Questioning the Higher Education Establishment

"So that's how it is," sighed Yakov. "Behind the world lies another world." Bernard Malamud

The Higher Education Inquirer has published a number of articles about how US higher education works and the institutions, organizations, and individuals it serves. 

We have written about US higher education in a number of ways, discussing the history, economics, and underlying ideologies (e.g. neoliberalism, white supremacy) and theories making it what it is--an industry that reinforces a larger (and environmentally unsustainable) economic system and an industry that produces too many unneeded credentials--and soul crushing student loan debt. 

We have listed the myths that US higher education perpetuates and the methods it uses to disseminate them. We have examined a number of higher education institutions and their categories (including university hospitals, state universities, private colleges, community colleges, and online robocolleges). We have investigated several businesses associated with higher education, some nefarious, many profit driven, and a few (like TuitionFit and College Viability App) driven by integrity and values. And we have followed the struggle of labor and consumers. HEI has even created an outline for a People's History of US Higher Education.

But we haven't examined higher education as part of the establishment. Like the establishment that students of the 1960s talked about as something not to trust. The trustees, endowment managers, foundation presidents, accreditors, bankers, bond raters, CEOs and CFOs who make the decisions that affect how higher ed operates and who at the same time work to make consumers, workers, and activists invisible. 

To say we cannot trust US higher education administrators and business leaders may sound passe, or something that only extremists of the Left or Right might say, but it isn't, and more folks are seeing that. 

Examining US higher education needs to be assessed more deeply (like Craig Steven Wilder, Davarian Baldwin, and Gary Roth have done) and more comprehensively (like Marc Bousquet), and it needs to be explained to the People. It's something few have endeavored, because it isn't profitable, not even for tenure in some cases. 

Without our own sustainable business model, the Higher Education Inquirer will continue writing (and prompt others to write) stories significant to workers and consumers, the folks who deserve to be enlightened and who deserve to tell their stories. 

And as long as we can, the Higher Education Inquirer will ask the Establishment for answers that only they know, something few others are willing to do. 

Trump’s Higher Education Crackdown: Culture War in a Cap and Gown

In a recent flurry of executive orders, former President Donald Trump has escalated his administration’s long-running war on American higher education, targeting college accreditation processes, foreign donations to universities, and elite institutions like Harvard and Columbia. Framed as a campaign for accountability and meritocracy, these actions are in reality part of a broader effort to weaponize public distrust, reinforce ideological purity tests, and strong-arm colleges into political obedience.

But even if Trump's crusade were rooted in good faith—which it clearly is not—his chosen mechanism for “fixing” higher education, the accreditation system, is already deeply flawed. It’s not just that Trump is using a broken tool for political ends—it's that the tool itself has long been part of the problem.

Accreditation: Already a Low Bar

Accreditation in U.S. higher education is often mistaken by the public as a sign of quality. In reality, it’s often a rubber stamp—granted by private agencies funded by the very schools they evaluate. “Yet in practice,” write economists David Deming and David Figlio, “accreditors—who are paid by the institutions themselves—appear to be ineffectual at best, much like the role of credit rating agencies during the recent financial crisis.”

As a watchdog of America’s subprime colleges and a monitor of the ongoing College Meltdown, the Higher Education Inquirer has long reported that institutional accreditation is no sign of academic quality. Worse, it is frequently used by subprime colleges as a veneer of legitimacy to mask predatory practices, inflated tuition, and low academic standards.

The Higher Learning Commission (HLC), the nation’s largest accreditor, monitors nearly a thousand institutions—ranging from prestigious schools like the University of Chicago and University of Michigan to for-profit, scandal-plagued operations such as Colorado Technical University, DeVry University, University of Phoenix, and Walden University. These subprime colleges receive billions annually in federal student aid—money that flows through an accreditation pipeline that’s barely regulated and heavily compromised.

On the three pillars of accreditation—compliance, quality assurance, and quality improvement—the Higher Learning Commission often fails spectacularly when it comes to subprime institutions. That’s not just a bug in the system; it’s the system working as designed.

Who Watches the Watchers?

Accreditors like the HLC receive dues from member institutions, giving them a vested interest in keeping their customers viable, no matter how exploitative their practices may be. Despite objections from the American Association of University Professors, the HLC has accredited for-profit colleges since 1977 and ethically questionable operations for nearly two decades.

As Mary A. Burgan, then General Secretary of the AAUP, put it bluntly in 2000:

"I really worry about the intrusion of the profit motive in the accreditation system. Some of them, as I have said, will accredit a ham sandwich..."

[Image: From CHEA: Higher Learning Commission dues for member colleges. Over the last 30 years, HLC has received millions of dollars from subprime schools like the University of Phoenix.]

The Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA), which oversees accreditors, acts more like a trade association than a watchdog. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Education—the only federal entity with oversight responsibility—has done little to ensure quality or accountability. Under the Trump-DeVos regime, the Department actively dismantled what little regulatory framework existed, rolling back Obama-era protections that aimed to curb predatory schools and improve transparency.

In 2023, an internal investigation revealed that the Department of Education was failing to properly monitor accreditors—yet Trump’s solution is to hand even more power to this broken apparatus while demanding it serve political ends.

Harvard: Not a Victim, But a Gatekeeper of the Elite

While Trump's attacks on Harvard are rooted in personal and political animus, it's important not to portray the university as a defenseless bastion of the common good. Harvard is already deeply entrenched in elite power structures—economically, socially, and politically.

The university’s admissions policies have long favored legacy applicants, children of donors, and the ultra-wealthy. It has one of the largest endowments in the world—over $50 billion—yet its efforts to serve working-class and marginalized students remain modest in proportion to its vast resources.

Harvard has produced more Wall Street bankers, U.S. presidents, and Supreme Court justices than any other institution. Its graduates populate the upper echelons of the corporate, political, and media elite. In many ways, Harvard is the establishment Trump claims to rail against—even if his own policies often reinforce that very establishment.

Harvard is not leading a revolution in equity or access. Rather, it polishes the credentials of those already destined to lead, reinforcing a hierarchy that leaves most Americans—including working-class and first-generation students—on the outside looking in.

The Silence on Legacy Admissions

While Trump rails against elite universities in the name of “meritocracy,” there is a glaring omission in the conversation: the entrenched unfairness of legacy admissions. These policies—where applicants with familial ties to alumni receive preferential treatment—are among the most blatant violations of meritocratic ideals. Yet neither Trump’s executive orders nor the broader political discourse dare to address them.

Legacy admissions are a quiet but powerful engine of privilege, disproportionately benefiting white, wealthy students and preserving generational inequality. At institutions like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, legacy applicants are admitted at significantly higher rates than the general pool, even when controlling for academic credentials. This practice rewards lineage over talent and undermines the very idea of equal opportunity that higher education claims to uphold.

Despite bipartisan rhetoric about fairness and access, few politicians—Democratic or Republican—have challenged the legitimacy of legacy preferences. It’s a testament to how deeply intertwined elite institutions are with the political and economic establishment. And it’s a reminder that the war on higher education is not about fixing inequalities—it’s about reshaping the system to serve different masters.

A Hypocritical Power Grab

Trump’s newfound concern with educational “results” is laced with hypocrisy. The former president’s own venture into higher education—Trump University—was a grift that ended in legal disgrace and financial restitution to defrauded students. Now, Trump is posing as the savior of academic merit, while promoting an ideologically-driven overhaul of the very system that allowed scams like his to thrive.

By focusing on elite universities, Trump exploits populist resentment while ignoring the real scandal: that billions in public funds are siphoned off by institutions with poor student outcomes and high loan default rates—many of them protected by the very accrediting agencies he now claims to reform.

Conclusion: Political Theater, Not Policy

Trump's latest actions are not reforms—they're retribution. His executive orders target symbolic elites, not systemic rot. They turn accreditation into a partisan tool while leaving the worst actors untouched—or even empowered.

Meanwhile, elite institutions like Harvard remain complicit in maintaining a class hierarchy that benefits the powerful, even as they protest their innocence in today’s political battles.

Real accountability in higher education would mean cracking down on predatory schools, reforming or replacing failed accreditors, and restoring rigorous federal oversight. But this administration isn't interested in cleaning up the swamp—it’s repurposing the muck for its own ends.

The Higher Education Inquirer remains committed to pulling back the curtain on these abuses—no matter where they come from or how well they are disguised.

“You Don’t Need a Tariff. You Need a Revolution”: A Viral Wake-Up Call—Or CCP Propaganda?

In a clip that’s rapidly gone viral among both left-leaning critics of neoliberalism and right-wing populists, a young Chinese TikTok influencer delivers a searing indictment of American economic decline. Fluent in English and confident in tone, the speaker lays bare what many struggling Americans already feel: that they’ve been conned by their own elites.

“They robbed you blind and you thank them for it. That’s a tragedy. That’s a scam,” the young man declares, addressing the American people directly.

The video, played and discussed on Judging Freedom with Judge Andrew Napolitano and Professor John Mearsheimer, has sparked praise—and suspicion. While the message resonates with a growing number of Americans disillusioned by the bipartisan political establishment, some are asking: Who is behind this message?

 
A Sharp Critique of American Oligarchy

In his 90-second monologue, the influencer claims U.S. oligarchs offshored manufacturing to China for profit—not diplomacy—gutting the middle class, crashing the working class, and leaving Americans with stagnating wages, unaffordable healthcare, mass addiction, and what he calls “flag-waving poverty made in China.” Meanwhile, he says, China reinvested its profits into its people, raising living standards and building infrastructure.

“What did your oligarchs do? They bought yachts, private jets, and mansions… You get stagnated wages, crippling healthcare costs, cheap dopamine, debt, and flag-waving poverty made in China.”

He ends with a provocative call: “You don’t need another tariff. You need to wake up… You need a revolution.”

It’s a blistering populist critique—and one that finds unexpected agreement from Mearsheimer, who said on the show, “I basically agree with him. I think he’s correct.”
A Message That Cuts Across Party Lines

The critique echoes themes found in Donald Trump’s early campaign rhetoric, as well as long-standing leftist arguments about neoliberal betrayal, corporate offshoring, and elite impunity. It’s the kind of message that unites the American underclass in its many forms—service workers, laid-off factory employees, disillusioned veterans, and student debtors alike.

Mearsheimer went on to argue that the U.S. national security establishment itself was compromised—that its consultants and former officials had deep financial ties to China, making them unwilling to confront the geopolitical risks of China’s rise. According to him, elites were more invested in their own gain than in the national interest.

But that raises an even more complicated question.

 
Is This an Authentic Voice—or a CCP Production?

The most provocative—and potentially overlooked—aspect of this story is the medium itself: TikTok, which is owned by ByteDance, a company under heavy scrutiny for its ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Could this slick, emotionally resonant video be part of a broader soft-power campaign?

The Chinese government has invested heavily in media operations that shape global narratives. While the content of the message may be factually accurate or emotionally true for many Americans, it’s not hard to imagine the CCP welcoming—if not engineering—videos that sow further division and distrust within the United States.

The video’s flawless production, powerful rhetoric, and clever framing—presenting China as the responsible partner and the U.S. as self-destructive—align closely with Beijing’s global messaging. Add to this the timing, with U.S.-China tensions running high over tariffs, Taiwan, and global power shifts, and the question becomes unavoidable:

Is this sincere grassroots criticism… or a polished psychological operation?

The answer may be both. It’s entirely possible that the young man believes everything he’s saying. But it’s also likely that content like this is algorithmically favored—or even quietly encouraged—by a platform closely tied to a government with every incentive to highlight American decline.
Weaponized Truth?

This is not a new tactic. During the Cold War, both the U.S. and the USSR employed truth-tellers and defectors to criticize their adversaries. But in today's digital landscape, the boundaries between propaganda, whistleblowing, and legitimate dissent are more porous than ever.

The Higher Education Inquirer has reported extensively on how American elites—across both political parties—have betrayed working people, including within the halls of higher education. That doesn’t mean we should ignore where a message comes from, or what strategic purpose it might serve.

The danger is not just foreign interference. The greater danger may be that such foreign-origin messages ring so true for so many Americans.
A Closing Thought: Listen Carefully, Then Ask Why

The influencer says:

“You let the oligarchs feed your lies while they made you fat, poor, and addicted… I don’t think you need another tariff. You need to wake up.”

He’s not wrong to say Americans have been exploited. But if the message is being boosted by a rival authoritarian state, it’s worth asking why.

America’s problems are real. Its discontent is justified. But as in all revolutions, the question is not only what we’re overthrowing—but what might take its place.

Sources:

Judging Freedom – Judge Andrew Napolitano and Professor John Mearsheimer

TikTok (ByteDance) ownership and CCP ties – Reuters, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal

The Higher Education Inquirer archives on student debt, adjunct labor, and corporate-academic complicity

Pew Research Center – Views of China, U.S. Public Opinion

Congressional hearings on TikTok and national security, 2023–2024

Trumpism, Neoliberalism, and the Abandoned Majority

In the ongoing battle between Trumpism and neoliberalism, much of the mainstream narrative paints these forces as diametrically opposed. In reality, while they clash on culture-war rhetoric and political branding, both camps operate in ways that protect entrenched wealth and power—especially within higher education.

Trumpism, with its populist veneer, frames itself as a rebellion against “the establishment.” Yet Donald Trump’s policies in office—including massive corporate tax cuts, deregulation favoring billionaires, and the rollback of labor protections—aligned closely with neoliberal orthodoxy. His administration stacked the Department of Education with for-profit college lobbyists and dismantled borrower protections, leaving indebted students vulnerable to predatory lending.

Neoliberalism, as embodied by centrist Democrats and much of the university establishment, champions “meritocracy” and global competitiveness, but often functions as a machine for upward wealth transfer. University leaders such as Princeton’s Christopher Eisgruber, Northwestern’s Michael Schill, Harvard’s Claudine Gay, Stanford’s Marc Tessier-Lavigne, Texas A&M’s M. Katherine Banks, and reformist chancellors Andrew Martin of Washington University in St. Louis and Daniel Diermeier of Vanderbilt oversee institutions that cut faculty jobs, outsource labor, and raise tuition, all while securing lucrative corporate and donor partnerships. These leaders, regardless of political branding, manage universities as if they were hedge funds with classrooms attached.

In both cases, the non-elite—students burdened by soaring debt, adjunct professors lacking job security, and underpaid university workers—remain locked in systems of extraction. Trumpist politicians rail against “liberal elites” while quietly protecting billionaire donors and for-profit education interests. Neoliberal university leaders publicly oppose Trumpism but maintain donor networks tied to Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and global finance, reinforcing the same structural inequality.

This false binary obscures the shared economic agenda of privatization, commodification, and concentration of wealth and power within elite institutions. For the working class and the educated underclass, there is no true champion—only differing marketing strategies for the same system of exploitation.

---

Sources

• Henry A. Giroux, Neoliberalism’s War on Higher Education (Haymarket Books, 2014)

• David Dayen, “Trump’s Fake Populism,” The American Prospect

• Jon Marcus, “The New College Presidents and Their Corporate Mindset,” The Hechinger Report

• U.S. Department of Education, Office of Federal Student Aid, “Borrower Defense to Repayment Reports”

• New York Times coverage of Claudine Gay, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, Michael Schill, and M. Katherine Banks’ administrative records

Trump is Using Jews, Not Protecting Us (Hank Kalet, Channel Surfing)

His Executive Order on Antisemitism is a Threat to Muslims and Palestinians on Campuses and an Attack on the First Amendment

Antisemitism exists. It has a long and painful history that has embedded fear in our DNA as Jews, a fear that grows when incidents occur, like the one in Australia recently.

Police in New South Wales state, which includes Sydney, said on Wednesday they had found explosives in a caravan, or trailer, that could have created a blast wave of 40 metres (130 feet).

There was some indication the explosives might be used in an antisemitic attack that could have caused mass casualties, police said.

There also was an apparently coordinated set of “graffiti attacks” on Jewish sites that have caused the Australian Jewish community to increase security. Similar security efforts are being ramped up by Jewish groups in Europe as threats of antisemitic acts and the growth of the Far Right stoke fears.

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There have been reports of violent and deadly incidents throughout Europe, as well, with direct attacks on synagogues and other Jewish institutions. And there are leaders like Viktor Orhan in Hungary and political parties like Alternative for Germany who use antisemitic language and tropes, though often sanitized, amid their more targeted attacks on Muslim immigrants.

Syndicate or Reuse

Books by Hank Kalet

The United States is not immune to antisemitism, of course, but American Jews seem unable to focus on the real threats. Rather than keep our eyes trained on an ascendant right wing — including many of the people in President Donald Trump’s immediate circle, including the president himself — much of the Jewish community is focused on Israel and seems intent on conflating criticism of Israel, its war on Gaza, and the occupation with actual systemic anti-Jewish action.

This is the context for Wednesday’s executive order on “combatting antisemitism,” which targets campus protests and continues a Conservative/Republican push to peel Jews away from teh Democratic Party.

The order, as reported by The Washington Post, “is directed at universities where pro-Palestinian protests broke out last year,” and “threatens to revoke student visas of foreign students who participated in pro-Palestinian protests.”

Supporters of the order argue that these protests were antisemitic. They point to some uncomfortable speech — the equation of Israel with the Nazis, for instance — as proof, and then conflate sloganeering and assembly with physical harassment. Jewish students and faculty, the argument goes, were made uncomfortable by the protests and encampments and felt unsafe. That sense of fear, they say, proves that the protests were designed to harass, even if there was no direct harassment. It is a circular argument, but one endorsed by much of the American political establishment and leading Jewish organizations


Marc H. Ellis addresses the underlying issues with these arguments in his 2009 book Judaism Does Not Equal Israel.1 He describes what I’ll call a “triumphalist Judaism” that mixes Holocaust victimhood with Exodus (the novel) power, constructed in “the aftermath of the great Israeli triumph in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war” (6). That narrative posits several myths: that Palestine was empty and underutilized and had to be redeemed, that the “Arabs” were hostile to Jews as Jews, and that the state that was founded and that still exists remains a democratic outpost in a hostile world. This triumphalism, however, was also tied to our very real history as a persecuted minority. “Jews had once been weak and helpless,” he writes, but that was no longer the case. Yet, “our theology was telling us we were still. The fact was just the opposite. We had become empowered” and were acting as a regional power (59).

The current power dynamics in Israel/Palestine and the actual history — the forced removal of Palestinians from what is now the state and the continued usurpation of land — are treated as though they are benign acts. Israel — Jews — has become the victimizer in the region, acting as a colonial power, an occupying force.

What was “psychological,” he writes, has become “strategic.”

“If we owned up to our newfound power, we would have to be accountable for and to it. We would have to relinquish the Holocaust as the backdrop to everything Jewish.”

So Oct. 7 and the ensuing war play out as if they were new and shocking rather than as another battle — the deadliest and most traumatic, to be sure — in a decades-long rebellion by Palestinians against suppress and control by Israel.

The argument is based on an underlying anti-Muslim/anti-Arab bias that mirrors the hate and discrimination that Jews have faced across our history. It is evident in the language we (Americans and Jews) use consistently to refer to Arabs, Muslims, Palestine, and Israel. Arabs and Muslims continued to be seen as terrorists, even as the “not all” modifier is added.

Deena R. Hurwitz and Walther H. White Jr., in an article at the American Bar Association website, cite authors Sahar Aziz and John Esposito’s May 2024 book, Global Islamophobia and the Rise of Populism, to underscore a “disturbing rise of Islamophobia worldwide.”

Blaming Muslim minorities for economic, political, and social problems is an increasingly common rhetorical strategy for politicians in countries globally. A narrative of the “threatening Muslim invader” is prevalent, regardless of whether the targets of such rhetoric are born citizens or new arrivals.

Trump, for instance, mixes Islamophobic and xenophobic language as he calls for closing the borders. At the same time, he and his conservative allies rely on both anti- and philosemitic imagery when talking with and about Jews.

“In the United States, Europe, and India, Islamophobic rhetoric is essentially normalized,” Hurwitz and White write.

The use of this rhetoric reduces the history and diversity within the Muslim and Arab communities (and within the Jewish community) to “a set of stereotyped characteristics most often reducible to themes of violence, civilizational subversion, and fundamental otherness.”

Anti-Palestinian racism silences, excludes, erases, stereotypes, defames, and dehumanizes Palestinians. This is used to deny and justify violence against Palestinians and fails to acknowledge Palestinians as Indigenous people with a collective identity while erasing their human rights and equal dignity and worth.

Trump’s executive order builds on this structure of anti-Muslim/anti-Arab thought, while also endorsing stereotypes of Jews as a model minority in need of special protection — even as he dismantles what he calls the “DEI regime.” Pitting Jewish and Muslim communities against each other creates hierarchies among aggrieved groups, which the right can then use to abrogate our rights of speech, assembly, and petition. It’s also a solution that is out of proportion to the problem.

It creates a threat to international students (mostly Muslim) based purely on their protected speech and assembly, while doing nothing to improve the actual safety of Jewish students. Remember, we already have strong protections in most jurisdictions; prohibiting speech does nothing to address this.

Alex Morey of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a group that defends speech and academic freedom on campus and that has usually been allied with more conservative groups, describes what I’ll call an existential threat. She told the Forward that the order’s language might push universities to crack down on protest, because it functions as an implied threat — to funding and to visas.

Morey said that her organization was already fielding frantic queries from international students at American universities who are worried about being caught in a legal dragnet.

“These are not students that got arrested at a protest or vandalized a building, these are students who just went out and protested,” she said. “What we don’t want to see is schools saying, ‘Hey, Students for Justice in Palestine, I’m going to need a list of everyone in that club and we’re going to comb it for foreign students.’”

What we are talking about is the loss of immigration status and potential deportation as retribution for protest. It is a direct attack on the 14th Amendment’s equal rights clause, which provides “any person within (the United States) the equal protection of the laws,” including the First Amendment’s five basic freedoms.

The order brings together several of Trump’s favorite targets — higher education, Muslims, immigrants and protesters — and is part of a broader effort to undermine the academic freedom and speech rights of faculty and students in higher education. Trump is a wannabe autocrat. He sees these groups as a threat to his control. While fighting antisemitism is the ostensible reason for the order, the larger targets are our democratic institutions.

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Higher Education Inquirer: Increasingly Relevant

The Higher Education Inquirer continues to grow.  Last month the number of views rose to more than 45,000.  And our total number of views has increased to more than 440,000. While we had added advertisements, we have not received any SEO help, and we do not pay Google for ads. 

We believe our growth stems largely from our increasing relevance and in our truth telling, which other higher education news outlets are unwilling to do in these times.

Our devotion to transparency, accountability, and value for our readers guides us. 

We invite a diverse group of guest authors who are willing to share their truths. The list includes academics from various disciplines, advocates, activists, journalists, consultants, and whistleblowers. We back up all of this work with data and critical analysis, irrespective of politics and social conventions. We are willing to challenge the higher education establishment, including trustees, donors, and university presidents.

Our articles covering student loan debt, academic labor, nonviolent methods of protest, and freedom of speech are unparalleled. And we are unafraid about including other issues that matter to our readers, including stories and videos about mental health, student safety, technology (such as artificial intelligence), academic cheating, and the nature of work.  And matters of war, peace, democracy, and climate change. 

Our focus, though mainly on US higher education, also has an international appeal. 

Some of our work takes years to produce, through careful documentation of primary and secondary sources, database analysis, and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. We share all of this information for everyone to see at no cost.  

Of course, we could not operate without all your voices. We welcome all your voices. Something few other sources are willing to do.    

Los Angeles Community College District Claims to Be Facing State Takeover Amid Allegations of Fraud and Censorship in LAVC Media Arts Department (LACCD Whistleblower)

The Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) may be facing state takeover within two years due to overextended hiring and budget mismanagement, as discussed during a May 2025 meeting of the Los Angeles Valley College (LAVC) Academic Senate. Faculty warned that the looming financial crisis could result in mass layoffs—including tenured staff—and sweeping program cuts.

Start Minutes LAVC Academic Senate

“R. Christian-Brougham: other campuses have brand new presidents doing strange things. If we don’t do things differently as a district, from the mouth of the president in two years we’ll be bankrupt and go into negative.
 Chancellor has responsibility
C. Sustin  asks for confirmation that it is the Chancellor that can and should step in to curb campus budgets and hirings.
R. Christian-Brougham: the Chancellor bears responsibility, but in the takeover scenario, the Board of Trustees – all of them – would get fired
E. Perez: which happened in San Francisco
C. Sustin: hiring is in the purview of campuses, so they can’t directly determine job positions that move forward?
R. Christian-Brougham: Chancellor and BoT could step in and fire the Campus Presidents, though.
E. Perez: in next consultation with Chancellor, bringing this up.
C. Maddren: Gribbons is not sitting back; he’s acting laterally and going upward
E. Thornton: looping back to the example of City College of San Francisco: when the takeover happened there the reductions in force extended to multiple long-since-tenured members of a number of disciplines, including English. For this and so many other reasons, it was a reign of terror sort of situation. So we really need to push the Chancellor.”

End Minutes Academic Senate

https://go.boarddocs.com/ca/laccd/Board.nsf/vpublic?open#

The dire financial outlook comes as new scrutiny falls on LAVC’s Media Arts Department, already under fire for years of alleged fraud, resume fabrication, and manipulation of public perception. Central to these concerns is the department’s chair, Eric Swelstad, who also oversees a $40,000 Hollywood Foreign Press Association (Golden Globe) grant for LAVC students—a role now drawing sharp criticism in light of mounting questions about his credentials and conduct.

Over the past two months, a troubling wave of digital censorship has quietly erased years of documented allegations. In May 2025, nearly two years’ worth of investigative reporting—comprising emails, legal filings, and accreditation complaints—were scrubbed from the independent news site IndyBay. The removed content accused Swelstad of deceiving students and the public for over two decades about the quality and viability of the Media Arts program, as well as about his own professional qualifications.

In June 2025, a negative student review about Swelstad—posted by a disabled student—disappeared from Rate My Professor. These incidents form part of what appears to be a years-long campaign of online reputation management and public deception.

An AI-driven analysis of Rate My Professor entries for long-serving Media Arts faculty—including Swelstad, Arantxa Rodriguez, Chad Sustin, Dan Watanabe, and Jason Beaton—suggests that the majority of positive reviews were written by a single individual or a small group. The analysis cited "Identical Phrasing Across Profiles," "Unusually Consistent Tag Patterns," and a "Homogeneous Tone and Style" as evidence:

“It is very likely that many (possibly a majority) of the positive reviews across these faculty pages were written by one person or a small group using similar templates, tone, and strategy… The presence of clearly distinct voices, especially in the negative reviews, shows that not all content comes from the same source.”

A now-deleted IndyBay article also revealed emails dating back to 2016 between LAVC students and Los Angeles Daily News journalist Dana Bartholomew, who reportedly received detailed complaints from at least a dozen students—but failed to publish the story. Instead, Bartholomew later authored two glowing articles featuring Swelstad and celebrating the approval of LAVC’s $78.5 million Valley Academic and Cultural Center:

* *"L.A. Valley College’s new performing arts center may be put on hold as costs rise,"* Dana Bartholomew, August 28, 2017.

  [https://www.dailynews.com/2016/08/09/la-valley-colleges-new-performing-arts-center-may-be-put-on-hold-as-costs-rise/amp/](https://www.dailynews.com/2016/08/09/la-valley-colleges-new-performing-arts-center-may-be-put-on-hold-as-costs-rise/amp/)

* *"L.A. Valley College’s $78.5-million arts complex approved in dramatic downtown vote,"* Dana Bartholomew, August 11, 2016.
  [https://www.dailynews.com/2016/08/11/la-valley-colleges-785-million-arts-complex-approved-in-dramatic-downtown-vote/](https://www.dailynews.com/2016/08/11/la-valley-colleges-785-million-arts-complex-approved-in-dramatic-downtown-vote/)

Among the most explosive allegations is that Swelstad misrepresented himself as a member of the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA), a claim contradicted by official WGA-West membership records, according to another redacted IndyBay report.

This appears to be the tip of the iceberg according to other also scrubbed IndyBay articles

Other questionable appointments, payments, and student ‘success stories’ in the Los Angeles Valley College Media Arts Department include:

* **Jo Ann Rivas**, a YouTube personality and former Building Oversight Committee member, was paid as a trainer and presenter despite reportedly only working as a casting assistant on the LAVC student-produced film *Canaan Land*.

(https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2018/los-angeles-district/jo-ann-rivas/)

* **Robert Reber**, a student filmmaker, was paid as a cinematography expert.

(https://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2017/los-angeles-district/robert-reber/)

* **Diana Deville**, a radio host and LAVC alumna with media credits, served as Unit Production Manager on *Canaan Land*, but her resume claims high-profile studio affiliations including DreamWorks, MGM, and OWN.

(https://www.tnentertainment.com/directory/view/diana-deville-13338)

The film *Canaan Land*, made by LAVC Media Arts students, has itself raised eyebrows. Filmmaker Richard Rossi claimed that both it and his earlier student film *Clemente* had received personal endorsements from the late Pope Francis. These assertions were echoed on *Canaan Land*'s GoFundMe page, prompting public denials and clarifications from the Vatican in *The Washington Post* and *New York Post*:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2017/08/17/after-july-miracle-pope-francis-reportedly-moves-roberto-clemente-closer-to-sainthood/]
* [https://nypost.com/2017/08/17/the-complicated-battle-over-roberto-clementes-sainthood/]

Censorship efforts appear to have intensified following the publication of a now-removed article advising students how to apply for student loan discharge based on misleading or fraudulent education at LAVC’s Media Arts Department. If successful, such filings could expose the department—and the district—to financial liability.

But the highest-profile financial concern is the 2020 establishment of the **Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s $40,000 grant** for LAVC Media Arts students, administered by Swelstad:

* [HFPA Endowed Scholarship Announcement (PDF)](https://www.lavc.edu/sites/lavc.edu/files/2022-08/lavc_press_release-hfpa-endowed-scholarship-for-lavc-film-tv-students.pdf)
* [LAVC Grant History Document](https://services.laccd.edu/districtsite/Accreditation/lavc/Standard%20IVA/IVA1-02_Grants_History.pdf)

As a disreputable academic administrator with a documented history of professional fraud spanning two decades and multiple student success stories that aren’t, future grant donors may reconsider supporting the Department programs – further pushing the Los Angeles Valley College and by extension the district as a whole towards financial insolvency. 

Department of Education Fails (Again) to Modify Enrollment Projections (Dahn Shaulis and Glen McGhee)

For more than a decade, the US Department of Education (ED) has forecasted higher education enrollment numbers, projecting 10 years in advance. In 2013, the National Center for Education Statistics projected total enrollment to reach nearly 24 million students (23,834,000) a decade later.  But by 2021, the real numbers would already be five million fewer (18,659,851). 

 

We can only guess what happened to enrollment numbers between 2021 and today, but it's doubtful they have increased.  The National Student Clearinghouse has reported lower numbers between 2021 and 2022, but they use different methods and do not engage in forecasting. 

In 2013, few could have predicted such a significant enrollment decline. The lag in getting up-to-date numbers from ED made it even more difficult to envision. We relied on more up-to-date numbers, though less complete, from the National Student Clearinghouse to understand what was happening. 

In 2014, with limited data, futurist Bryan Alexander asked Inside Higher Education readers Has Higher Education Peaked?  In fact, undergraduate higher education had peaked and began its steady decline in 2011.  Little was said from the higher education establishment for years. The slow but consistent downward trend, though, became more obvious with each year as the numbers came in.  

By 2017, Nathan Grawe predicted a 2026 enrollment cliff, a by-product of reduced birth rates in the 2008-2009 Great Recession.  This revelation made more people conscious of already declining enrollment numbers that started falling six years earlier. But the Department of Education did little to change their predictive formula. For several years, growing enrollment in online courses and graduate degrees kept total enrollment declines from appearing more dramatic.

In January 2018 we contacted the US Department of Education about these failures. According to William Hussar, the agency had already begun work on developing an alternative methodology for producing college projections, but that this would take years to implement. In the meantime, the numbers continued to drop, and polls showed fewer people having confidence in higher education.  Student loan debt may have been of little interest to most Americans, but it did sour tens of millions of debtors and their families. We suggested that behavioral economists might be needed to provide an alternative formula.

Today, the US Department of Education, despite some revisions in their most recent modeling, continues to forecast higher education enrollment gains--up to 2031-- despite mounting evidence it will decrease significantly (i.e. the "enrollment cliff"). We cannot expect online education, grad school participation, or even a faltering economy to prop up higher ed enrollment. Faith in higher education is waning-and for good reason. Despite propaganda from the higher ed industry, it's become a riskier bet for a growing number of the working class and middle class.

Related links:

US Department of Education Fails to Recognize College Meltdown

US Department of Education Projects Increasing Higher Ed Enrollment From 2024-2030. Really? (Dahn Shaulis and Glen McGhee)

Enrollment cliff? What enrollment cliff? 

Projections of Education Statistics to 2028 (US Department of Education)

Wealth and Want Part 1: Multi-Billion Dollar Endowments

US higher education reflects and reinforces a world of increasing inequality, injustice, and inhumanity. This system (or some would call it an industry) should function as a conduit between good K-12 education, good jobs, and the wellness of all its citizens, whether they attend or not. But increasingly, it does not. 

The first installments of the Wealth and Want series examine the concentration of wealth in the US higher education system.  And this article focuses on loosely regulated university endowments. While many American schools struggle to provide basic amenities and academic resources, elite universities boast endowments that rival the GDPs of small nations. And they pay little in taxes. 

The Endowment Elite and Ill-Gotten Gains

At the pinnacle of higher education wealth are Harvard ($49B), The University of Texas System ($44B), Yale ($40B), Stanford ($36B), and Princeton ($34B). These institutions have amassed endowments that provide a steady stream of income for investments, scholarships, and research initiatives. How their money is invested is rarely known.  

Endowment managers at elite schools typically make more than a million dollars a year. The most elite schools pay their managers $5M-$10M a year, with compensation largely based on returns. But those managers still get hefty salaries even when they lose money.

There are more than 120 schools with endowments greater than a billion dollars. But the 20 richest university endowments together hold more wealth than the other 5000 or so other higher education institutions combined. 

Elite endowments are often the result of centuries of fundraising, donations, and strategic (sometimes shady) investments. For many of the most prestigious schools, it began with land theft and generations of forced labor. 

For other wealthy schools, it was the result of philanthropic robber barons like Johns Hopkins (who also held captives), Andrew Carnegie, Leland Stanford, John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and James Buchanan Duke who made their wealth through mass exploitation of people and the planet. 

For wealthy flagship state universities, it also came from land theft. In the case of the University of Texas, its wealth largely came from, and to some degree still comes from the exploitation of fossil fuels that jeopardize the planet.

Historical Context and Structural Inequality

• Land Theft and the Founding of Institutions: The establishment of many American universities, including Ivy League institutions and those founded under the Morrill Act, was often intertwined with land theft from Native American tribes. This practice, often referred to as "land dispossession" or "Indian removal," was a key component of Manifest Destiny and the expansion of European settlement across the continent.
• Ivy League Universities: Institutions like Harvard, Yale, and Columbia were granted land by colonial governments, which often acquired these lands through treaties that were coerced or violated. They also used enslaved labor to build and maintain their wealth.  
• Funding Models: The funding models for public higher education often favor larger, research-intensive universities. This can lead to underfunding for smaller, less prestigious institutions, particularly those serving marginalized communities.
• Endowment Inequality and Profits Over People and Planet: Endowments are a powerful tool for wealth accumulation and institutional advantage. The concentration of endowments in a few elite universities can exacerbate existing inequalities and create a self-perpetuating cycle of privilege.  These endowments have also engaged in shady investments that perpetuated worker oppression, genocide, and environmental destruction. 

Related links:

Pay and Chief Investment Officers: Good Money while It Lasts

Tax Wealthy Private Universities Now (Paul Prescod, Jacobin)

Cognitive Dissonance in Conservative Circles: Student Loans, Reproductive Control, and Elite Education

In the fractured landscape of American politics, few ideological camps require as much mental compartmentalization as the contemporary conservative movement—particularly on issues such as student loan forgiveness, reproductive control, and elite education. These contradictions are not incidental; they are foundational to a worldview that champions “freedom” and “responsibility” while selectively applying both.

Student Loan Forgiveness: Moral Hazard for the Working Class?

Conservatives have long framed student loan forgiveness as a dangerous “bailout” for the irresponsible. When the Biden administration announced broad relief for borrowers in 2022, Republican leaders rushed to block the effort, culminating in the Supreme Court’s rejection of the plan in Biden v. Nebraska (2023) [1]. Senator Mitch McConnell called the proposal “socialism,” and GOP-aligned media accused the administration of rewarding “woke” degrees in gender studies and art history.

Yet this outrage over debt relief was largely absent when it came to Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan forgiveness. According to data from ProPublica and the U.S. Small Business Administration, many Republican members of Congress, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Rep. Vern Buchanan, had hundreds of thousands—sometimes millions—of dollars in business loans forgiven under the program [2]. Donald Trump’s companies received over $2 million in PPP loans, much of it forgiven [3].

Meanwhile, millions of working- and middle-class borrowers remain trapped in debt from degrees that were oversold as gateways to stable careers. Many were students at for-profit institutions that have since faced lawsuits or federal scrutiny for misleading advertising and inflated job placement claims [4].

Reproductive Control: The Politics of "Limited" Government

One of the most glaring contradictions in conservative rhetoric is the demand for limited government—except when it comes to controlling women’s bodies. Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), Republican-led states have rushed to enact abortion bans. As of mid-2025, 14 states have near-total bans in effect, many with no exceptions for rape or incest [5].

While conservatives argue for “parental rights” in education and protest vaccine mandates as government overreach, they have no issue allowing the state to force pregnancy and childbirth. The very people championing “freedom” from mask mandates and climate regulations are often the first to demand criminal penalties for doctors who perform abortions.

This isn’t just hypocrisy—it reflects a selective application of liberty: economic freedom for corporations, religious freedom for evangelicals, but no bodily autonomy for pregnant women, particularly those who are poor or marginalized.

Elite Education: The Ivy League as Both Enemy and Badge of Honor

Conservative disdain for elite universities is both cultural and performative. Schools like Harvard, Yale, and Stanford are routinely criticized as leftist indoctrination centers. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, for instance, has targeted public university diversity programs and pushed for “anti-woke” education reforms [6].

And yet, the conservative establishment is deeply enmeshed in elite education. Four of the six conservative Supreme Court justices were educated at Harvard or Yale. The Federalist Society, a conservative legal powerhouse, thrives at these institutions. DeSantis himself holds degrees from Yale and Harvard Law.

Wealthy conservative families still pull strings to get their children into Ivy League schools, often through donations or legacy admissions. Meanwhile, conservative media outlets mock first-generation students or those from historically marginalized communities for seeking higher education in the first place. As working-class and rural conservatives are dissuaded from attending college, elite education becomes more exclusive—while still being used to confer legitimacy on conservative power brokers.

The Real Ideological Glue

These contradictions require cognitive dissonance, but they are sustained by a shared grievance narrative: that “real Americans” are being left behind by coastal elites, cultural change, and demographic shifts. In this framework, debt relief for a truck driver is socialism, but forgiveness for a car dealership owner is economic stimulus. Academic freedom is sacred for religious conservatives, but dangerous when exercised by liberal professors. Government intrusion is tyranny—unless it enforces traditional gender roles.

What binds these inconsistencies together is not logic but power. The goal is not to apply principles consistently, but to protect a hierarchy in which wealth, whiteness, patriarchy, and Christian nationalism remain dominant.

Until conservatives confront these contradictions—or acknowledge that their ideology serves different masters depending on context—they will continue to promote a politics of resentment that undermines both higher education and democracy itself.

---

Sources:

1. Supreme Court of the United States. Biden v. Nebraska, 600 U.S. ___ (2023). https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/22-506_n6io.pdf

2. ProPublica. “Tracking PPP Loans.” https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/

3. Forbes. “Trump Organization and PPP Loans: Over $2 Million Forgiven.” July 2021. https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacheverson/2021/07/06/trump-organizations-ppp-loans-over-2-million-forgiven

4. U.S. Department of Education. “Borrower Defense to Repayment.” https://studentaid.gov/borrower-defense/

5. Guttmacher Institute. “State Bans on Abortion Throughout Pregnancy.” Updated May 2025. https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/state-policies-later-abortions

6. The Chronicle of Higher Education. “DeSantis Signs Bills Overhauling Florida Higher Ed.” May 2023. https://www.chronicle.com/article/desantis-signs-bills-overhauling-florida-higher-ed

---

The Higher Education Inquirer will continue to investigate the ideological contradictions, systemic inequities, and political influence that define U.S. higher education—and its role in American life.

Hardship Ahead

As we stand on the precipice of a turbulent future, one thing has become clear: the hardships ahead will disproportionately affect the working class, and the elites — across political, corporate, media, and intellectual spheres — have shown a consistent, and often intentional, indifference to their struggles. While many of us brace for economic downturns, climate chaos, and the seismic shifts brought on by technological advancements, the reality is that the ruling class has actively shaped a system where the burdens of these challenges will fall on the backs of ordinary people, all while they remain largely insulated from the consequences. The rise of authoritarian figures like President Donald Trump may dominate the headlines, but it’s not just about him; it’s about a broader systemic issue where elites, regardless of their political affiliation, have consistently prioritized their own interests over the well-being of those beneath them.

The Political Elites: A System Built to Serve the Powerful

It’s easy to point to figures like Donald Trump as the embodiment of elite disregard for the working class, but that misses the bigger picture. Trump was not a rogue element in the American political landscape, but rather the latest manifestation of a system that has long been rigged to benefit the wealthy. His administration, while promising to fight for the forgotten American worker, ultimately enacted policies that only deepened the wealth divide. Corporate tax cuts, deregulation, and a lack of meaningful action to address the hollowing out of American industries — these were the actions of a leader who claimed to represent the working class, but ultimately sided with the elite.

But Trump’s actions were not unique. The bipartisan neglect of the working class by both Republican and Democratic elites has been a long-standing feature of U.S. politics. Under both parties, trade deals like NAFTA, the deregulation of industries, the decline of unions, and the outsourcing of jobs were all policies that catered to corporate elites while leaving millions of working-class Americans in the dust. The promises of upward mobility, economic security, and better wages have been largely replaced with a system that offers crumbs to the working class while the wealthy continue to reap record profits. Political elites — whether through tax cuts for the rich or cuts to social programs — have shown an outright disregard for the struggles of everyday people.

This indifference is only magnified as we now face a growing economic crisis. The pandemic and economic shutdowns pushed the working class further into financial instability, and the challenges ahead — from potential recessions to an increasing reliance on automation — will continue to hit hardest those already on the brink. But the elites, whether corporate giants, politicians, or financial institutions, are poised to weather these storms with little more than an inconvenience to their wealth and power. Meanwhile, workers will be forced to bear the weight of an unstable economy, with wages stagnating and job insecurity rising.

Corporate Elites: Profits Over People, Even in the Face of Crisis

The corporate elite — the billionaires and multinational corporations who control the economy — have continued their indifference to the working class, exacerbating the hardships that lie ahead. As climate change accelerates and the global economy teeters on the brink, these corporations are more concerned with profits than with providing real solutions to the problems at hand. Instead of adapting to the growing demands for fair wages, secure jobs, and environmentally sustainable practices, many corporations are doubling down on exploiting their workers.

Take the tech industry, for example. Amazon, Google, and other tech giants are facing mounting scrutiny for their poor labor practices, such as low wages, harsh working conditions, and algorithmic surveillance of employees. Yet these companies — some of the richest in the world — are not shifting their priorities to address the inequities in their business models. Instead, they continue to exploit the labor of workers without offering them the protections and benefits they deserve. Meanwhile, the CEOs of these companies enjoy unimaginable wealth, completely detached from the daily struggles of those who actually power their success.

The financial sector, too, continues to perpetuate a system of inequality. The speculative bubbles in cryptocurrency, real estate, and stocks benefit the wealthy, while the working class is left with the fallout. When the next financial crisis inevitably hits — and it will — it will be the workers who lose their jobs, homes, and savings, while the banks and hedge funds are bailed out by the government. This pattern of privatizing gains and socializing losses has become a hallmark of elite indifference to the struggles of everyday Americans.

Media Elites: Crafting Narratives that Serve the Powerful

The media, which should serve as a check on power and a platform for the voices of the marginalized, has become yet another arm of the elite establishment. Corporate-controlled media outlets are more concerned with maintaining their profit margins and advertising revenue than with accurately reflecting the struggles of the working class. The growing divide in society — along lines of race, class, gender, and age — is often presented as an isolated issue, rather than a systemic failure that stems from decades of elite indifference and exploitation.

The media elites who control these narratives continue to push the idea of a meritocracy — the belief that success is the result of hard work and determination — despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. While working-class people struggle with rising rents, stagnant wages, and a lack of job security, media outlets cater to the wealthy and powerful, maintaining a status quo that ensures the perpetuation of inequality. The media’s failure to adequately address the systemic issues that have led to this growing divide — from the dismantling of the welfare state to the erosion of workers' rights — only deepens the alienation felt by ordinary citizens.

The Intellectual Elites: Detached from Reality

Even in academia and intellectual circles, the response to the challenges facing the working class is often one of detachment or indifference. While scholars and economists may craft theories about the future of work, automation, and global economic systems, few offer tangible, actionable solutions to help the millions of Americans who are already struggling. The intellectual elites — with their focus on abstract concepts and lofty ideals — have consistently failed to address the immediate needs of the working class.

For example, the rise of automation and artificial intelligence presents an existential threat to many workers in industries like manufacturing, retail, and transportation. While experts discuss the benefits of these technologies, few have addressed the real-world consequences for workers whose jobs are being automated away. The intellectual elites have, in many cases, failed to call for policies that would ensure a just transition for these workers, leaving them at the mercy of a system that values profit over people.

The Coming Hardships: Economic, Social, and Environmental Struggles

The coming years will bring significant hardships — both in terms of economic instability and environmental catastrophe. The working class will bear the brunt of these challenges, and yet, the elites seem more interested in protecting their wealth and power than in addressing the root causes of these crises. As automation continues to displace workers, and as the climate crisis leads to extreme weather events and resource scarcity, the working class will face mass unemployment, displacement, and economic insecurity. Yet, while working people are scrambling to adapt to these changes, the elites will continue to live in their gated communities, insulated from the storms of hardship that are ravaging the rest of society.

At the same time, geopolitical tensions — fueled in part by elite disregard for diplomacy and international cooperation — are pushing the world closer to conflict. The U.S. has increasingly aligned itself with authoritarian regimes and turned a blind eye to human rights abuses around the globe. The failure to address these global injustices, combined with a domestic political landscape increasingly divided by race, class, gender, and age, creates a volatile environment in which the working class will continue to suffer, while the elites profit off of the instability they have helped create.

Resistance and Reclamation of Power

Despite the indifference of the elites, resistance is growing. In the face of climate change, economic instability, and rising inequality, workers are beginning to organize — through strikes, protests, and boycotts — to demand better conditions, fair wages, and a more just society. This nonviolent resistance is not just a response to Trump’s policies but to a broader system that has long been stacked against the working class.

The time has come to recognize that the elites — whether in politics, business, or media — have consistently prioritized their own interests over the well-being of ordinary people. As the hardships ahead loom large, the working class must begin to reclaim power, not just through resistance but through the creation of a new system that values their labor, their dignity, and their humanity.

We cannot afford to wait for elites to solve these problems; the future depends on the collective action of those who have been sidelined for far too long. Only by organizing, building solidarity, and demanding a better future can we begin to address the systemic injustices that have plagued society for decades. The time for change is now, and the working class must rise to meet the challenges ahead — not just to survive, but to reclaim their rightful place in a just and equitable society.