End of an Era

For now, we have suspended our three decade long run of citizen journalism and will let you know where we go from here.  Two of our other publications, American Injustice and street sociologist are also closed, but remain online for now on Blogger. 

Our Anti-SLAPP lawsuit (Chip Paucek and Pro Athlete Community v Dahn Shaulis) is pending. While the legal bill is enormous, we expect to win. In the meantime, please support independent voices like Democracy Now!, Richard Wolff, Robert A. Pape, Julie K. Brown, Roger Sollenberger, and Troy Barile. 

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Use the search tools and click on these hashtags for more information from the College Meltdown and Higher Education Inquirer archives.  

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   Higher Education and Class Sorting. Image by Glen McGhee

On our last full day of operation, we extend our deepest gratitude to the many courageous voices who have contributed to the Higher Education Inquirer over the years. Through research, reporting, whistleblowing, analysis, and public service, you have exposed inequities, challenged powerful interests, and helped the public understand the realities of higher education. Together, you form a resilient network of knowledge, courage, and public service, showing that collective insight can illuminate even the most entrenched systems. Your dedication has been, and continues to be, invaluable.

Special thanks to:
Bryan Alexander (Future Trends Forum), J. J. Anselmi (author), Devarian Baldwin (Trinity College),  Lisa Bannon (Wall Street Journal), Joe Berry (Higher Education Labor United), Kate Bronfenbrenner (Cornell), Stephen Burd (New America), Ann Bowers (Debt Collective), James Michael Brodie (Black and Gold Project Foundation), Patrick Campbell (Vets Ed Brief), Richard Cannon (activist), Kirk Carapezza (WGBH), Kevin L. Clay (Rutgers), Randall Collins (UPenn), Marianne Dissard (activist), Cory Doctorow, William Domhoff (UC Santa Cruz), Ruxandra Dumitriu, Keil Dumsch, Garrett Fitzgerald (College Recon), Glen Ford (with the ancestors), Richard Fossey (Condemned to Debt), Erica Gallagher (2U Whistleblower), Cliff Gibson III (Gibson & Keith), Henry Giroux (McMaster University), Terri Givens (University of British Columbia), Aaron Glantz, Luke Goldstein (The Lever),  Nathan Grawe (Carleton College), Michael Green (UNLV), Michael Hainline (Restore the GI Bill for Veterans), Debra Hale Shelton (Arkansas Times), Stephanie M. Hall (Protect Borrowers),  David Halperin (Republic Report), Bill Harrington (Croatan Institute), Phil Hill (On EdTech), Investor X (business insider), Robert Jensen (UT Austin), Seth Kahn (WCUP), Hank Kalet (Rutgers), Ben Kaufman (Protect Borrowers), Robert Kelchen (University of Tennessee), Karen Kelsky (The Professor Is In), Neil Kraus (UWRF), LACCD Whistleblower, Michelle Lee (whistleblower), Wendy Lynne Lee (Bloomsburg University of PA), Emmanuel Legeard (whistleblower), Adam Looney (University of Utah), Alec MacGillis (ProPublica), Jon Marcus (Hechinger Report), Steven Mintz (University of Texas), John D. Murphy (Mission Forsaken), Annelise Orleck (Dartmouth), Margaret Kimberly (Black Agenda Report), Austin Longhorn (UT student loan debt whistleblower), Richard Pollock (journalist), Debbi Potts (whistleblower), Jack Metzger (Roosevelt University), Derek Newton (The Cheat Sheet), Jeff Pooley (Annenberg Center), Fahmi Quadir (Safkhet Capital), Chris Quintana (USA Today), Jennifer Reed (University of Akron), Kevin Richert (Idaho Education News), Gary Roth (Rutgers-Newark), Mark Salisbury (TuitionFit), Stephanie Saul (NY Times), Christopher Serbagi (Serbagi Law), Alex Shebanow  (Fail State), Bob Shireman (TCF), Bill Skimmyhorn (William & Mary), Peter Simi (Chapman University), Jeffrey Sonnenfeld (Yale), Gary Stocker (College Viability), Strelnikov (Wikipedia Sucks), Taylor Swaak (Chronicle of Higher Education), Theresa Sweet (Sweet v Cardona), Harry Targ (Purdue University), Moe Tkacik (American Prospect),  Kim Tran (activist), Mark Twain Jr. (business insider), Michael Vasquez (The Tributary), Marina Vujnovic (Monmouth), Richard Wolff (Economic Update), David Whitman, Todd Wolfson (Rutgers, AFT), Helena Worthen (Higher Ed Labor United), DW (South American Correspondent), Heidi Weber (Whistleblower Revolution), Michael Yates (Monthly Review), government officials who have supported transparency and accountability, and the countless other educators, researchers, whistleblowers, advocates, and public servants whose work strengthens our understanding of higher education.

Dahn Shaulis and Glen McGhee

Higher Education Inquirer Resources, Spring 2026

[Editor's note: Please let us know of any corrections, additions, or broken links.  We always welcome your feedback.]  

This list traces how U.S. higher education has been reshaped by neoliberal policies, privatization, and data-driven management, producing deepening inequalities across race and class. The works examine the rise of academic capitalism, growing student debt, corporatization, and the influence of private interests—from for-profit colleges to rankings and surveillance systems. Together, they depict a sector drifting away from its public mission and democratic ideals, while highlighting the structural forces that created today’s crises and the reforms needed to reverse them.

Ahn, Ilsup (2023). The Ethics of Educational Healthcare: Student Debt, Neoliberalism, and Justice. Palgrave Macmillan.
Alexander, Bryan (2020). Academia Next: The Futures of Higher Education. Johns Hopkins Press.
Alexander, Bryan (2023). Universities on Fire. Johns Hopkins Press.

Alexander, Bryan (2026). Peak Higher Ed. Johns Hopkins Press.

Angulo, A. (2016). Diploma Mills: How For-profit Colleges Stiffed Students, Taxpayers, and the American Dream. Johns Hopkins University Press.

Apthekar, Bettina (1966). Big Business and the American University. New Outlook Publishers.

Apthekar, Bettina (1969). Higher Education and the Student Rebellion in the United States, 1960–1969: A Bibliography.

Archibald, R. & Feldman, D. (2017). The Road Ahead for America's Colleges & Universities. Oxford University Press.

Armstrong, E. & Hamilton, L. (2015). Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality. Harvard University Press.

Arum, R. & Roksa, J. (2011). Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses. University of Chicago Press.

Baldwin, Davarian (2021). In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities Are Plundering Our Cities. Bold Type Books.

Barr, Andrew & Turner, Sarah (2023). The Labor Market Returns to Higher Education. Oxford University Press.

Bennett, W. & Wilezol, D. (2013). Is College Worth It? Thomas Nelson.

Berg, I. (1970). The Great Training Robbery: Education and Jobs. Praeger.

Berman, Elizabeth P. (2012). Creating the Market University. Princeton University Press.

Berman, Elizabeth Popp & Stevens, Mitchell (eds.) (2019). The University Under Pressure. Emerald Publishing.

Berry, J. (2005). Reclaiming the Ivory Tower: Organizing Adjuncts to Change Higher Education. Monthly Review Press.

Berry, J. and Worthen, H. (2021). Power Despite Precarity: Strategies for the Contingent Faculty Movement in Higher Education. Pluto Books.

Best, J. & Best, E. (2014). The Student Loan Mess. Atkinson Family Foundation.

Bledstein, Burton J. (1976). The Culture of Professionalism. Norton.

Bogue, E. Grady & Aper, Jeffrey (2000). Exploring the Heritage of American Higher Education.

Bok, D. (2003). Universities in the Marketplace. Princeton University Press.

Bousquet, M. (2008). How the University Works. NYU Press.

Brennan, J. & Magness, P. (2019). Cracks in the Ivory Tower. Oxford University Press.

Brint, S. & Karabel, J. (1989). The Diverted Dream. Oxford University Press.

Burawoy, Michael & Mitchell, Katharyne (eds.) (2020). The University, Neoliberalism, and the Politics of Inequality. Routledge.

Burd, Stephen (2024). Lifting the Veil on Enrollment Management: How a Powerful Industry is Limiting Social Mobility in American Higher Education. Harvard Education Press

Cabrera, Nolan L. (2018). White Guys on Campus. Rutgers University Press.

Cabrera, Nolan L. (2024). Whiteness in the Ivory Tower. Teachers College Press.

Cantwell, Brendan & Robertson, Susan (eds.) (2021). Research Handbook on the Politics of Higher Education. Edward Elgar.

Caplan, B. (2018). The Case Against Education. Princeton University Press.

Cappelli, P. (2015). Will College Pay Off? Public Affairs.

Carney, Cary Michael (1999). Native American Higher Education in the United States. Transaction.

Cassuto, Leonard (2015). The Graduate School Mess. Harvard University Press.

Caterine, Christopher (2020). Leaving Academia. Princeton Press.

Childress, H. (2019). The Adjunct Underclass. University of Chicago Press.

Chomsky, Noam (2014). Masters of Mankind. Haymarket Books.

Choudaha, Rahul & de Wit, Hans (eds.) (2019). International Student Recruitment and Mobility. Routledge.

Clay, Kevin (2026). I Guess This Is Activism?: Youth, Political Education, and Free-Market Common Sense. University of Minnesota Press.  

Cohen, Arthur M. (1998). The Shaping of American Higher Education. Jossey-Bass.

Collins, Randall (1979/2019). The Credential Society. Columbia University Press.

Cottom, Tressie McMillan (2016). Lower Ed.

Cottom, Tressie McMillan & Darity, William A. Jr. (eds.) (2018). For-Profit Universities. Routledge.

Domhoff, G. William (2021). Who Rules America? Routledge.

Donoghue, F. (2008). The Last Professors.

Dorn, Charles (2017). For the Common Good. Cornell University Press.

Eaton, Charlie (2022). Bankers in the Ivory Tower. University of Chicago Press.

Eisenmann, Linda (2006). Higher Education for Women in Postwar America. Johns Hopkins Press.

Espenshade, T. & Walton Radford, A. (2009). No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal. Princeton University Press.

Faragher, John Mack & Howe, Florence (eds.) (1988). Women and Higher Education in American History. Norton.

Farber, Jerry (1972). The University of Tomorrowland. Pocket Books.

Freeman, Richard B. (1976). The Overeducated American. Academic Press.

Gaston, P. (2014). Higher Education Accreditation. Stylus.

Gildersleeve, Ryan Evely & Tierney, William (2017). The Contemporary Landscape of Higher Education. Routledge.

Ginsberg, B. (2013). The Fall of the Faculty. Oxford University Press.

Giroux, Henry (1983). Theory and Resistance in Education. Bergin and Garvey Press.

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

Giroux, Henry (2022). Pedagogy of Resistance. Bloomsbury Academic.

Gleason, Philip (1995). Contending with Modernity. Oxford University Press.

Golden, D. (2006). The Price of Admission.

Goldrick-Rab, S. (2016). Paying the Price.

Graeber, David (2018). Bullshit Jobs. Simon and Schuster.

Groeger, Cristina Viviana (2021). The Education Trap. Harvard Press.

Hamilton, Laura T. & Kelly Nielson (2021). Broke.

Hampel, Robert L. (2017). Fast and Curious. Rowman & Littlefield.

Hirschman, Daniel & Berman, Elizabeth Popp (eds.) (2021). The Sociology of Higher Education.

Johnson, B. et al. (2003). Steal This University.

Kamenetz, Anya (2006). Generation Debt. Riverhead.

Keats, John (1965). The Sheepskin Psychosis. Lippincott.

Kelchen, Robert (2018). Higher Education Accountability. Johns Hopkins University Press.

Kezar, A., DePaola, T., & Scott, D. (2019). The Gig Academy. Johns Hopkins Press.

Kinser, K. (2006). From Main Street to Wall Street.

Kozol, Jonathan (1992). Savage Inequalities. Harper Perennial.

Kozol, Jonathan (2006). The Shame of the Nation. Crown.

Kraus, Neil (2023). The Fantasy Economy: Neoliberalism, Inequality, and the Education Reform Movement. Temple University Press.

Labaree, David (1997). How to Succeed in School Without Really Learning. Yale University Press.

Labaree, David F. (2017). A Perfect Mess. University of Chicago Press.

Lafer, Gordon (2004). The Job Training Charade. Cornell University Press.

Loehen, James (1995). Lies My Teacher Told Me. The New Press.

Lohse, Andrew (2014). Confessions of an Ivy League Frat Boy. Thomas Dunne Books.

Lucas, C.J. (1994). American Higher Education: A History.

Lukianoff, Greg & Haidt, Jonathan (2018). The Coddling of the American Mind. Penguin Press.

Maire, Quentin (2021). Credential Market. Springer.

Mandery, Evan (2022). Poison Ivy. New Press.

Marginson, Simon (2016). The Dream Is Over. University of California Press.

Marti, Eduardo (2016). America's Broken Promise. Excelsior College Press.

Mettler, Suzanne (2014). Degrees of Inequality. Basic Books.

Morris, Dan & Targ, Harry (2023). From Upton Sinclair's 'Goose Step' to the Neoliberal University.

Newfeld, C. (2011). Unmaking the Public University.

Newfeld, C. (2016). The Great Mistake.

Newfield, Christopher (2023). Metrics-Driven. Johns Hopkins Press.

O’Neil, Cathy (2016). Weapons of Math Destruction. Crown.

Palfrey, John (2020). Safe Spaces, Brave Spaces. MIT Press.

Paulsen, M. & Smart, J.C. (2001). The Finance of Higher Education. Agathon Press.

Piketty, Thomas (2020). Capital and Ideology. Harvard University Press.

Reynolds, G. (2012). The Higher Education Bubble. Encounter Books.

Rojstaczer, Stuart (1999). Gone for Good. Oxford University Press.

Rosen, A.S. (2011). Change.edu. Kaplan Publishing.

Roth, G. (2019). The Educated Underclass. Pluto Press.

Ruben, Julie (1996). The Making of the Modern University. University of Chicago Press.

Rudolph, F. (1991). The American College and University.

Rushdoony, R. (1972). The Messianic Character of American Education. The Craig Press.

Schrecker, Ellen (2010). The Lost Soul of Higher Education: New Press.

Selingo, J. (2013). College Unbound.

Shelton, Jon (2023). The Education Myth. Cornell University Press.

Simpson, Christopher (1999). Universities and Empire. New Press.

Sinclair, U. (1923). The Goose-Step.

Slaughter, Sheila & Rhoades, Gary (2004). Academic Capitalism and the New Economy. Johns Hopkins University Press.

Smyth, John (2017). The Toxic University. Palgrave Macmillan.

Sperber, Murray (2000). Beer and Circus. Holt.

Stein, Sharon (2022). Unsettling the University. Johns Hopkins Press.

Stevens, Mitchell L. (2009). Creating a Class. Harvard University Press.

Stodghill, R. (2015). Where Everybody Looks Like Me.

Tamanaha, B. (2012). Failing Law Schools. University of Chicago Press.

Tatum, Beverly (1997). Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? Basic Books.

Taylor, Barret J. & Cantwell, Brendan (2019). Unequal Higher Education. Rutgers University Press.

Thelin, John R. (2019). A History of American Higher Education. Johns Hopkins Press.

Tolley, K. (2018). Professors in the Gig Economy. Johns Hopkins University Press.

Trow, Martin (1973). Problems in the Transition from Elite to Mass Higher Education. Carnegie Commission on Higher Education. 

Twitchell, James B. (2005). Branded Nation. Simon and Schuster.

Vedder, R. (2004). Going Broke By Degree.

Veysey, Lawrence R. (1965). The Emergence of the American University.

Washburn, J. (2006). University Inc.

Washington, Harriet A. (2008). Medical Apartheid. Anchor.

Whitman, David (2021). The Profits of Failure. Cypress House.

Wilder, C.D. (2013). Ebony and Ivy.

Winks, Robin (1996). Cloak and Gown. Yale University Press.

Woodson, Carter D. (1933). The Mis-Education of the Negro.

Zaloom, Caitlin (2019). Indebted. Princeton University Press.

Zemsky, Robert, Shaman, Susan & Baldridge, Susan Campbell (2020). The College Stress Test. Johns Hopkins University Press.

Zuboff, Shoshana (2019). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. PublicAffairs. 

Activists, Coalitions, Innovators, and Alternative Voices

• Academe Blog
• Adjunct Crisis
• Adjunct Nation
• American Federation of Teachers Adjunct-Contingent Faculty Caucus
• American Scholar
• Bryan Alexander (Futurist)
• Campus News (New York)
• Clery Center
• Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor
• College Futures Foundation (California, K-20)
• College is a Risky Business (Thomas B. Walsh)
• College Promise (Free Community College)
• College Tuition Advisory Services (CTAS)
• College Viability App (Gary Stocker)
• Con Job: Stories of Adjunct and Contingent Faculty
• Confessions of a College Professor (Professor Doom)
• Debt Collective
• Deep Thoughts on Higher Education (Jeff Doyle) 
• Diane Ravitch (K-12)
• EdTrust
  
• Higher Ed Not Debt
• Higher Education Labor United  
  
• Higher Education Strategy Associates
• I Am Ai
• ITT Tech Warriors
• Jim Wolfston and the Social Mobility Index (CollegeNet)
  
• Jonathan Kozol (K-12)
• Kelchen on Education
  
• National Consumer Law Center
• New Faculty Majority (Adjuncts)
• New Laws For America (Bob Hertz)
• Outside the Law School Scam
• Presidents Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration 
• Project on Predatory Student Lending
  
• Randall Collins (Credentialism and Credential Inflation)
• Remaking the University
• Republic Report (David Halperin)
• Saving For College (Mark Kantrowtitz)
• SEIU Faculty Forward (Adjuncts)
• Steve Foerster (Technologist and Educator)
• Strike Debt Portland
• Student Borrower Protection Center
• Student Debt Crisis
• Student Loan Justice
• Terri Givens (Radical Empathy)
• The Best Classroom is the Struggle (Joshua Sooter) 
• TuitionFit (Mark Salisbury)
• Whistleblower Revolution (Heidi Weber)
• Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor
• Wrench in the Gears: A Skeptical Parent's Thoughts on Digital Curriculum (K-12)

 College Choice and Career Planning Tools

• Modern States (free college credits)
  
• College Promise
• TuitionFit 
• College Viability App
• College Scorecard (NCES) 
• Washington Monthly College Rankings 
• Apprenticeship Finder (US Department of Labor)
• FinAid
• College Navigator (NCES)
• Best Value Colleges (PayScale)  
• Hechinger Report College Fitness Tracker
  
• NBC News Investigation: Certificate schools are leaving many students in debt and unable to find jobs
• 2/3s of US Employees Regret Their College Degrees (CBS News)
• The Future of Work Won't Be About College Degrees (CNBC, Stepane Kasriel)
• Student Loan Meltdown (Dave Ramsey)
• Permanent Underemployment for College Grads (Burning Glass Technologies)
• College Is A Risky Proposition For The Working Class (Jon Marcus, Hechinger Report)
• Apprenticeships are a trending alternative to college — but there’s a hitch (Jon Marcus, Hechinger Report) 
• 15 Things College Doesn't Teach You
• Best Colleges for Social Mobility (CollegeNet)
• The Case Against Higher Education (Bryan Caplan)
• College May Not Pay Off For Everyone (Liberty Street Economics/NY FED)
• Online Education Has Questionable Outcomes (IHE)
• Colleges Where Most Students Borrow and Few Repay (TICAS)
• Broke, Busted, and Disgusted Trailer (Student Loan Debt)
• The Confusing Information Colleges Provide Students About Financial Aid (The Atlantic)
• College Affordability and Transparency Center (ED)
• Public College Dropout Factories (Third Way)
• Outcomes By Major (NY FED)
• Third Way
• GI Bill Comparison Tool (VA)
• 8 Tips to Help Vets Pick the Right College (Military Times)
• Warrior Scholar (For Veterans)
• Service to School (For Veterans)
• Peer Advisors for Veteran Education (PAVE)

Innovation and Reform

• Faculty Focus
  
• Strategies for Improving Student Success (Inside Higher Education)
• CUNY ASAP 
  
• Gap Year Basics (NYU)
• Union Plus Free College 
  
• Maryland Student Loan Debt Relief Tax Credit
• Canceling Student Loan Debt Would Grow Economy and Add Jobs (Levy Institute)
• Beyond Tuition: Promises for Affordability, Quality, and Accountability in Higher Education (Center for American Progress)
• Georgia State Turnaround (CHE)
• Spelman Health Initiative (IHE)
• University of Kansas: BA In Three Years
• Shady Grove: Nine Campuses in One (WAPO)  
  

Higher Education Policy

• Veterans’ Education Advocates Celebrate Closure of the 90/10 Loophole
• College Transparency Act (Senate Bill 800)
• Dropping Gainful Employment Rules Gives Billions to Subprime Colleges (Inside Higher Education)
• ED Announces Steps to Hold Institutions Accountable for Taxpayer Losses
• FTC Head Says Supreme Court Ruling Puts More Than $2 Billion for Cheated Consumers at Risk (Brent Kendall, WSJ)
• GAO Report Regarding Online Program Managers
• How to Stop Sudden College Closures (Century Foundation)
• Improving Outcomes Data for Online Programs (Robert Kelchen, Inside Higher Education)
• Spelman College Replaces NCAA Sports with Wellness Programs
• Strengthening Rural Anchor Institutions: Federal Policy Solutions for Rural Public Colleges and the Communities They Serve (Alliance for Research on Regional Colleges)
• The Distributional Effects of Student Loan Forgiveness (BFI Working Paper, Sylvain Catherine and Constantine Yannelis)
• The for-profit college system is broken and the Biden administration needs to fix it (Brookings)
• The Impact of a National Program of Free Tuition at Public Community Colleges and Free Tuition for Most Students at Public Four-Year Colleges and Universities on College Enrollments, Graduations, and the Economy (Robert Shapiro and Isaac Yoder)
• Three Things Policymakers Can Do to Protect Online Students (Century Foundation)  
  

Data Sources

• American Association of Colleges and Universities  
  
• American Association of State Colleges and Universities
• American Indian Higher Education Consortium
• Academic Labor Force Trends (AAUP)
• Century Foundation 
  
• Closed Schools Report (US Department of Education)
• College Closing Projections (EY)
• College Costs Increasing Over Time (College Board)
• College Debt Inhibits Home Buying (CNBC)
• Complete College America
  
• Debt by Degrees (Pro Publica)
• Department of Defense
• Education Statistics by Institution
• Enrollment Numbers 
• Excelencia in Education
• Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity
  
• Growing Inland Achievement 
• Hechinger Report
• Heightened Cash Monitoring
• Long-term Student Loan Default Rates
• Lumina Foundation 
  
• National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO)
• National Assessment of Educational Progress
  
• National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA)
• National Center for Education Statistics
• NCES Blog
  
• National Student Clearinghouse 
• Predicting College Closures and Financial Distress (Philadelphia Federal Reserve)
  
• School Counselor Numbers (ASCA)
• Scientists Leaving Academia in Droves
• Starving the Beast: The Battle to Disrupt and Reform America’s Public Universities
• State by State College Debt (TICAS)
• Student Loan Debt By State (Urban Institute)
• Student Loan Debt Clock
• Student Loan Debt Inhibits Home Buying (CNBC)
• Student Loan Default Projections (Brookings)
• Subprime Colleges (David Halperin)
• The 74: America's Education News Source
  
• Third Way Reports
• Tracking College Closures (Hechinger Report) 
  
• Transfer Credit Problems (GAO)
• United Negro College Fund
  
• University Business Officers Reports
• US Financial Aid (2024 Annual Report) 
  
• Veterans Affairs (GI Bill)

Trade publications

• Chronicle of Higher Education
• Diverse Issues in Higher Education 
• EdSurge
  
• Higher Ed Dive
• Inside Higher Ed

Tech Titans, Ideologues, and the Future of American Higher Education — 2026 Update

This article is an update to our June 2025 Higher Education Inquirer report, Tech Titans, Ideologues, and the Future of American Higher Education. Since that report, the landscape of higher education has evolved dramatically. New developments — the increasing influence of billionaire philanthropists like Larry Ellison, private-equity figures such as Marc Rowan, and the shocking assassination of Charlie Kirk — have intensified the pressures on traditional colleges and universities. This update examines how these forces intersect with ideology, governance, financial power, and institutional vulnerability to reshape the future of American higher education.

American higher education is under pressure from multiple directions, including financial strain, declining enrollment, political hostility, and technological disruption. Yet perhaps the greatest challenge comes from powerful outsiders who are actively reshaping how education is perceived, delivered, and valued. Figures such as Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Sam Altman, Alex Karp, Larry Ellison, and Marc Rowan are steering resources, ideology, and policy in ways that threaten traditional universities’ missions. Each brings a distinct ideology and strategy, but their combined influence represents an existential pressure on the system.

Larry Ellison, the billionaire founder of Oracle, has pledged to give away nearly all his fortune and already directs hundreds of millions toward research, medicine, and education-related causes. Through the Ellison Institute of Technology, he funds overseas campuses and scholarship programs at institutions like the University of Oxford. Ellison represents a “disruptor” who does not challenge degrees outright but reshapes the allocation of educational resources toward elite, globally networked research.

The University of Phoenix cyberbreach is more than another entry in the long list of attacks on higher education. It is the clearest evidence yet of how private equity, aging enterprise software, and institutional neglect have converged to create a catastrophic cybersecurity landscape across American colleges and universities. What happened in the summer of 2025 was not an unavoidable act of foreign aggression. It was the culmination of years of cost-cutting, inadequate oversight, and a misplaced faith in legacy vendors that no longer control their own risks.

The story begins with the Russian-speaking Clop cyber-extortion group, one of the most sophisticated data-theft organizations operating today. In early August, Clop quietly began exploiting a previously unknown vulnerability in Oracle’s E-Business Suite, a platform widely used for payroll, procurement, student employment, vendor relations, and financial aid administration. Oracle’s EBS system, decades old and deeply embedded across higher education, was never designed for modern threat environments. As soon as Clop identified the flaw—later assigned CVE-2025-61882—the group launched a coordinated campaign that compromised dozens of major institutions before Oracle even acknowledged the problem.

Among the most heavily affected institutions was the University of Phoenix. Attackers gained access to administrative systems and exfiltrated highly sensitive data: names, Social Security numbers, bank accounts, routing numbers, vendor records, and financial-aid-related information belonging to students, faculty, staff, and contractors. The breach took place in August, but Phoenix did not disclose the incident until November 21, and only after Clop publicly listed the university on its extortion site. Even after forced disclosure, Phoenix offered only vague assurances about “unauthorized access” and refused to provide concrete numbers or a full accounting of what had been stolen.

Phoenix was not alone. Harvard University confirmed that Clop had stolen more than a terabyte of data from its Oracle systems. Dartmouth College acknowledged that personal and financial information for more than a thousand individuals had been accessed, though the total is almost certainly much higher. At the University of Pennsylvania, administrators said only that unauthorized access had occurred, declining to detail the scale. What links these incidents is not prestige, geography, or mission. It is dependency on Oracle’s aging administrative software and a sector-wide failure to adapt to a threat environment dominated by globally coordinated cybercrime operations.

Marc Rowan, co-founder and CEO of Apollo Global Management, has leveraged private-equity wealth to influence higher education governance. He gave $50 million to Penn’s Wharton School, funding faculty and research initiatives and has recently pushed alumni to withhold donations over issues of campus policy and antisemitism. Rowan also helped shape the Trump administration’s Compact for Academic Excellence, linking federal funding to compliance with ideologically driven standards. He exemplifies how private wealth can steer university governance and policy, reshaping priorities on a national scale. Together, Ellison and Rowan illustrate the twin dynamics of power and influence destabilizing higher education: immense private wealth, and the ambition to reshape institutions according to their own vision.

With these powerful outsiders shaping the landscape, traditional universities increasingly face pressures to prioritize elite, donor-driven projects over broad public missions. Private funding favors high-prestige initiatives over public-access education, and large contributors can dictate leadership and policy directions. University priorities shift toward profitable or ideologically aligned projects, creating a two-tier system in which elite, insulated institutions grow while public universities struggle to compete, widening disparities in access and quality.

The stakes of this upheaval have become tragically tangible. The assassination of Charlie Kirk in 2025 was a horrific reminder that conflicts over ideology, money, and influence are not abstract. Violence against public figures engaged in higher education policy and advocacy underscores the intensity of polarization and the human costs of these struggles. Such events cast a shadow over campuses, donor boards, and political advocacy alike, highlighting that the battle over the future of education is contested not only in boardrooms and legislatures but in life and death.

Students face shrinking access to affordable, publicly supported higher education, particularly those without means or connections to elite institutions. Faculty may encounter restrictions on academic freedom and institutional autonomy, as donor preferences and political pressures increasingly shape hiring, curriculum, and governance. Society risks losing the traditional public mission of universities — fostering critical thinking, civic engagement, and broad social mobility — as education becomes more commodified, prioritizing elite outcomes over the public good.

Building on our June 2025 report, this update underscores the accelerating influence of tech titans, ideologues, and billionaire philanthropists. Figures such as Ellison and Rowan are reshaping not just funding streams but governance structures, while the assassination of Charlie Kirk painfully illustrates the human stakes involved. Traditional colleges face a stark choice: maintain their public mission — democratic access, critical inquiry, and civic purpose — or retreat into survival mode, prioritizing donor dollars, corporate partnerships, and prestige. The pressures highlighted in June are not only continuing but intensifying, and the consequences — for students, faculty, and society — remain profound.

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Sources

Fortune: Larry Ellison pledges nearly all fortune (fortune.com)
Times Higher Education: Ellison funds Oxford scholars (timeshighereducation.com)
Almanac UPenn: Rowan gift to Wharton (almanac.upenn.edu)
Inquirer: Rowan donor pressure at Penn (inquirer.com)
Inquirer: Rowan and Trump’s Compact (inquirer.com)
Higher Education Inquirer original article (highereducationinquirer.org)

Federal Legal Reversal Upends Race‑Conscious Aid: What the DOJ Opinion Means for FAFSA Data Sharing and MSIs

In a dramatic reversal of long-standing federal support for minority students, the Department of Justice has declared that key programs serving historically Black and Hispanic-serving institutions are unconstitutional. The ruling targets race-conscious scholarship access and federal aid data sharing, effectively dismantling decades of policy designed to close educational gaps. For many MSIs and their students, the shift represents a Trump-era rollback of racial equity in higher education, leaving institutions scrambling to protect access and funding in a suddenly hostile legal landscape.

The U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel has delivered what may be one of the most consequential legal opinions affecting federal education policy in decades: a sweeping conclusion that a suite of federal programs tied to minority‑serving institutions (MSIs) and race‑specific scholarships are unconstitutional under current equal‑protection jurisprudence. 

At the center of this interpretation is a fundamental shift in how federal racial criteria are viewed post-Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard/UNC. In that landmark affirmative‑action decision, the Supreme Court significantly tightened the permissible bounds of race‑conscious decision making. The DOJ memo applies that framework beyond admissions, asserting that programs awarding federal funds based on racial or ethnic enrollment thresholds — including MSI grant programs — “effectively employ a racial quota.” 

One particularly striking aspect of the opinion is its treatment of access to Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) data by the United Negro College Fund and the Hispanic Scholarship Fund — organizations that award scholarships targeted to students of specific racial or ethnic backgrounds. The opinion deems it unconstitutional for these groups to receive FAFSA applicant data because the statute enabling such sharing confers access only to entities that grant race‑specific awards. 

Supporters of aiding historically marginalized students and institutions view this as an unprecedented restriction that could severely constrain outreach and support for those populations. Critics charge the move fits a broader administrative pattern of dismantling federal race‑conscious programs and argue that it disregards the statutory authority Congress explicitly provided — including the discretionary authority vested in the Education Secretary to administer FAFSA data sharing.

As one expert aide pointed out in private correspondence, the statutory provision that enabled FAFSA access was framed with Secretary discretion in mind — meaning it was lawful as written. But with DOJ now labeling such practices as impermissibly discriminatory, liability has been reallocated onto the administrative apparatus itself. That shift, in effect, insulates senior officials — including the Secretary — from culpability once the practice ends, leaving career bureaucrats to unwind systems built over years.

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The Policy and Legal Stakes

For nearly four decades, the federal government has maintained a suite of targeted programs intended to close longstanding educational opportunity gaps. These include grants for MSIs, race‑specific scholarships, and data‑sharing mechanisms like FAFSA access that enable outreach to underrepresented students seeking financial aid.

Beginning in July 2025, the Department of Education began scaling back discretionary grants to MSIs after the U.S. Solicitor General declined to defend race‑based criteria in court, particularly the Hispanic‑Serving Institutions definition requiring at least 25% Hispanic enrollment. By September, the Department officially announced the planned termination of most MSI discretionary grant funds for FY2025 — a decision informed by the constitutional concerns later articulated in the DOJ opinion. 

Until now, many observers assumed that statutory authority and congressional backing provided a stable legal foundation for such programs. But the OLC’s memo challenges that assumption, concluding that race‑based eligibility criteria — whether for institutional support or student scholarships — are no longer defensible under current constitutional interpretation. 

The implications extend far beyond MSI grants. If organizations that provide targeted scholarships based on race or ethnicity can no longer receive key federal administrative data, the practical capacity of those groups to serve students could be significantly hampered.

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Political and Institutional Reactions

The DOJ opinion has drawn sharply polarized responses. Administration officials frame the memo as an affirmation of equal protection and a necessary correction to federal programs that, in their view, relied on impermissible racial criteria. Congressional allies of the Administration characterize the changes as ending “racial discrimination” in federal education policy.

Conversely, Democratic legislators and MSI leaders condemn the opinion as ideologically driven and harmful to institutions that serve historically underserved populations. Critics say the analysis ignores longstanding bipartisan congressional support for such programs and portends deep cuts in educational opportunity. 

Institutional leaders at a range of MSIs have expressed alarm, underlining that funding and support mechanisms now in jeopardy are “vital” to student success and campus mission. Many campuses are scrambling to assess fiscal exposure and consider contingency planning.

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Looking Ahead

With federal policy in flux and several legal questions unresolved, higher education professionals face an uncertain environment. Institutions historically supported by race‑conscious federal programs may need to rethink recruitment, financial aid outreach, and partnerships with scholarship providers. Meanwhile, advocates and lawmakers may pursue legislative fixes or constitutional litigation to reshuffle the legal landscape once more.

Whatever the outcome, the DOJ opinion marks a pivotal moment in federal student aid policy — one likely to reshape how race, equity, and opportunity are legally navigated in the years to come.

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HEI Reader Context: What This Means for MSIs

• Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs): Loss of FAFSA data access and potential cuts to discretionary MSI grants could disrupt scholarship outreach, enrollment initiatives, and pipeline programs designed to recruit and retain underrepresented students. HBCUs may need to develop alternative channels for financial aid outreach, including direct partnerships with donors and private scholarship organizations.

• Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs): Many HSIs rely on federal discretionary grants to supplement state funding and support programs for first-generation and low-income students. The DOJ opinion may force HSIs to reallocate institutional resources to cover programs previously funded through race-conscious federal grants.

• Scholarship Organizations: Groups like the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) and the Hispanic Scholarship Fund (HSF) may no longer receive FAFSA data, limiting their ability to identify eligible students efficiently. Expect increased reliance on outreach campaigns, social media, and partnerships with local school districts.

• Institutional Planning: MSIs should assess short-term financial exposure, prioritize scholarship communications, and explore private funding alternatives. Legal and policy monitoring will be critical as legislative or judicial responses evolve.

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Sources

1. Inside Higher Ed. “DOJ Report Declares MSIs Unconstitutional.” December 22, 2025. Link

2. Higher Ed Dive. “DOJ Says MSI Grant Funding Unconstitutional.” December 22, 2025. Link

3. ED.gov. “US Department of Education Ends Funding for Racially Discriminatory Discretionary Grant Programs, Minority-Serving Institutions.” July 2025. Link

4. EducationCounsel. “E-Update: September 22, 2025.” Link

Higher Education and Empire: How U.S. Universities Reproduce Global Inequality

In the public imagination, universities are bastions of knowledge, debate, and progress. Yet beneath the veneer of research and scholarship lies a more troubling reality: many American institutions of higher education are deeply enmeshed in structures of global power, empire, and inequality. From elite research universities to sprawling public institutions, higher education in the United States not only reflects the hierarchies of the world it inhabits but actively reproduces them.

The complicity of universities is neither incidental nor simply a matter of individual choices by administrators. As scholars have noted, the mechanisms of institutional power are deeply structural. Economic and geopolitical pressures shape research priorities, hiring practices, and funding relationships. Academic capitalism, which treats universities as competitive, profit-driven enterprises, has become the norm rather than the exception (Slaughter & Rhoades, 2022). Faculty labor is increasingly precarious, tenure-track opportunities are scarce, and institutional priorities are subordinated to external market logics. The consequences are profound: the promise of knowledge as a public good is eroded, and access is increasingly limited to those already advantaged by class, race, or geography.

U.S. universities’ entanglement with empire is global in scope. Historical patterns of colonialism persist in the form of research agendas, partnerships, and international collaborations that favor dominant powers. The post-apartheid South African university system, for example, demonstrates how neoliberal pressures reshape higher education into corporatized, commodified institutions, constraining equity and social justice efforts (Jansen, 2024). Similarly, elite U.S. institutions reproduce intersectional inequalities, privileging white male scholars while marginalizing women and scholars from the Global South, consolidating a global hierarchy of knowledge production (Smith & Rodriguez, 2024). Knowledge itself becomes a commodity, valued not for its capacity to enlighten or empower but for its capacity to reinforce global hierarchies.

Military and defense connections illustrate another dimension of complicity. ROTC programs, defense research contracts, and partnerships with intelligence agencies embed universities directly within state power and the machinery of imperial control. Students from working-class backgrounds may see military scholarships as pathways to mobility, yet these programs impose long-term obligations, exposure to systemic discrimination, and moral risk, binding individuals to structures that serve national and corporate interests rather than individual or public welfare (Johnson, 2024). By providing both material incentives and ideological framing, universities shape not only research and discourse but also life trajectories, often in ways that reproduce existing inequalities.

Technological developments exacerbate these trends. The rise of artificial intelligence in global education exemplifies digital neocolonialism, where Western frameworks dominate curricula and knowledge production, marginalizing non-Western epistemologies (Lee, 2024). Universities, in adopting and disseminating these technologies, participate in global systems that enforce cultural hegemony while presenting an illusion of neutrality or progress.

Critics argue that U.S. higher education’s complicity is most visible during crises abroad. In Venezuela, universities have hosted panels and research collaborations that echo dominant U.S. policy narratives, while largely ignoring humanitarian consequences (Higher Education Inquirer, 2025). During conflicts in Yemen and Gaza, partnerships with foreign institutions and the enforcement of donor or corporate agendas frequently coincide with silence on human rights abuses. Even when individual scholars attempt to challenge these norms, institutional pressures—funding dependencies, prestige incentives, and market logics—often constrain their capacity to act.

The structural nature of this complicity means that reform cannot be solely individual or performative. Transparency in funding, ethical scrutiny of partnerships, and protection for dissenting voices are necessary but insufficient. Universities must critically examine their embeddedness within global systems of extraction, surveillance, and domination. They must ask whether the pursuit of prestige, rankings, or revenue aligns with the purported mission of fostering equitable knowledge production. Only through systemic, structural change can institutions move from passive complicity toward active accountability.

The implications of these dynamics extend beyond academia. Universities train professionals, shape policy, and generate research that informs global decision-making. When they normalize inequality, silence dissent, or serve as instruments of state or corporate power, the consequences are felt in classrooms, clinics, policy offices, and across global societies. Students, researchers, and communities are both shaped by and subjected to these power structures, often in ways that perpetuate the very inequalities institutions claim to challenge.

In exposing these patterns, recent scholarship has provided both a theoretical and empirical foundation for critique. From analyses of academic capitalism and labor precarity (Slaughter & Rhoades, 2022) to examinations of global knowledge hierarchies (Smith & Rodriguez, 2024) and digital neocolonialism (Lee, 2024), researchers have mapped the pathways through which higher education reproduces systemic inequality. By integrating these insights, scholars, students, and policymakers can begin to imagine alternatives—universities that truly serve knowledge, equity, and global justice rather than empire and market logic.

Higher education’s promise has always been aspirational: the idea that knowledge might liberate rather than constrain, enlighten rather than exploit. Yet in the current landscape, universities often do the opposite, embedding global hierarchies within their governance, research, and pedagogical frameworks. Recognizing this complicity is the first step. Confronting it requires courage, structural awareness, and a commitment to justice that extends far beyond the walls of the academy.

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References

• Higher Education Inquirer. (2025). Higher Education and Its Complicity in U.S. Empire. https://www.highereducationinquirer.org/2025/11/higher-education-and-its-complicity-in.html

• Jansen, J. (2024). The university in contemporary South Africa: Commodification, corporatisation, complicity, and crisis. Journal of Education and Society, 96, 15–34.

• Johnson, M. (2024). The hidden costs of ROTC and military pathways. Higher Education Inquirer. https://www.highereducationinquirer.org/2025/11/the-hidden-costs-of-rotc-and-military.html

• Lee, C. (2024). Generative AI and digital neocolonialism in global education: Towards an equitable framework. arXiv:2406.02966.

• Slaughter, S., & Rhoades, G. (2022). Not in the Greater Good: Academic capitalism and faculty labor in higher education. Education Sciences, 12(12), 912.

• Smith, R., & Rodriguez, L. (2024). The Howard‑Harvard Effect: Institutional reproduction of intersectional inequalities. arXiv:2402.04391.