteenth into the twentieth centuries. She was heard to say: “Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.”

1. Between 1980 and 2022, the major changes were in the white population, which fell from 80 to 59 percent, while the Latine population increased dramatically from 7 to 19 percent. The Black population barely changed—from 12 to 13 percent, and the Asian population increased from 2 to 6 percent. National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics–Most Current Digest Tables, 2023, Tables 101.20.
2. Many versions of this poem exist. The version here is unabridged, translated from the original.
3. Alan Blinder, “Trump’s Battles With Colleges Could Change American Culture for a Generation.” The New York Times, March 20, 2025.
4. Cost & Aid | Princeton Admission.
5. Median annual income is just over $80,000 per year. These programs also take into account a family's wealth in property, business assets, etc., in complicated formulas that can mitigate qualifying on income alone. Stephanie Saul, “Harvard Will Make Tuition Free for More Students.” The New York Times, 17 March 2025; Peyton Beverford, Free Tuition for Low-Income Students | Appily. 21 March 2025; US Census Bureau, Income in the United States: 2023, 10 September 2024.
6. Unless indicated otherwise, all data is from the US Department of Education, College Scorecard, 23 April 2025. For each institution, see the various listings under: Costs, By Family Income; Financial Aid & Debt; Test Scores and Acceptance; Graduation & Retention; Typical Earnings; Campus Diversity.
7. At Princeton, the median debt for undergraduates when they finish their degrees is $10,320; at Rutgers-New Brunswick, it is $21,500.
8. Share of Federal Pell Grants recipients U.S. 2024 | Statista.
9. The situation a decade ago: “among ‘Ivy-Plus’ colleges (the eight Ivy League colleges, University of Chicago, Stanford, MIT, and Duke), more students come from families in the top 1% of the income distribution (14.5%) than the bottom half of the income distribution (13.5%).” Raj Chetty, John N. Friedman, Emmanuel Saez, Nicholas Turner, and Danny Yagan, “Mobility Report Cards: The Role of Colleges in Intergenerational Mobility,” National Bureau of Economic Research. https://www.nber.org/papers/w23618, July 2017, p. 1.
10. Not listed are: American Indian/Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, and Unknown. Numbers do not always equal 100 due to rounding or these absent categories.
11. National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics-Most Current Digest Tables, 2023, Tables 101.20, 306.10 (scroll down for the relevant data—based on 2022 totals, rounded up).
12. In the academic trilogy of race, class, and gender, many scholars sought a means to move the discussion of class from the theoretical, where it received extensive attention, to the concrete so that it could function similarly to the analyses of race and gender. Intersectionality has been one of the results, which nonetheless still leaves class undertheorized on a concrete level.
13. On voting patterns, see: Matt Grossmann and David A. Hopkins, Polarized Degrees: How the Diploma Divide and the Culture War Transformed American Politics. Cambridge University Press: 2024.
14. Isabelle Taft, “How Colleges Are Surveilling Students Now.” The New York Times, March 29, 2025.

Thanks to Jules David Bartkowski, Anne Lopes, and Paul Mattick for comments.

Gary Roth is the author of The Educated Underclass: Students and the Promise of Social Mobility (Pluto Press, 2019).