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Sunday, January 4, 2026

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

 College Choice and Career Planning Tools

Innovation and Reform

Higher Education Policy

Data Sources

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Thursday, September 11, 2025

Choosing the Right College as a Veteran: An Update for 2025

In 2018, Military Times published a guide titled “8 Tips to Help Vets Pick the Right College.” While the intent was good, the higher education landscape has shifted dramatically since then — and not for the better. For-profit colleges have collapsed and rebranded, public universities are raising tuition while cutting services, and predatory practices continue to target veterans with GI Bill benefits.

Meanwhile, agencies like the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) — tasked with protecting veterans — have too often failed in their oversight. Investigations have revealed FOIA stonewalling, regulatory rollbacks, and a revolving door between government and industry. Veterans are left to navigate a minefield of deceptive recruiting, inflated job-placement claims, and programs that leave them indebted and underemployed.

Here’s what veterans need to know in 2025.

1. Don’t Trust the Branding

Colleges love to advertise themselves as “military friendly.” This phrase is meaningless. It’s often nothing more than a marketing slogan used to lure GI Bill dollars. The fact that a school has a veterans’ center or flags on campus tells you little about program quality, affordability, or long-term value.

2. Look at the Numbers, Not the Sales Pitch

Use College Scorecard and IPEDS data to examine:

  • Graduation and completion rates

  • Typical debt after leaving school

  • Loan default and repayment statistics

  • Earnings of graduates in your intended field

If a school avoids publishing these numbers or makes them hard to find, that’s a red flag.

3. Understand the Limits of Oversight

The VA’s GI Bill Comparison Tool and DOD “oversight” portals may look official, but they are incomplete and sometimes misleading. The VA has even restored access to schools after proven misconduct under political pressure. DOD contracts with shady for-profit providers continue despite documented abuse.

Oversight agencies are not independent referees — too often, they are captured regulators.

4. Seek Independent Evidence

Avoid relying on large, national veteran nonprofits. Many of these organizations accept funding from schools, corporate partners, or government agencies with vested interests.

Instead, veterans should:

  • Check state attorney general enforcement actions and FTC press releases.

  • Read independent investigative journalism (such as the Higher Education Inquirer or Project on Predatory Student Lending).

  • Ask tough questions of alumni — especially those who dropped out or ended up in debt.

5. Watch Out for Job Placement Claims

Schools often boast of “high job placement rates” without clarifying what that means. Some count temporary or part-time work unrelated to your field. If a program promises guaranteed employment, demand written proof.

6. Don’t Chase Prestige

Big-name universities are not automatically better. Some elite schools partner with for-profit online program managers (OPMs) that deliver low-quality, high-cost programs to veterans and working adults. Prestige branding doesn’t guarantee fair treatment.

7. Weigh Community Colleges and Public Options

Community colleges can be a safer starting point, offering affordable tuition, transferable credits, and practical programs. Some state universities provide strong veteran support at the local level, even when national oversight is weak.

8. Build and Rely on Grassroots Networks

Large veteran organizations at the national level often fail to protect veterans from predatory colleges. Veterans are better served by:

  • Local veteran groups that are independent and community-based

  • Direct peer networks of fellow veterans who have attended the schools you’re considering

  • Public libraries, grassroots councils, and smaller veteran meetups not tied to corporate or political funding

  • Sharing experiences through independent media when official channels fail

Protect Yourself, Protect Others

Veterans have long been targeted by predatory colleges because their GI Bill benefits represent guaranteed federal money. DOD, VA, and large national veteran groups have too often enabled this exploitation.

The best defense is independent evidence, grassroots testimony, and investigative journalism. By asking hard questions, demanding transparency, and supporting one another at the local level, veterans can avoid the traps that continue to ensnare far too many.

For those who have been targeted and preyed upon, please consider joining the Facebook group, Restore GI Bill for Veterans.  



Sources:

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Monday, August 25, 2025

HEI Resources Fall 2025

 [Editor's Note: Please let us know of any additions or corrections.]

Books

  • Alexander, Bryan (2020). Academia Next: The Futures of Higher Education. Johns Hopkins Press.  
  • Alexander, Bryan (2023).  Universities on Fire. 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. and Feldman, D. (2017). The Road Ahead for America's Colleges & Universities. Oxford University Press.
  • Armstrong, E. and Hamilton, L. (2015). Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality. Harvard University Press.
  • Arum, R. and 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.  
  • Bennett, W. and Wilezol, D. (2013). Is College Worth It?: A Former United States Secretary of Education and a Liberal Arts Graduate Expose the Broken Promise of Higher Education. Thomas Nelson.
  • Berg, I. (1970). "The Great Training Robbery: Education and Jobs." Praeger.
  • Berman, Elizabeth P. (2012). Creating the Market University.  Princeton University Press. 
  • Berry, J. (2005). Reclaiming the Ivory Tower: Organizing Adjuncts to Change Higher Education. Monthly Review Press.
  • Best, J. and Best, E. (2014) The Student Loan Mess: How Good Intentions Created a Trillion-Dollar Problem. Atkinson Family Foundation.
    • Bledstein, Burton J. (1976). The Culture of Professionalism: The Middle Class and the Development of Higher Education in America. Norton.
  • Bogue, E. Grady and Aper, Jeffrey.  (2000). Exploring the Heritage of American Higher Education: The Evolution of Philosophy and Policy. 
  • Bok, D. (2003). Universities in the Marketplace : The Commercialization of Higher Education.  Princeton University Press. 
  • Bousquet, M. (2008). How the University Works: Higher Education and the Low Wage Nation. NYU Press.
  • Brennan, J & Magness, P. (2019). Cracks in the Ivory Tower. Oxford University Press. 
  • Brint, S., & Karabel, J. The Diverted Dream: Community colleges and the promise of educational opportunity in America, 1900–1985. Oxford University Press. (1989).
  • Cabrera, Nolan L. (2024) Whiteness in the Ivory Tower: Why Don't We Notice the White Students Sitting Together in the Quad? Teachers College Press.
  • Cabrera, Nolan L. (2018). White Guys on Campus: Racism, White Immunity, and the Myth of "Post-Racial" Higher Education. Rutgers University Press.
  • Caplan, B. (2018). The Case Against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money. Princeton University Press.
  • Cappelli, P. (2015). Will College Pay Off?: A Guide to the Most Important Financial Decision You'll Ever Make. Public Affairs.
  • Cassuto, Leonard (2015). The Graduate School Mess. Harvard University Press. 
  • Caterine, Christopher (2020). Leaving Academia. Princeton Press. 
  • Carney, Cary Michael (1999). Native American Higher Education in the United States. Transaction.
  • Childress, H. (2019). The Adjunct Underclass: How America's Colleges Betrayed Their Faculty, Their Students, and Their Mission University of Chicago Press.
  • Cohen, Arthur M. (1998). The Shaping of American Higher Education: Emergence and Growth of the Contemporary System. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
  • Collins, Randall. (1979/2019) The Credential Society. Academic Press. Columbia University Press. 
  • Cottom, T. (2016). Lower Ed: How For-profit Colleges Deepen Inequality in America
  • Domhoff, G. William (2021). Who Rules America? 8th Edition. Routledge.
  • Donoghue, F. (2008). The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities.
  • Dorn, Charles. (2017) For the Common Good: A New History of Higher Education in America Cornell University Press.
  • Eaton, Charlie.  (2022) Bankers in the Ivory Tower: The Troubling Rise of Financiers in US Higher Education. University of Chicago Press.
  • Eisenmann, Linda. (2006) Higher Education for Women in Postwar America, 1945–1965. Johns Hopkins U. Press.
  • Espenshade, T., Walton Radford, A.(2009). No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal: Race and Class in Elite College Admission and Campus Life. Princeton University Press.
  • Faragher, John Mack and Howe, Florence, ed. (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.
  • Ginsberg, B. (2013). The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All Administrative University and Why It Matters
  • Giroux, Henry (1983).  Theory and Resistance in Education. Bergin and Garvey Press
    • Giroux, Henry (2022). Pedagogy of Resistance: Against Manufactured Ignorance. Bloomsbury Academic
  • Gleason, Philip (1995). Contending with Modernity: Catholic Higher Education in the Twentieth Century. Oxford U.
  • Golden, D. (2006). The Price of Admission: How America's Ruling Class Buys its Way into Elite Colleges — and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates.
  • Goldrick-Rab, S. (2016). Paying the Price: College Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American Dream.
  • Graeber, David (2018) Bullshit Jobs: A Theory. Simon and Schuster. 
    • Groeger, Cristina Viviana (2021). The Education Trap: Schools and the Remaking of Inequality in Boston. Harvard Press.
  • Hamilton, Laura T. and Kelly Nielson (2021) Broke: The Racial Consequences of Underfunding Public Universities
    • Hampel, Robert L. (2017). Fast and Curious: A History of Shortcuts in American Education. Rowman & Littlefield.
  • Johnson, B. et al. (2003). Steal This University: The Rise of the Corporate University and the Academic Labor Movement
  • Keats, John (1965) The Sheepskin Psychosis. Lippincott.
  • Kelchen, Robert. (2018). Higher Education Accountability. Johns Hopkins University Press.
  • Kezar, A., DePaola, T, and Scott, D. The Gig Academy: Mapping Labor in the Neoliberal University. Johns Hopkins Press. 
  • Kinser, K. (2006). From Main Street to Wall Street: The Transformation of For-profit Higher Education
  • Kozol, Jonathan (2006). The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America. Crown. 
  • Kozol, Jonathan (1992). Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools. Harper Perennial.
  • Labaree, David F. (2017). A Perfect Mess: The Unlikely Ascendancy of American Higher Education. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • Labaree, David (1997) How to Succeed in School without Really Learning: The Credentials Race in American Education, Yale University 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: A Memoir.  Thomas Dunne Books. 
  • Lucas, C.J. American higher education: A history. (1994).
  • Lukianoff, Greg and Jonathan Haidt (2018). The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure. Penguin Press.
  • Maire, Quentin (2021). Credential Market. Springer.
  • Mandery, Evan (2022) . Poison Ivy: How Elite Colleges Divide Us. New Press. 
  • Marti, Eduardo (2016). America's Broken Promise: Bridging the Community College Achievement Gap. Excelsior College Press. 
  • Mettler, Suzanne 'Degrees of Inequality: How the Politics of Higher Education Sabotaged the American Dream. Basic Books. (2014)
    • Morris, Dan and Harry Targ (2023). From Upton Sinclair's 'Goose Step' to the Neoliberal University: Essays in the Transformation of Higher Education. 
  • Newfeld, C. (2011). Unmaking the Public University.
  • Newfeld, C. (2016). The Great Mistake: How We Wrecked Public Universities and How We Can Fix Them.
  • Paulsen, M. and J.C. Smart (2001). The Finance of Higher Education: Theory, Research, Policy & Practice.  Agathon Press. 
  • Rosen, A.S. (2011). Change.edu. Kaplan Publishing. 
  • Reynolds, G. (2012). The Higher Education Bubble. Encounter Books.
  • Roth, G. (2019) The Educated Underclass: Students and the Promise of Social Mobility. Pluto Press
  • Ruben, Julie. The Making of the Modern University: Intellectual Transformation and the Marginalization of Morality. University Of Chicago Press. (1996).
  • Rudolph, F. (1991) The American College and University: A History.
  • Rushdoony, R. (1972). The Messianic Character of American Education. The Craig Press.
  • Selingo, J. (2013). College Unbound: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students.
  • Shelton, Jon (2023). The Education Myth: How Human Capital Trumped Social Democracy. Cornell University Press. 
  • Simpson, Christopher (1999). Universities and Empire: Money and Politics in the Social Sciences During the Cold War. New Press.
  • Sinclair, U. (1923). The Goose-Step: A Study of American Education.
  • Stein, Sharon (2022). Unsettling the University: Confronting the Colonial Foundations of US Higher Education, Johns Hopkins Press. 
  • Stevens, Mitchell L. (2009). Creating a Class: College Admissions and the Education of Elites. Harvard University Press. 
  • Stodghill, R. (2015). Where Everybody Looks Like Me: At the Crossroads of America's Black Colleges and Culture. 
  • Tamanaha, B. (2012). Failing Law Schools. The University of Chicago Press. 
  • Tatum, Beverly (1997). Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria. Basic Books
  • Taylor, Barret J. and Brendan Cantwell (2019). Unequal Higher Education: Wealth, Status and Student Opportunity. Rutgers University Press.
  • Thelin, John R. (2019) A History of American Higher Education. Johns Hopkins U. Press.
  • Tolley, K. (2018). Professors in the Gig Economy: Unionizing Adjunct Faculty in America. Johns Hopkins University Press.
  • Twitchell, James B. (2005). Branded Nation: The Marketing of Megachurch, College Inc., and Museumworld. Simon and Schuster.
  • Vedder, R. (2004). Going Broke By Degree: Why College Costs Too Much.
  • Veysey Lawrence R. (1965).The emergence of the American university.
  • Washburn, J. (2006). University Inc.: The Corporate Corruption of Higher Education
  • Washington, Harriet A. (2008). Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. Anchor. 
  • Whitman, David (2021). The Profits of Failure: For-Profit Colleges and the Closing of the Conservative Mind. Cypress House.
  • Wilder, C.D. (2013). Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America's Universities. 
  • Winks, Robin (1996). Cloak and Gown:Scholars in the Secret War, 1939-1961. Yale University Press.
  • Woodson, Carter D. (1933). The Mis-Education of the Negro.  
  • Zaloom, Caitlin (2019).  Indebted: How Families Make College Work at Any Cost. Princeton University Press. 
  • Zemsky, Robert, Susan Shaman, and Susan Campbell Baldridge (2020). The College Stress Test:Tracking Institutional Futures across a Crowded Market. Johns Hopkins University Press. 

Activists, Coalitions, Innovators, and Alternative Voices

 College Choice and Career Planning Tools

Innovation and Reform

Higher Education Policy

Data Sources

Trade publications
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Saturday, August 2, 2025

Time to Shut Off the Tap: The Case for Ending DoD Tuition Assistance to Predatory Colleges

On July 3, 2025, the Higher Education Inquirer received the latest response from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) regarding FOIA request 22-F-1203—our most recent effort in a nearly eight-year campaign to uncover how subprime and for-profit colleges have preyed on military servicemembers, veterans, and their families.

The response included confirmation that 1,420 pages of documents were located. But of those, 306 pages were withheld in full, and 1,114 were released only with heavy redactions. A few for-profit colleges—Trident University International, Grand Canyon University, DeVry University, and American Public University System (which includes American Military University and American Public University)—were specifically mentioned in the partially visible content.

And yet the larger truth remains hidden. The names of other institutions known to have exploited military-connected students—University of Phoenix, Colorado Technical University, American InterContinental University, Purdue University Global, and Liberty University Online, among others—were nowhere to be found in the documents we received. Their absence is conspicuous.

We have been pursuing the truth since December 2017, demanding records that would reveal how the DoD enabled these schools to thrive. We sought the list of the 50 worst-performing colleges receiving Tuition Assistance (TA) funds, based on data compiled under Executive Order 13607 during the Obama Administration. That list was never released. When the Trump Administration took power in 2017, they quietly abandoned the protective measures meant to hold these colleges accountable. Our FOIA request DOD OIG-2019-000702 was denied, with the Pentagon claiming that no such list existed. A second request in 2021 (21-F-0411) was also rejected. And now, more than three years after we filed our 2022 request, the DoD continues to deny the public full access to the truth.

The records we did receive are riddled with legal exemptions: internal deliberations, privacy claims, and most notably, references to 10 U.S.C. § 4021, a law that allows the DoD to withhold details of research transactions outside of traditional grants and contracts. In other words, the Pentagon has built legal firewalls around its relationships with for-profit education providers—and continues to shield bad actors from scrutiny.

But the complicity doesn’t end there. It extends deep into the institutional fabric of how the military interfaces with higher education.

Decades of Systemic Corruption

Since the 1980s, the U.S. Department of Defense has worked hand-in-glove with for-profit colleges through a nonprofit called the Council of College and Military Educators (CCME). What began in the 1970s as a noble initiative to expand access to education for military personnel was hijacked by predatory colleges—including the University of Phoenix—that used the organization as a lobbying front.

These schools infiltrated CCME events, using them to curry favor with military officials, often by hiring veterans as on-base sales agents and even providing alcohol to loosen up potential gatekeepers. While CCME publicly maintained the appearance of academic integrity and service, behind the scenes it served as a conduit for lobbying, influence, and enrollment schemes. Military education officers were schmoozed, manipulated, and in some cases, quietly co-opted. This is something you won’t find in CCME’s official history.

We have been told by multiple insiders that the partnership between DoD and these schools was not just tolerated but actively nurtured. Attempts at reform came and went. Investigations were buried. Promises to "do better" evaporated. No one was held accountable. No one went to jail. But the damage has been lasting—measured in ruined credit, wasted benefits, and lives derailed by fraudulent degrees and broken promises.

The Trump-Hegseth Department of Defense

And still, new scandals—except those uncovered by us—go largely unreported. The media has moved on. Congressional attention has shifted. And the same schools, or their rebranded successors, continue to operate freely, often under the protective shadow of military partnerships.

Today, the DoD continues to deny that the DODOIG-2019-000702 list of the 50 worst schools even exists. But we know otherwise. Based on VA data, whistleblower accounts, and independent reporting, we are confident that this list was compiled—and buried. The question is why. And the answer may very well lie in the unredacted names of institutions too politically connected or too legally protected to be exposed.

The Evidence Is Overwhelming

The most damning proof of institutional complicity remains publicly available. In GAO Report GAO-14-855, published in 2014, the Government Accountability Office detailed the deep flaws in DoD’s oversight of its Tuition Assistance program. The report highlighted inconsistent evaluations, unqualified contractor reviewers, vague standards, and incomplete data collection. The DoD had spent hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on schools without ensuring quality or protecting students. In response, DoD temporarily halted its school evaluations—then quietly resumed business as usual.

PwC audits from 2015 and 2018 confirmed widespread noncompliance with DoD’s Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). Schools violated marketing guidelines, offered misleading transfer information, and failed to provide basic academic counseling. Few were sanctioned, and even fewer were removed from eligibility lists.

Gatehouse Strategies, in its 2022 report, reinforced these conclusions. It warned of “a lack of consistent enforcement mechanisms,” and found that even institutions under investigation continued to receive DoD TA funding. The system appeared designed not to punish misconduct, but to tolerate and obscure it.

The Cost of Inaction

Meanwhile, service members seeking education are left exposed. Many receive low-value credentials, accumulate debt, and waste their limited benefits at schools that offer little academic rigor and even less career mobility. When those credits don’t transfer—or worse, when degrees are rejected by employers—the burden falls squarely on the individual.

Institutions like American Public University System, University of Phoenix, Colorado Technical University, DeVry, and Purdue Global have collected tens of millions in DoD TA funding. Some are under state or federal investigation. Others have quietly changed ownership or rebranded. But the underlying model—targeting military students with high-volume, low-quality online programs—remains largely intact.

We Don’t Need Another Report

The time for reflection is over. The data from GAO, PwC, Gatehouse, and from our own FOIA investigations are clear. What remains is the political will to act.

The Department of Defense should immediately:

– Revoke TA eligibility for schools with documented abuse, federal scrutiny, or repeat MOU violations.
– Release the suppressed list of the worst-performing colleges, as identified under Executive Order 13607.
– Mandate transparent outcome reporting—including transferability, job placement, and default rates—for every school in the TA program.
– Sever ties with lobbyist conduits like CCME that have enabled predatory behavior for decades.

This is not just a matter of bureaucratic reform—it is about justice. For the servicemembers who were deceived. For the families who sacrificed. For the taxpayers who unknowingly foot the bill for failure.

The Higher Education Inquirer will not stop pushing for those names, those documents, and that accountability. Behind every redaction is a veteran who trusted the system—and got scammed. Behind every delay is another student targeted by the same exploitative machinery. Behind every refusal to act is a government more loyal to profit than to people.

Related Reading
GAO-14-855: DoD Education Benefits Oversight Lacking
Military Times (2018): DoD review finds 0% of schools following TA rules
Military Times (2019): Schools are struggling to meet TA rules, but DoD isn’t punishing them. Here’s why.

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