Stephen Ashley’s Gift and the Reputational Laundering of Elite Wealth

In December 2025, Cornell University announced a $55 million gift from alumnus Stephen B. Ashley to endow the newly named Ashley School of Global Development and the Environment. The university presented the donation as a transformative investment in sustainability, global development, and interdisciplinary research. Yet behind the headlines of generosity lies a pattern that has come to define elite higher education: the use of philanthropy to launder reputations and sanitize wealth accumulated through systems that produce widespread harm.

Ashley’s career exemplifies this dynamic. As a longtime real estate investor and head of The Ashley Companies, he amassed significant wealth. His tenure on the board of Fannie Mae, including as chairman in the mid-2000s, coincided with periods of accounting irregularities, risky mortgage practices, and systemic failures in governance. Fannie Mae’s collapse during the 2008 financial crisis devastated millions of Americans, particularly low-income and minority households, yet board members and executives largely escaped personal consequences. Ashley’s wealth, in part derived from this environment, is now being funneled into a university named for him — transforming historical responsibility into a narrative of generosity.

The pattern extends beyond domestic finance. Ashley also serves on the Founders Council of the Middle East Investment Initiative (MEII), a nonprofit focused on private-sector development in the Middle East. While MEII frames itself as a promoter of economic growth and development, critics argue that such organizations operate within a global financial ecosystem that prioritizes investor stability and elite networks over democratic accountability or local economic agency. Participation in these initiatives may be legal, even philanthropic, but they reinforce Ashley’s image as a global benefactor without confronting the broader systemic power he wields.

Cornell, like many elite institutions, accepts such gifts with minimal scrutiny, emphasizing the moral and intellectual good the donation enables while obscuring the histories of harm that made the wealth possible. Naming a school dedicated to equity, sustainability, and global development after a figure linked to financial crisis and speculative practices exemplifies the reputational laundering function universities serve for wealthy donors. The institution converts fortunes built in high-stakes, opaque, or socially harmful arenas into lasting prestige, moral capital, and scholarly legitimacy — all while reinforcing its own image as an engine of public good.

This is not a question of legality. Ashley’s wealth is largely untarnished in the courts. It is a question of accountability, ethics, and institutional values. By turning wealth into permanent naming rights, universities like Cornell signal that elite power can be absolved through philanthropy, creating a structural dynamic where generosity replaces responsibility, and reputation is more durable than accountability.

For students, faculty, and the public interested in environmental justice, social equity, and global development, the contradiction is stark. The same systems that generate inequality now fund the study and critique of inequality itself. Elite institutions benefit materially and symbolically from the work of those who profited from structural harm, even as the original consequences fade from public memory. Until universities confront this tension, higher education will continue to function as a reputational laundromat for elite wealth, transforming past systemic damage into present prestige.

---

Sources

Cornell University, “Historic Gift Endows New CALS School,” Cornell News
Cornell Sun, coverage of the Ashley School announcement
Federal Housing Finance Agency, Special Examination Reports on Fannie Mae (2005–2008)
Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission materials on Fannie Mae governance
Reuters, coverage of post-crisis shareholder litigation involving Fannie Mae board leadership
Middle East Investment Initiative, Board and Founders Council listings
Aspen Institute, background on MEII origins

Penn Graduate Students (GET-UP) Authorize Strike as Contract Talks Falter

Graduate student workers at Penn have overwhelmingly authorized a strike — a decisive move in their fight for fair pay, stronger benefits, and comprehensive protections. The vote reflects not only deep frustration with stalled negotiations but also the growing momentum of graduate-worker organizing nationwide.

A year of bargaining — and growing frustration

Since winning union recognition in May 2024, GET‑UP has spent over a year negotiating with Penn administrators on their first collective-bargaining agreement. Despite 35 bargaining sessions and tentative agreements on several non-economic issues, key demands — especially around compensation, benefits, and protections for international students — remain unmet.

Many observers see the strike authorization as long overdue. “After repeated delays and insulting offers, this was the only way to signal our seriousness,” said a member of the bargaining committee. Support for the strike among graduate workers is overwhelmingly strong, reflecting a shared determination to secure livable wages and protections commensurate with the vital labor they provide.

Strike authorization: a powerful tool

From Nov. 18–20, GET‑UP conducted a secret-ballot vote open to roughly 3,400 eligible graduate employees. About two-thirds voted, and 92% of votes cast authorized a strike, giving the union discretion to halt academic work at a moment’s notice.

Striking graduate workers, many of whom serve as teaching or research assistants, would withhold all academic labor — including teaching, grading, and research — until a contract with acceptable terms is reached. Penn has drafted “continuity plans” for instruction in the event of a strike, which union organizers have criticized as strikebreaking.

Demands: beyond a stipend increase

GET‑UP’s contract demands include:

• A living wage for graduate workers

• Expanded benefits: health, vision, dental, dependent coverage

• Childcare support and retirement contributions

• Protections for international and immigrant students

• Strong anti-discrimination, harassment, and inclusive-pronoun / gender-neutral restroom protections

While Penn has agreed to some non-economic protections, many critical provisions remain unresolved. The stakes are high: graduate workers form the backbone of research and teaching at the university, yet many struggle to survive on modest stipends.

Context: a national wave of UAW wins

Penn’s graduate workers are part of a broader wave of successful organizing by the United Auto Workers (UAW) and allied graduate unions. Recent years have seen UAW-affiliated graduate-worker locals achieve significant victories at institutions including Cornell, Columbia, Harvard, Northwestern, and across the University of California (UC) system.

At UC, a massive systemwide strike in 2022–2023 involving tens of thousands of Graduate Student Researchers (GSRs) and Academic Student Employees (ASEs) secured three-year contracts with major gains:

• Wage increases of 55–80% over prior levels, establishing a livable baseline salary.

• Expanded health and dependent coverage, childcare subsidies, paid family leave, and fee remission.

• Stronger protections against harassment, improved disability accommodations, and support for international student workers.

• Consolidation of bargaining units across ASEs and GSRs, strengthening long-term collective power.

These gains demonstrate that even large, resource-rich institutions can be compelled to recognize graduate labor as essential, and to provide fair compensation and protections. They also show that coordinated, determined action — including strike authorization — can yield significant, lasting change.

What’s next

With strike authorization in hand, GET‑UP holds a powerful bargaining tool. While a strike remains a last resort, the overwhelming support among members signals that the union is prepared to act decisively to secure a fair contract. The UC precedent, along with wins at other UAW graduate-worker locals, suggests that Penn could follow the same path, translating student-worker momentum into meaningful, tangible improvements.

The outcome could have major implications not just for Penn, but for graduate-worker organizing across the country — reinforcing that organized graduate labor is increasingly a central force in higher education.

---

Sources

• Penn graduate workers union authorizes strike vote

• Ongoing contract negotiations at Penn

• AAUP-Penn denounces university “strikebreaking” memo

• Bargaining updates for graduate workers

• UC graduate workers end strike with historic three-year contract

• Liberation News: UC Academic Workers Win Historic Contracts

“My Wallet Already Hates Me”: A Cornell Newcomer’s Fintech Dilemma—or a Fintech Ad in Disguise?

A first-week post on r/Cornell captured a familiar panic: rent and utilities in Ithaca feel like a second tuition bill, coffee and snacks blur together, and the fear of stumbling into credit-card debt is real. The student wanted to build credit without getting burned and was weighing “debit cards that build credit” (e.g., Fizz or Chime) versus a traditional secured credit card. That trade-off is bigger than one student’s choice—it’s a snapshot of how campus life, fintech marketing, and the cost of college collide.

But some readers quickly wondered: was this an earnest student, or an advertisement in disguise?

Is this a student—or an ad?

Reddit’s comment section raised red flags. Several Cornellians and alumni noted that the same text had popped up on other college subreddits, including UCLA’s, suggesting copy-paste marketing rather than a nervous freshman. One commenter cut straight to the point: “Thinking it’s a type of ad.”

Others were skeptical of the voice: why would a first-year sound like a fintech case study, especially while emphasizing brands like Fizz and Chime? A staff commenter put it bluntly: “I was wondering why someone taking like a freshman was worrying about rent and utilities…”

This skepticism highlights a broader issue: financial products increasingly infiltrate student forums, often blurring the line between peer-to-peer advice and stealth advertising. Whether or not the Cornell post was staged, the debate shows how easily fintech brands can enter campus discourse by presenting themselves as organic “student concerns.”

The Ithaca math: why money feels tight fast

Ithaca is expensive for students, especially in Collegetown. As of September 2025, Apartments.com lists average rents around $1,965 for Collegetown, with citywide averages near $2,000 for one-bedrooms and $1,650 for studios—numbers that swallow part-time paychecks quickly.

Cornell’s own cost-of-attendance pages also show sizable line items for room, board, books, and personal expenses—costs students actually feel week to week.

The fintech pitch

Two names mentioned—Fizz and Chime—illustrate the type of fintech solutions pitched as “safe” alternatives to credit cards.

• Fizz (student-focused): Reports to Experian and TransUnion (not Equifax), but charges a subscription fee.

• Chime Credit Builder: A secured credit card marketed as “debit-like,” requiring you to preload funds. It reports on-time payments but not utilization, and carries no annual fee or interest.

Critics argue that highlighting these brands in multiple subreddits, rather than in a neutral discussion of secured credit cards, looks less like authentic peer advice and more like marketing.

What the community said instead

Beyond the ad suspicions, other commenters offered genuine advice:

• Budgeting basics: Use Mint, YNAB (with student discount), or any app to track every purchase—yes, even coffee.

• Keep it small: One alum recommended putting just a single recurring charge, like Spotify, on a secured or student credit card and setting it to autopay. By graduation, the student would have years of on-time payments and a strong credit score.

• Don’t compete with wealthier peers: As one commenter put it, “A majority of students are bankrolled by their parents and couldn’t tell you how much they spend per month.”

Cornell survival toolkit (practical, not preachy)

• Squeeze transportation costs. Cornell says registered students get unlimited rides on TCAT with their ID—use it instead of rideshares when the hills aren’t brutal.

• Food without the sticker shock. Anabel’s Grocery (student-run, on campus) accepts SNAP/EBT and aims to undercut local prices; hours are limited, so plan ahead.

• Don’t buy every book. Course reserves let you borrow required texts for short windows; you can also request that the library add a book to reserves. Interlibrary options can fill gaps.

• Emergency backstops. Check the Access Fund and the university’s Emergency Funds page; individual colleges (e.g., AAP) also run support funds with specific rules and caps.

The bigger takeaway

Whether the original post was genuine or stealth marketing, the themes are real. Students at Cornell face high living costs, weak financial literacy support, and fintech pitches promising “safety” but often hiding fees or quirks in reporting. The real work isn’t in picking the right debit-credit hybrid but in building reliable financial habits—and in questioning why financial products are invading student forums in the first place.

---

Sources

• Apartments.com: Ithaca and Collegetown average rents, September 2025.

• Cornell University: Cost of attendance & financial aid pages.

• Fizz Policies: membership fee and bureau reporting.

• Chime Credit Builder overview: reporting, no interest/annual fee, no preset limit.

• CFPB: How secured cards work; rebuilding credit basics; credit-card resources.

• Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia: Secured card market update.

• CFPB: Buy Now Pay Later risks; overdraft rulemaking context.

• Cornell Transportation: TCAT rides for registered students.

• Anabel’s Grocery (SNAP/EBT and hours); NYC Food Policy Center on Anabel’s mission.

• Cornell Libraries: Textbook reserves and request program.

• Cornell emergency and college-level support funds.

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

• Academe Blog
• Adjunct Crisis
• Adjunct Nation
• American Federation of Teachers Adjunct-Contingent Faculty Caucus
• 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

DOL FUBAR: The One-Stop Mirage in Job Assistance

American Job Centers—once branded as One-Stop Career Centers—are touted as comprehensive solutions for job seekers. Yet in reality, they often fail to deliver. Procedural checkboxes have replaced meaningful employment outcomes, especially amid growing privatization, budgetary erosion, and ideological attacks on government itself.

The Illusion of Effectiveness

For decades, One-Stops have been propped up as a silver-bullet answer to unemployment. Gordon Lafer’s The Job Training Charade lays bare how misguided this is: “For twenty years, every jobs crisis—whether inner-city poverty, jobs lost due to the North American Free Trade Agreement, or loggers put out of work by the spotted owl—has been met with calls for retraining. … The only trouble is, it doesn’t work, and the government knows it.” Lafer makes it clear that the real issues are structural—job shortages, wage stagnation—not worker deficits. Training programs serve as “phantom policies” that manage public frustration without changing economic realities.

Reinvention Without Impact

The Corporation for a Skilled Workforce (CSW) proposed bold reforms in 2012 and 2013, suggesting One-Stop centers evolve into dynamic hubs where “work and learning intersect,” and where job seekers and employers co-create career paths. These ideals, however, remain largely aspirational: fragmented implementation, siloed service delivery, and inflexible reporting requirements continue to dominate.

Benchmarking studies dating back to the 2000s distilled “critical success factors” for One-Stops—from employer outreach to data systems—yet local variations and a lack of integrated data have stymied widespread adoption.

Privatization and Erosion

The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) formalized the shift toward privatization. One-Stops—now often rebranded as American Job Centers—are now commonly run under competitive contracts via workforce boards, often fragmented in execution and skewed toward short-term metrics rather than long-term, holistic support.

Death by a Thousand Cuts—and a Bathtub

Underpinning these failures is a deliberate strategy of attrition and disinvestment. The Trump administration’s FY 2026 “skinny” budget proposed a staggering 35% cut to DOL funding—roughly $4.6 billion taken in one sweep—eliminating the Job Corps entirely and consolidating myriad workforce programs into a single “Make America Skilled Again” (MASA) grant framework with minimal oversight or protections. This proposal has drawn sharp criticism: the National Association of Workforce Boards (NAWB) warned it would devastate the backbone of workforce systems, and Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer confirmed the deep cuts and program eliminations—including Adult Education and Job Corps—during Senate testimony.

Within the department, attrition has compounded the crisis. Roughly 20% of DOL staff—around 2,700 employees—have departed through buyouts, retirements, and resignations in the wake of a reorganization push, leaving core functions like wage enforcement, safety, and civil rights enforcement dangerously understaffed. Meanwhile, $577 million in international labor grants were cut, and an additional $455 million in cost-saving measures implemented through Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) further gut the agency’s operational capacity. 

Grover Norquist’s infamous bathtub image—“I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub”—is no longer hyperbole. It’s become strategy: shrink the DOL to dysfunction, then use the failure to justify privatization and further austerity.

A System Hack, Not a Fix

The DOL’s One-Stop approach has turned into what we might call “FUBAR”: F—ed Up Beyond All Recognition. Understaffed and underfunded, the system still struggles to offer basic services—counseling, referrals, workshops—let alone structural support. Meanwhile, contractors may round up placements, but the quality of employment remains low and unstable.

Reboot, Not Reinvention

Restoring DOL means more than reinvention—it demands a full reboot. That means reversing staffing attrition, reestablishing specialized programs like Job Corps and Adult Education, and rebuilding robust, public-sector-run infrastructure—not contracting out to private operators. We need integrated data systems that track meaningful outcomes (wages, retention, mobility) rather than just outputs. And services must be co-designed with local labor markets, job seekers, and employers, not imposed top-down or under narrow political logic

From Bathtub Backdraft to Real Accountability

“Lafer concludes that job training functions less as an economic prescription aimed at solving poverty than as a political strategy aimed at managing the popular response to economic distress.” One-Stops crystallize that danger—well-intentioned conceptually, but defunded, privatized, and bureaucratically crippled. Unless DOL breaks free of the bathtub logic and reaffirms its public mandate, it will remain an empty promise to vulnerable workers, not a ladder to economic mobility.

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Sources

• Lafer, Gordon. The Job Training Charade. Cornell University Press, 2002.

• Corporation for a Skilled Workforce (CSW). One-Stop Career Centers Must Be Reinvented to Meet Today’s Labor Market Realities, 2012.

• CSW. Reinventing One-Stop Career Centers (Version 2), 2013.

• CSW. One-Stop Center Reinvention Paper, 2014.

• CSW. Benchmarking One-Stop Centers, 2000.

• U.S. Department of Labor. Study of the Implementation of the WIOA American Job Center Systems, 2020.

• Bloomberg Law: DOL to see 35% funding cut under Trump budget plan.

• NAWB report on FY 26 budget cuts to DOL.

• Testimony by Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer, May 2025.

• Guardian: Mass resignations at DOL amid looming cuts.

• AP News: International labor grants axed under DOGE.

• NPR 2001 quote by Grover Norquist.

• ‘Starve the beast’ strategy and Norquist quote.

"No amount of evidence will ever convince an idiot."

"No amount of evidence will ever convince an idiot."  

The line isn’t from Mark Twain—even though it’d suit him. Twain never said it, and there’s no trace of it in his writings. But whoever coined it understood power all too well: facts alone are meaningless to those determined to ignore them. And in 2025, that truth is playing out in plain sight across American higher education.

The facts are everywhere—reports, audits, testimonies, and the lived experiences of students and educators. None of it matters to people who have decided not to care.

At Columbia University, a settlement with the Trump administration came with strings attached—strict oversight, curriculum controls, and banned diversity language—to restore frozen research funds.

UCLA found itself in the same position. Federal grants were suspended until administrators agreed to policy overhauls, including limitations on transgender student protections.

George Mason University is under investigation for alleged antisemitism, discriminatory hiring, and biased scholarships. The board responded by cutting many DEI programs despite protests from faculty and students.

At the federal level, the Trump administration is using its power to dismantle diversity programs and demand race-neutral admissions reporting. Hundreds of schools are under scrutiny, forced to comply with executive orders that critics say are tools of political coercion.

Meanwhile, Brown University and UPenn face antitrust investigations over suspected collusion in tuition pricing. The House Judiciary Committee is demanding records and threatening legislative action.

[John D. Rockefeller Library at Brown University]

And elite institutions like Cornell, Yale, and Northwestern are pouring record sums into lobbying to defend their interests while the ground shifts under them.

The facts will never be enough for those committed to pretending. They will twist them, bury them, or dismiss them entirely. And when cornered, they will change the subject.

So the fight has to be more than proof. It has to be naming names and following the money. It has to be connecting the data to real lives—students losing hope, educators barely surviving, towns left hollow. It has to be relentless pressure from coalitions that cannot be ignored.

You cannot win an argument with someone whose position is built on denial. But you can make that denial costly. You can bring the harm into the light where it cannot be hidden. You can outlast the spin.

If evidence alone won’t move them, then the truth has to be carried in voices too loud to be silenced.

---

Sources:

• US universities' settlements with Trump 'will only fuel his authoritarian appetite' – The Guardian

• Columbia: A justified surrender to Trump? – The Week

• Trump administration freezes $339 million in UCLA grants, accuses school of rights violations – NY Post

• Trump signs action forcing universities and colleges to submit admissions data – The Guardian

• George Mason University – Wikipedia

• Brown University and UPenn face tuition collusion probe – Financial Times

• Cornell’s federal lobbying surges – Cornell Sun

• Higher ed lobbying spending rises – Inside Higher Ed

Indeed and the Illusion of Opportunity: The Platform Monopoly on Jobs and Careers

In the platform-dominated economy, Indeed.com has established itself as the central marketplace for jobseekers and employers alike, boasting tens of millions of listings across industries and geographies. But behind its user-friendly design lies a powerful, opaque system that reinforces labor precarity, exploits the desperation of the underemployed, and facilitates fraud and exploitation—including through job scams designed to funnel people into for-profit colleges and dubious training schemes.

Indeed’s rise is emblematic of a larger pattern in the U.S. political economy, where platforms extract profit from human need—especially from the millions of Americans struggling to find secure employment in a shrinking labor market. While claiming to connect jobseekers with opportunity, Indeed increasingly operates as a gatekeeper and a filter, favoring employers with the ability to pay for prominence, and quietly profiting from a user base navigating worsening inequality.

From Opportunity to Exploitation: The Platform Economy

Indeed’s near-monopoly over online job listings positions it as the Amazon of employment—a central aggregator of job ads, resume submissions, employer reviews, and workforce data. Its business model is rooted in ad-based revenue: companies pay to boost job visibility, while jobseekers receive a flood of suggested listings—many of which are irrelevant, low-quality, or outright deceptive.

One particularly disturbing trend: a growing number of "job postings" on Indeed are not job offers at all, but veiled advertisements for for-profit colleges and unaccredited training programs. These listings typically appear legitimate, bearing the titles of medical assistant, phlebotomist, cybersecurity technician, or paralegal. But once an applicant shows interest, they are quickly routed to admissions representatives, not employers. In short, they’ve fallen for a bait-and-switch scheme.

Indeed does little to prevent these tactics. Despite flagging mechanisms and user complaints, scammers and aggressive recruiters return repeatedly under new listings or shell company names. And because these advertisers pay to promote their listings, there is a built-in conflict of interest: Indeed profits from ads designed to exploit vulnerable jobseekers, many of whom are already burdened by unemployment, underemployment, or student debt.

The Job Training Charade: A National Problem

As labor economist Gordon Lafer argues in The Job Training Charade, job training programs have long functioned as a public relations tool for elected officials, who promise “skills-based solutions” rather than structural labor reform. Publicly funded retraining programs and for-profit career schools capitalize on this narrative, convincing jobseekers that their struggles stem from a personal “skills gap” rather than systemic inequality.

Indeed’s platform reinforces this logic by flooding users with listings that promote training and certification programs as prerequisites for jobs that often don’t exist or pay poorly. Even in legitimate industries—like healthcare and IT—the overabundance of credential inflation and unnecessary gatekeeping leads to further debt accumulation without guaranteeing meaningful work.

As Lafer writes, “Training has become a substitute for economic policy—a way of appearing to do something without actually improving people’s lives.” And Indeed is a willing partner in this substitution, profiting from a constant churn of dislocated workers trying to retool their résumés and lives to meet an ever-shifting set of employer demands.

The Educated Underclass and Platform Paternalism

Gary Roth, in The Educated Underclass, identifies another critical aspect of this ecosystem: the overproduction of college graduates relative to the needs of the labor market. As more people earn degrees, the wage premium diminishes, and once-secure professions become crowded with overqualified applicants chasing scarce opportunities.

Indeed’s platform becomes the proving ground for this underclass: college-educated workers competing for service jobs, temp contracts, or entry-level roles barely above minimum wage. Meanwhile, the site’s tools—resume scores, AI-based job match algorithms, and automated rejection letters—reinforce the idea that unemployment is a personal failure rather than a structural outcome.

This is platform paternalism at its worst. Jobseekers are “nudged” into applying for low-quality work, “encouraged” to pursue unnecessary training, and surveilled through behavioral data that is packaged and sold to employers and third-party marketers. Career development becomes not a public good but a private product—sold back to workers in pieces, with no guarantee of outcome.

Job Scams and Regulatory Blind Spots

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and state attorneys general have received thousands of complaints about online job scams—including fake recruiters, phony employers, and misleading school advertisements. Yet enforcement remains weak, and platforms like Indeed enjoy limited legal liability, protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields them from responsibility for user-generated content.

Even when caught, fraudulent advertisers often reappear. As one whistleblower told The Higher Education Inquirer, “We’d flag scam listings, and two days later they’d pop back up under a new name. It was like a game of whack-a-mole—and no one at the top cared.”

Indeed's user agreement explicitly disclaims responsibility for the authenticity of job listings. And although the company has instituted basic verification and reporting tools, they are inadequate to stem the tide of predatory postings, especially those tied to the multibillion-dollar for-profit education industry.

A Broken System Masquerading as Innovation

The consolidation of online job markets under platforms like Indeed represents a profound shift in the political economy of labor. No longer mediated by public institutions or strong unions, the search for work is now a privatized experience, managed by algorithms, monetized through ads, and vulnerable to deception.

To be clear: Indeed does not create jobs. It creates the illusion of access. It obscures labor precarity behind UX design and paid listings. It enables fraudulent training pipelines while pushing the burden of risk and cost onto workers. And it profits from the widening chasm between what higher education promises and what the economy delivers.

At The Higher Education Inquirer, we demand accountability—not just from institutions of higher learning but from the platforms that now mediate our futures. The illusion must be pierced, and jobseeking must be reclaimed as a public function, free from predation, profiteering, and platform capture.

---

Sources:

• Lafer, Gordon. The Job Training Charade. Cornell University Press, 2002.

• Roth, Gary. The Educated Underclass: Students and the Promise of Social Mobility. Pluto Press, 2019.

• U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC). “Job Scams: What You Need to Know.” 2024.

• Recruit Holdings. Annual Reports and Investor Presentations, 2020–2024.

• U.S. Department of Labor. “Contingent and Alternative Employment Arrangements.” 2023.

• Brody, Leslie. “Students Lured Into For-Profit Colleges Through Fake Job Ads.” Wall Street Journal, 2022.

• Zuboff, Shoshana. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. PublicAffairs, 2019.

• Glassdoor, Indeed, and CareerBuilder community complaint forums (2021–2025).

Academic closures, mergers, cuts: a summer 2025 update (Bryan Alexander)

Greetings from early July. I’m back home in northern Virginia where the heat is blazing and the humidity sopping.  Weather.com thinks it “feels like 102° F” and I agree.  The cats also agree, because they retreated elegantly inside to air conditioning after a brief outside stroll.

I wrote “back home” because my wife and I spent last week celebrating our 32nd anniversary in Canada (here’s one snapshot).  Afterwards I was hoping to get back into the swing of things, blogging, Substacking, vlogging various topics already under way, but things have been advancing at such a manic pace that I have to leap in in a hurry.

Case in point: after blogging about campus closures, cuts, and mergers last month more closures and cuts (albeit no mergers) have appeared in just the past few weeks.  In this post you’ll see a list of these, with links to supporting news stories and official documents.  Alas, this has become a tradition on this site.  (From last year: March 1, March 20, March 28, April, May, June, July, September, November. From this year: February, June.) My book on peak higher education is now in the editing process; hopefully by the time it appears the topic won’t be simply historical.

Today we’ll touch on one closure, then focus on cuts, with a few reflections at the end.

1. Closing colleges and universities

In Michigan Siena Heights University (Catholic) will close after the upcoming academic year.  The reasons: “the financial situation, operational challenges, and long-term sustainability,” according to the official statement.  A local account concurs, “citing rising costs and stiffer competition for new students.”

The official website doesn’t reflect this on its front page.

2. Program and staffing cuts

Also in Michigan, Concordia University (Lutheran) is shutting down most of its Ann Arbor campus programs. A much smaller set of offerings is what’s next:

Starting June 2025, the private Lutheran institution will offer just nine programs — all in medical-related fields — on its physical campus. That’s down from 53 campus programs the university currently lists on its website. It will offer another seven online programs, mostly in education fields, which is down from more than 60 currently.

Also nearby, Michigan State University (public, research) announced its intention to cut faculty and staff positions this year.  The drivers: inflation boosting costs, especially in health care; Trump administration research funding cuts; possible state support cuts; potential international student reduction.

Brown University (research; Rhode Island) is planning to cut an unspecified number of staff this summer.  Furthermore, “[a]dditional measures include scaling back capital spending and adjusting graduate admissions levels after limiting budget growth for doctoral programs earlier this year.”  The reasons here are financial, but based on the Trump administration’s cuts to federal research funding, not enrollment problems.

The Indiana Commission for Higher Education announced shutting down a huge sweep of academic programs across that state’s public universities.  More than 400 degrees will end, with 75 ended outright and 333 “merged or consolidated” with other programs.  The whole list is staggering.  There’s a lot of detail in that Indiana plan, from defining student minima to establishing various options for campuses, appealing closures to timelines for revving up new degrees.  It’s unclear how many faculty and/or staff cuts will follow.

Columbia College Chicago (private, arts focused) laid off twenty full-time professors.  The school is facing enrollment declines and financial problems. Nearly all of these faculty member are – were – tenure track, which makes this another example of the queen sacrifice.

University of California-Santa Cruz (public, research) is terminating its German and Persian language programs, laying off their instructors.  This sounds part of a broader effort to cut costs against a deficit, a deficit caused by “rising labor costs and constrained student enrollment growth,” according to officials.

Boston University (private, research) announced it would lay off 120 staff members as part of a budget-cutting strategy. BU will also close 120 open staff positions and “around 20 positions will undergo a change in schedule” (I’m not sure what that means – shift from full time to part?).    The reasons: Trump administration cuts and uncertainty, plus the longstanding issues of “rising inflation, changing demographics, declining graduate enrollment, and the need to adapt to new technologies.”

The president of Temple University (public, research, Pennsylvania) discussed job cuts as part of a 5% budget cut.  Reasons include lower enrollment which led to “a structural deficit [for which] university reserves were used to cover expenses.”

Champlain College (Vermont) is closing some low-enrolling majors. The avowed goal is to
“design a new ‘career-focused’ curriculum for the fall of 2026 ‘that is focused on and driven by employer needs and student interests.'”

The accounting program, for instance, saw its enrollment decline from 60 students in 2015 to 20 in February 2024, according to documents from the school’s Academic Affairs Committee. The law program, similarly, had little student interest, Hernandez said, and had only three students apply in the fall of 2023, while the data analytics program had only two applications.

At the same time the school is facing serious challenges.  Enrollment has sunk from 4,778 students in 2016 to 3,200 last year.  The college ran deficits in some reason years and a federal audit criticized the amount of debt it carries.  This year “the college’s bond rating was lowered, and its outlook downgraded to ‘negative’ by S&P Global Ratings.”

Looking across the lake from Burlington, near Champlain’s campus back in 2017: a cheery image to balance sad stories.

A small but symbolic cut is under way at Albright College (private, liberal arts, Pennsylvania), whose president decided to sell their art college at auction.  “It includes pieces by Karel Appel, Romare Bearden, Robert Colescott, Bridget Riley, Leon Golub, Jasper Johns, Jacob Lawrence, Marisol, Gordon Parks, Jesús Rafael Soto and Frederick Eversley, among others.”

Why do this?  according to the administration, it was a question of relative value:

“We needed to stop the bleeding,” says James Gaddy, vice-president for administration at Albright, noting that over the past two years the college has experienced shortfalls of $20m. Calling himself and the college’s president Debra Townsley, both of whom were hired last year, “turn-around specialists”, Gaddy claimed that Albright’s 2,300-object art collection was “not core to our mission” as an educational institution and was costing the college more than the art is worth.

“The value of the artworks is not extraordinary,” he says, estimating the total value of the pieces consigned to Pook & Pook at $200,000, but claimed that the cost of maintaining the collection was high and that the cost of staffing the art gallery where the objects were displayed and (mostly) stored was “more than half a million dollars” a year.

A screenshot of some of the auction lots.

3 Budget crises, programs cut, not laying off people yet

Cornell University is preparing staff cuts in the wake of Trump administration research funding reductions.

The University of Minnesota’s administration agreed to a 7.5% cut across its units, along with a tuition increase.  The president cited frozen state support and rising costs.

New York University (NYU) announced a 3% budget cut.  So far this is about “emphasizing cuts to such functions as travel, events, meals, and additional other-than-personal-service (OTPS) items.” NYU will keep on not hiring new administrators and is encouraging some administrators and tenured professors to retire.

Yale University paused ten ongoing construction projects because of concerns about cuts to federal monies.

Reflections

Many of these stories reflect trends I’ve been observing for a while.  Declining enrollment is a major problem for most institutions. The strategy of cutting jobs to balance a budget remains one at least some leaders find useful. The humanities tend to suffer more cuts than others (scroll down the Indiana pdf for a sample). Depending on the state, state governments can increase budget problems or alter academic program offerings.

The second Trump administration’s campaign against higher education is drawing blood, as we can see from universities citing the federal research cuts in their budgets and personnel decisions. Note that this is before the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s provisions take hold, from capping student aid to increasing endowment taxes. And this is also before whatever decrease will appear with international student enrollment this fall. (Here’s my video series on Trump vs higher ed; new episode is in the pipeline.)

Note the number of elite institutions in today’s post.  In the past I’ve been told that the closures, mergers, and cuts primarily hit low-ranked and marginal institutions, which was sometimes true. But now we’re seeing top tier universities enacting budget cuts, thanks to the Trump administration.

Let me close by reminding everyone that these are human stories. Program cuts hurt students’ course of student. Budget cuts impact instructors and staff of all kinds. When we see the statistics pile up we can lose sight of the personal reality.  My heart goes out to everyone injured by these institutional moves.

Finally, I’d like to invite anyone with information on a college or university’s plans to close, merge, or cut to share them with me, either as comments on this post, as notes on social media, or by contacting me privately here.  I write these posts based largely on public, open intelligence (news reports, investigations, roundups) but also through tips, since higher education sometimes has issues with transparency.  We need better information on these events.

(thanks to Will Emerson, Karl Hakkarainen, Kristen Nyht, Cristián Opazo, Peter Shea, Jason Siko, George Station, Nancy Smyth, Ed Webb, and Andrew Zubiri for supplying links and feedback)

This article first appeared at bryanalexander.org