Trumpism, Neoliberalism, and the Abandoned Majority

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

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

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

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

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

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Sources

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

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

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

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

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

"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.

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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

How Well Are RAs Trained?

Resident Assistants (RAs) are often the first line of defense in college residential life. They’re expected to wear many hats: peer mentors, community builders, rule enforcers, crisis responders, and mental health triage workers. Yet most are undergraduate students themselves—barely older than the residents they oversee—and often underpaid or unpaid for the critical work they do.

Given these responsibilities, one pressing question remains: how well are RAs actually trained to do the job?

The Scope of the RA Role

At most colleges and universities, RAs are chosen through competitive application processes and undergo mandatory training before each academic year. Their job descriptions often include enforcing housing policies, resolving roommate conflicts, planning events, documenting rule violations, and serving as 24/7 on-call crisis contacts.

They are also the ones students turn to in the wake of sexual assaults, substance overdoses, suicidal ideation, or interpersonal violence—scenarios far outside the boundaries of typical student experience or authority.

This raises ethical and legal questions: Are institutions relying too heavily on RAs as stopgaps for inadequate professional staffing? And are RAs adequately equipped for what they’re being asked to do?

Training Duration Varies—Widely

RA training typically ranges from a few days to two weeks, depending on the school. Some institutions provide extensive workshops on topics like mental health first aid, Title IX reporting, diversity and inclusion, active shooter preparedness, and conflict mediation. Others prioritize bureaucratic compliance over practical preparation.

A 2023 survey by Inside Higher Ed and the Association of College and University Housing Officers (ACUHO-I) found that only 47% of RAs reported feeling “fully prepared” to handle crises. Over 25% said they had no meaningful training in trauma-informed response or de-escalation. And fewer than 15% received detailed instruction on dealing with students with disabilities or navigating racial bias incidents—both common issues in residential settings.

Mental Health Crises Are on the Rise

According to the American College Health Association, nearly 75% of students report moderate to serious psychological distress, with campus counselors increasingly overwhelmed. In many cases, RAs become the first responders—waking up in the middle of the night to assess whether someone is suicidal, high, or having a panic attack.

But the stakes are enormous. One misjudgment could lead to a suicide, a lawsuit, or a violent altercation. Without formal mental health credentials or trauma-informed care training, RAs often operate on gut instinct and patchy training.

Several RAs interviewed for this article shared a common sentiment: “We’re expected to be therapists and cops, but we’re not trained to be either.”

Legal Liability and Institutional Risk

Some universities have faced lawsuits and media scrutiny over failures in RA training. A few tragic cases—ranging from overlooked suicide warnings to mishandled sexual assaults—have exposed just how unprepared and unsupported RAs can be.

Despite this, schools continue to delegate serious duties to RAs while insulating themselves from liability. When crises escalate, RAs may be scapegoated or pressured to resign quietly. In return, they often receive compensation that doesn't match the job’s gravity—such as a free dorm room and a small stipend.

Burnout and Attrition

Many RAs experience burnout within the first semester, and turnover can be high, especially at large public universities where staff support is stretched thin. The emotional toll of constant availability, conflict management, and exposure to trauma can be immense.

In one Midwestern state school, RA vacancies jumped 40% in one year, prompting administrators to shorten training and raise hiring quotas—creating a vicious cycle of undertraining and overreliance.

The Disparity Problem

Elite schools with large endowments are more likely to offer robust RA training, professional backup, and wraparound services. Meanwhile, less-resourced regional publics and community colleges often treat RAs as glorified rule enforcers, with minimal oversight and training.

Additionally, BIPOC and LGBTQ+ RAs are often asked—explicitly or implicitly—to do more emotional labor around diversity, bias, and inclusion without being paid or trained for it.

This inequality mirrors larger divides in higher education, where students at wealthier institutions receive better support and protection than their peers at underfunded schools.

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Toward a Better System

If RAs are to remain integral to campus residential life, colleges and universities must invest more in their training, support, and compensation. That includes:

• Standardized, evidence-based training protocols across institutions

• Paid year-round training with scenario-based learning and professional mentorship

• On-call professional support for crisis escalation

• Clear boundaries between peer support and professional intervention

• Mental health services for RAs themselves

At the very least, students should know what they’re signing up for—and institutions should stop outsourcing serious responsibilities to underpaid peers without the tools to succeed.

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Conclusion

Resident Assistants play a crucial role in shaping the campus experience, but the current model puts too much weight on too little training. As mental health crises, racial tensions, and campus violence continue to rise, the question is no longer whether RAs are ready—it’s whether universities are willing to admit they’ve been relying on a broken system.

Sources:

• American College Health Association: National College Health Assessment

• Inside Higher Ed / ACUHO-I RA Training Survey (2023)

• NASPA: Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education

• Lawsuits and media coverage of RA-related incidents (ProPublica, Chronicle of Higher Education)

The Trumpian Apocalypse: How Administrative Reinterpretation Exposed the Fiction of Democratic Higher Education (Glen McGhee)

The Trump administration’s surgical use of administrative reinterpretation did not simply dismantle higher education’s most visible equity programs — it stripped away the legitimacy claims the sector has relied upon for over a century. In doing so, it revealed something more unsettling than policy reversals: the democratic higher education Americans thought they knew never truly existed.

No sweeping new laws were required. No constitutional amendments. The transformation came through the withdrawal of federal complicity in maintaining a carefully cultivated fiction — a legitimacy performance in which inclusion and meritocracy were projected as foundational values, while exclusion and class reproduction were embedded in the architecture.

Equity Promises Without Structural Protection

The much-publicized “Dear Colleague” letter that accused colleges of violating civil rights law “each time they considered race” laid bare the core contradiction: the same institutions that marketed themselves as engines of inclusion were designed, from inception, to sort, stratify, and exclude. The fact that entire diversity and equity initiatives could vanish overnight through reinterpretation of existing statutes proves they were never structurally embedded. They were tolerated when politically expedient, discarded when they became politically inconvenient.

Programs that genuinely challenged the hierarchy — Durham Tech’s Hope Renovations training women for the trades, the Bulls Academy opening pharmaceutical careers to Black and Hispanic workers — were eliminated without legal resistance. Their removal revealed the sector’s true operating principle: “talent development” was always subordinate to talent sorting.

The Budget Axe and the “Chaos Tax”

When $31 billion in Title IV funding disappeared through budget reconciliation — a process requiring only a simple majority — the fragility of higher education’s federal compact was exposed. For community colleges, which had long claimed an “integral role” in local economies, this was a rude awakening. No amount of social necessity translated into political protection.

The fallout produced what insiders now call the “chaos tax” — institutional leaders devoting their days to survival drills rather than educational missions. That presidents of community colleges needed emergency coalitions just to interpret shifting federal obligations underscored the truth: institutional autonomy was never real, only a bureaucratic convenience allowed by Washington.

Civil Rights as a Tool of Authoritarianism

Perhaps the most shocking revelation was that statutory authority already existed to erase equity programs using the very civil rights laws meant to protect them. The administration’s use of Title VI to dismantle diversity initiatives inverted the democratic intent of the statute, showing that the framework for authoritarian control was baked into the law from the beginning.

Elite universities and community colleges alike were subject to the same redefinitions. Harvard’s prestige and billion-dollar endowment proved no more protective than a rural community college’s role in workforce development. The supposed binary between elite and democratic higher education collapsed into a single truth: neither had the structural autonomy necessary to resist political capture.

The Collapse of the Meritocratic Narrative

TRIO programs for first-generation students, adult education for immigrants, and work-study opportunities for low-income students were dismissed as “relics of the past.” Such rhetoric reframes decades of access expansion — from the GI Bill to community college growth — not as permanent democratic commitments, but as temporary political accommodations.

Seen in this light, the Trump administration did not destroy democratic higher education — it exposed its nonexistence. The sector’s dependence on federal tolerance, rather than embedded democratic principle, made authoritarian capture a matter of timing, not possibility.

The Trumpian Apocalypse

What we are witnessing is more than a partisan policy shift; it is what can only be called a “Trumpian Apocalypse” — an unveiling that forces recognition of the fragility and contingency of higher education’s democratic image. The apocalypse here is revelatory: myths of meritocracy, stability, and institutional resilience dissolve under the reality that these institutions were always bureaucratically dependent and politically vulnerable.

This revelation exceeds the sector’s ability to respond, even its ability to conceptualize the rupture. For generations, Americans were conditioned to see colleges and universities as permanent fixtures of civil society — stable, meritocratic, autonomous. The rapid evaporation of protections and programs has shown that this stability was never structural, only circumstantial.

What remains is not just a policy vacuum, but an ontological crisis. Higher education must now confront the truth that its democratic character was never intrinsic, only performed — and that once the performance ceased to serve the state, it was abandoned without ceremony.

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Sources

• U.S. Department of Education, “Dear Colleague Letter” on Title VI compliance (2025)

• Congressional Budget Office, Title IV Funding Reductions via Budget Reconciliation (2025)

• Program case studies: Durham Tech’s Hope Renovations; Bulls Academy workforce development initiative

• Historical analysis of the GI Bill and community college expansion, American Council on Education archives

• Interviews with community college presidents involved in Education for All coalition (2025)

• Harvard University endowment and diversity program litigation filings, 2024–2025

HEI's Most Popular Recent Articles

Across the Higher Education Inquirer’s most-read articles, including List of Schools with Strong Indicators of Misconduct, Evidence for Borrower Defense Claims, The Hidden Crisis: Debt and Inequality Among Ph.D. Graduates, and Chinese College Meltdown: Credential Inflation and the Crisis in Higher Education Employment, a distinct pattern emerges that reflects HEI’s core commitment to exposing power imbalances and illuminating the hidden costs embedded in higher education.

Central to these stories is an unwavering focus on accountability and uncovering misconduct. The reporting calls out institutions with clear signs of unethical behavior and scrutinizes leaders who prioritize profit and prestige over student welfare, as seen in pieces like Santa Ono: Take the Money and Run. This unflinching stance resonates with readers who crave transparency and truth amid a landscape often clouded by spin and silence.

Economic and structural inequality threads through much of the coverage, connecting personal financial struggles to systemic failures. From the burden of debt weighing on Ph.D. graduates in The Hidden Crisis: Debt and Inequality Among Ph.D. Graduates to the growing problem of credential inflation devaluing degrees as detailed in Degrees of Discontent: Credentialism, Inflation, and the Global Education Crisis, these narratives reveal higher education as a tool of economic stratification rather than a guaranteed path to opportunity. Readers see their own hardships reflected in this broader critique of entrenched power and privilege.

The Higher Education Inquirer situates these contemporary crises within broader historical and global contexts. Stories like Camp Mystic: A Century of Privilege, Exclusion, and Resilience Along the Guadalupe and the coverage of global credential inflation emphasize that these challenges are neither new nor isolated. They are manifestations of ongoing systems of class and racial stratification shaped by layered policies and politics.

Political and institutional power, from conservative attacks on intellectualism highlighted in Trump’s War on Intellectualism Is a Threat to Democracy—But Elite Universities Aren’t Innocent Victims to liberal administrations’ partial debt relief programs covered in Biden-Harris Administration Announces Final Student Loan Forgiveness and Borrower Assistance Actions (US Department of Education), is examined with a critical eye. Avoiding partisan cheerleading, HEI’s articles assess outcomes and motivations alike, revealing how all sides often fall short of addressing the real needs of those most affected by higher education’s shortcomings.

A direct, investigative tone defines HEI’s reporting style. The publication favors evidence over euphemism, facts over empty rhetoric, and is unafraid to “name names” or challenge elite narratives. This clear-eyed approach attracts readers hungry for unvarnished truth and meaningful accountability.

The stories’ appeal also lies in their specificity and depth. Rather than abstract generalizations, these articles deliver carefully documented accounts focused on named institutions, individuals, and policies. This grounded approach builds credibility and fosters sharing among activists, academics, borrowers, and advocates.

Together, these elements form the distinctive formula behind the Higher Education Inquirer’s most impactful work—breaking through misinformation, challenging entrenched interests, and centering the lived realities behind the headlines.

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Sources:
Higher Education Inquirer archives, reader engagement analytics, public reports on higher education misconduct, debt and credential inflation studies, political analysis of education policy, community feedback from borrower and academic advocacy groups.

Trump DOJ Intensifies “Revenge Tour” Amid Epstein Fallout

The Department of Justice, under the renewed influence of former President Donald Trump’s network, appears to be escalating a politically charged “revenge tour.” Critics argue this wave of federal legal actions is increasingly aimed at discrediting prominent critics—most notably New York Attorney General Letitia James—as a distraction from the persistent and troubling Epstein scandal and its unsettling connections to elite institutions.

HEI’s Ongoing Epstein Reporting

HEI has consistently sounded the alarm on how universities and higher education institutions are complicit in the Epstein network—whether through silence, financial entanglements, or willful ignorance. As highlighted in recent pieces like "Are the Epstein Files the Watergate of Our Time?", HEI stressed how the scandal’s true weight lies not only in its crimes but in the cover‑ups and institutional complicity that enabled it Higher Education Inquirer.

An editorial titled "Elite Higher Education and the Epstein Files" went further, warning that restoring any moral authority in academe demands radical transparency—disclosing donor histories, instituting independent oversight, and dismantling the secrecy that protects powerful actors Higher Education Inquirer.

HEI also described how Epstein’s infiltration of higher ed wasn’t incidental—it was symptomatic of neoliberal corruption: where ethical standards bow to big money, and university allegiance lies with donors, not truth or justice Higher Education Inquirer+1.

The DOJ’s Target: Letitia James

Now, against this backdrop, the Justice Department has launched aggressive scrutiny of Letitia James’s record:

• Subpoenas issued today by the DOJ and an Albany grand jury seek documents related to her successful $454–$500 million civil fraud lawsuit against Trump and her NRA fraud case PoliticoReutersThe GuardianThe Washington PostNew York Post. Authorities are probing whether her actions violated Trump’s civil rights—a highly unusual inquiry into a sitting attorney general ReutersThe Washington Post.

• Parallel to that, there's a separate investigation into mortgage fraud based on allegations she manipulated property records to get favorable loan terms—a referral reportedly emanating from the Federal Housing Finance Agency New York PostPolitico.

James rejects the charges as politically motivated retaliation—labeling them part of Trump’s “revenge tour” designed to punish opponents for doing their jobs PoliticoThe Washington Post.

Former FBI Official James E. Dennehy Forced Out Amid DOJ Clashes

Compounding the turmoil, former FBI assistant director James E. Dennehy, who led the FBI’s New York Field Office, was forced to resign in early 2025. Dennehy reportedly clashed with the DOJ over demands to identify agents involved in January 6 investigations and expressed concern that federal law enforcement officials were being removed for simply doing their jobs.

His departure underscores ongoing instability and politicization within key federal law enforcement agencies during this period of intensified DOJ retaliation.

Why This Matters for Higher Education

HEI’s mission is to expose how power, money, and politics distort institutions meant to serve the public good. The Trump DOJ’s apparent weaponization of federal power to target legal critics—under the guise of legitimacy—poses a broader risk: it could eclipse critical investigations into elite networks like Epstein’s. Distracting from those deeper, systemic stories benefits entrenched power structures and lets accountability fade.

Sources:

• HEI articles on Trump’s DOJ politicization and Letitia James investigations

• FBI leadership changes, 2025 (James E. Dennehy’s resignation)

• Investigative reports on the Epstein case and its fallout

A Modest Proposal: Revisiting The Goose-Step for 2026

 “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

—Upton Sinclair

Purpose

This proposal seeks modest support to research and write a new book in the spirit of Upton Sinclair’s 1923 exposé The Goose-Step: A Study of American Education, a biting critique of higher education’s corruption and corporate control. The revised and updated work—tentatively titled The Goose-Step Revisited: The College Meltdown and the Future of American Higher Ed—will document the present crisis of U.S. higher education from the ground up: on campuses, in classrooms, in communities, and in conversations with students, workers, adjuncts, administrators, and those left behind.

This is not a detached academic exercise. It is a journalistic and moral investigation into a failing system. Like Sinclair, we will name names. But we will also listen carefully to those who are rarely heard—especially debtors, dropouts, whistleblowers, and exploited faculty.

Scope

The project will include:

Travel across the U.S. to visit a diverse array of colleges: from collapsing for-profits and underfunded regional publics to elite private institutions and community colleges on the brink.

Field interviews with stakeholders in higher education, including:

Adjuncts and contingent faculty

Debt-burdened students and recent grads

College workers and unions

Policy experts and whistleblowers

Administrators, where access is permitted

Archival research and use of public data (IPEDS, College Scorecard, OPE, etc.)

Photographs and dispatches for the Higher Education Inquirer along the way

A final book manuscript, synthesizing travel writing, investigative reporting, data analysis, and historical reflection.

Questions the Book Will Explore

How does the current College Meltdown resemble or diverge from the problems Sinclair exposed in 1923?

What does higher education actually provide today—for whom, and at what cost?

How have corporatization, finance capital, and political ideology reshaped American colleges?

Is reform still possible—or are we watching the managed decline of an unsustainable system?

Budget and Support Needed

This is a modest request, commensurate with the ethos of the Higher Education Inquirer. A stripped-down, independent operation. Key needs:

Travel and lodging across the U.S. (preferably via Amtrak, bus, or car)

Minimal tech support (phone, laptop, data storage)

Small editorial stipend for fact-checking, manuscript preparation

Crowdfunding, foundation support, or collaboration with independent media outlets may supplement this request.

Why Now?

The signs are everywhere.

Colleges closing.

Debt rising.

Adjuncts starving.

Truth distorted.

Labor crushed.

Meanwhile, the gatekeepers of knowledge—like those in Sinclair’s time—are too often complicit, compromised, or silent.

This book is not intended to speak for anyone. It aims to amplify those whose stories have been buried beneath bureaucracy and branding.  It's A Modest Proposal for a not-so-modest truth: American higher education is in a manufactured crisis. But from this so-called collapse, a more just and democratic vision might emerge—if we’re willing to listen, document, and act.

This is a proposal to walk the ruins, record the voices, and revive the fierce spirit of Upton Sinclair.

From the New Deal to Narcissism: How Individualism, Libertarianism, and Trumpism Gutted the Public University

The New Deal rested on a foundational belief: that the federal government could be a force for collective uplift. In the shadow of economic collapse and mass unemployment, the Roosevelt administration mobilized state resources to create jobs, reform capitalism, and restore public confidence. Public education—including the university—was part of that vision.

The Higher Education Act of 1965, influenced by the New Deal ethos, vastly expanded federal support for public colleges and student aid. By the early 1970s, nearly 75 percent of college students attended public institutions, with tuition at flagship universities often below $1,000 per year (roughly $7,000 in today’s dollars). Pell Grants could cover most, if not all, of a low-income student’s tuition, room, and board. The GI Bill had already lifted millions into the middle class. State legislatures invested heavily in public universities, seeing them as engines of democratic growth and regional development.

But this consensus began to unravel with the rise of neoliberalism and libertarian ideology in the 1970s and 1980s. Thinkers like Milton Friedman and organizations like the Cato Institute and Heritage Foundation argued that the state was inherently inefficient, that markets should govern most aspects of life, and that individuals—not governments—were responsible for their outcomes. Reagan declared that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem,” and higher education funding soon became a target.

State appropriations for public colleges as a share of university revenue declined dramatically. In 1980, public funding made up about 75 percent of the operating costs of state universities. By 2020, it had fallen below 25 percent. Students and their families made up the difference, mostly through debt. Between 1995 and 2023, average tuition at public four-year colleges tripled, even after adjusting for inflation. Total student loan debt exploded, surpassing $1.7 trillion by 2024, burdening more than 45 million Americans. The average debt per borrower was more than $38,000.

This wasn’t merely an economic shift—it was an ideological one. Higher education was no longer understood as a public good but as a private investment. Students were told to “shop” for degrees like they would consumer goods, choosing programs based not on curiosity or civic purpose but on return on investment. The university was transformed from a site of public inquiry to a marketplace. Faculty governance was weakened. Shared governance gave way to corporate-style management. Instruction was outsourced to contingent faculty, 70 percent of whom now teach off the tenure track. Adjunct professors, often paid less than $3,500 per course, frequently live below the poverty line and qualify for public assistance.

Trumpism emerged from this late-capitalist malaise but redirected its anger. Instead of questioning the privatization of education, it turned public resentment against institutions of learning themselves. Universities were portrayed as hostile, elitist, and corrupt—agents of indoctrination rather than enlightenment. The Trump administration’s policies followed this rhetoric. Betsy DeVos, a billionaire with no experience in public education, oversaw aggressive deregulation of for-profit colleges, attempted to eliminate gainful employment rules, and delayed or blocked borrower defense claims from defrauded students.

Even after Trump left office, his political movement sustained an aggressive campaign against public education. Under Project 2025, a policy blueprint promoted by the Heritage Foundation and embraced by Trump’s allies, universities are targeted for ideological control. The plan calls for defunding departments deemed “woke,” ending diversity and inclusion programs, and purging federal agencies—including the Department of Education—of those who challenge the political orthodoxy.

In Florida, under Governor Ron DeSantis, this agenda was made real. The New College of Florida, once a respected liberal arts institution, was taken over by political appointees who dismantled its academic programs, removed professors, and imposed a conservative curriculum. Across red states, tenure is under attack, academic freedom is shrinking, and LGBTQ+ students and faculty are being driven out or silenced.

The ideology driving this assault is not consistent libertarianism—it’s an incoherent blend of market fundamentalism, Christian nationalism, and authoritarian populism. It pretends to value freedom but enforces conformity. It invokes personal responsibility while shielding the powerful from consequence. It lauds meritocracy even as it strips away the conditions for anyone outside the elite to succeed.

Underlying all of this is a distorted form of individualism. The student is no longer part of a learning community—they are a solitary debtor. Faculty are no longer public servants—they are expendable contractors. The public university is no longer a site of shared knowledge or democratic imagination—it is a hollowed-out brand, increasingly indistinguishable from the for-profit sector.

Even the language of crisis has lost its power. We no longer speak of austerity or retrenchment—we have normalized decline. College closures are expected. Student defaults are routine. A generation of graduates has never known a university that wasn’t precarious, transactional, and shaped by fear.

To move forward, we must confront not just the political project of Trumpism but the longer neoliberal arc that made it possible. That means rejecting the lie that education is only valuable when it is profitable. It means refusing the narrative that students in debt deserve their suffering. And it means restoring the idea that knowledge—and the institutions that sustain it—are worth defending not just for individuals, but for the society we want to live in.

The public university was never perfect, but it was once animated by a different moral vision. Reclaiming that vision is not nostalgic—it is necessary. If we fail, we consign ourselves to a future of narcissistic consumerism, epistemic decay, and civic disintegration.

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Sources and Data

• U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (NCES): College Tuition Trends

• Congressional Budget Office (CBO): Student Loan Debt Projections, 2024

• The Century Foundation: “The State of Adjunct Faculty,” 2022

• National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO): “State Funding vs. Tuition Revenue, 1980–2020”

• Project on Predatory Student Lending: Legal challenges to Trump-era ED policies

• Heritage Foundation, “Mandate for Leadership: Project 2025”

• Florida Department of Education and New College public records, 2023–2024

• Inside Higher Ed, “Contingent Faculty and the Collapse of Tenure,” March 2024

• The New Deal and Higher Education, John R. Thelin, A History of American Higher Education

• Barkan, Joanne. Merchants of Debt: How the Student Loan Industry Became a Power Broker

The Chicago School of Economics: A Political Takeover Masquerading as Science

For decades, the Chicago School of Economics has been held up by its adherents as the intellectual engine behind “free market” policies—its faculty lionized, its ideology exported, its disciples placed in positions of power across the globe. But beneath the polished veneer of economic modeling and Nobel prizes lies something far more insidious: not a neutral scientific project, but a political takeover cloaked in the language of rationality.

The Chicago School—rooted in the University of Chicago’s Department of Economics and typified by figures like Milton Friedman, George Stigler, and Gary Becker—has long promoted the idea that markets are efficient, individuals are rational actors, and government interference should be minimal. Its tools are equations; its products are policies. But the effects of those policies—deregulation, privatization, austerity, and corporate tax cuts—reveal a consistent political orientation: upward wealth redistribution and consolidation of power among the elite.

This isn’t science. It’s sophistry.

A “Science” That Can’t Predict

Unlike the physical sciences, economics—particularly the Chicago School strain—has failed spectacularly at prediction. It didn’t anticipate the global financial crash of 2008. It didn’t predict the collapse of neoliberal development models in Latin America, Russia, or post-invasion Iraq. What it has done, instead, is offer intellectual cover for policies that have made the global economy less stable and more unequal.

If this were biology or engineering, the repeated failures would warrant rethinking the entire theoretical framework. But Chicago-style economics survives because it is not held accountable by the standards of real science. It is propped up by billionaire-funded think tanks, right-wing political operatives, and a compliant media machine that prizes certainty over complexity.

Crisis as a Feature, Not a Bug

The most telling feature of the Chicago School is its acceptance—even embrace—of financial collapse. To these economists, crises are inevitable market “corrections,” moments of creative destruction that supposedly cleanse inefficiencies. But these corrections always seem to fall hardest on workers, the poor, and the public sector.

When the crashes come, the Chicago School has a solution: public bailouts for private failure. In 2008, the banks that tanked the economy were rescued with taxpayer money. Airlines, oil companies, and private equity firms have enjoyed the same perks during subsequent downturns. Risk is privatized during booms and socialized during busts. This is not market discipline. It’s a revolving door between state and capital, justified by the rhetorical sleight-of-hand of “market efficiency.”

Disciples Without Scrutiny

Graduates of the Chicago School populate central banks, finance ministries, and international institutions like the IMF and World Bank. In countries from Chile under Pinochet to post-Soviet Russia, these “experts” imposed shock therapy on fragile societies—cutting public services, smashing unions, and opening markets to foreign capital. The human cost has been immense: hunger, homelessness, reduced life expectancy, and lost sovereignty.

And yet, because the ideology is couched in the technocratic language of “growth” and “efficiency,” it is rarely scrutinized in mainstream discourse. As the sociologist Philip Mirowski has argued, neoliberal economists effectively launder ideology through the language of science. They wear lab coats, but they serve oligarchs.

Higher Education as a Host

Higher education didn’t just incubate this ideology; it exported it. Endowed chairs, corporate-funded centers, and prestigious lecture circuits have made Chicago School economists wealthy and powerful. Institutions like the Hoover Institution, the Cato Institute, and the American Enterprise Institute have amplified their ideas while silencing dissent. Critical perspectives—Marxist, feminist, ecological—have been marginalized or defunded in economics departments across the U.S. and much of the Global North.

Meanwhile, public universities struggling for funding have adopted Chicago-style managerial logic: metrics over mission, ROI over learning, adjuncts over tenure. The logic of the market has colonized the classroom.

The Ideology of the Empire

Chicago School economics has become the lingua franca of empire. It rationalizes austerity, justifies tax havens, normalizes poverty, and sanctifies inequality. It tells working people that if they’re poor, they must be irrational. It tells governments to balance budgets, not lives. It tells universities to behave like hedge funds.

The project is not just intellectual—it is political. And its time is up.

In a world facing climate collapse, runaway inequality, and democratic backsliding, we must recognize Chicago economics for what it is: not a neutral science but a strategic takeover. A theology of markets with no god but capital, no law but competition, and no justice but profit.

It cannot predict. It does not prevent. And it refuses to be held accountable.

Let us end the charade.

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Sources:

• Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste (2013)

• Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine (2007)

• Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism (2018)

• Robert Kuttner, Debtors’ Prison (2013)

• David Graeber, Debt: The First 5000 Years (2011)

For more critical investigations into political economy and higher education, visit Higher Education Inquirer.

From Hackathon to Higher Ed: BlackRock’s Quiet Capture of the University

BlackRock’s recent promotional piece, “From Hackathon to Higher Ed: The BlackRock for Universities Story,” presents the financial giant as an innovative, student-focused partner in education. On the surface, it’s a compelling narrative: a creative idea born at a company hackathon grows into a program that gives college students access to powerful investment tools and mentorship from professionals. But beneath this polished story lies a deeper concern—one that speaks to the creeping corporatization of higher education and the normalization of Wall Street ideologies on campus.

BlackRock for Universities (BLK4U) isn’t just an educational outreach initiative. It’s a branding vehicle. It exposes students—especially those in student-managed investment funds (SMIFs)—to BlackRock’s proprietary Aladdin platform, a cornerstone of the company’s vast influence in the global asset management industry. The program’s reach into university classrooms and finance labs presents itself as educational, but it’s fundamentally about cultivating loyalty and familiarity with BlackRock’s tools and worldview.

BLK4U’s narrative of empowerment masks a deeper structural reality: it privileges institutions that already have access to well-funded investment programs. While the article notes some outreach to HBCUs and diverse student groups, the core of the initiative targets elite universities with robust finance programs. The result is a form of digital gatekeeping, where certain students are primed to succeed in finance while others are left out of the pipeline entirely. Rather than democratizing opportunity, BLK4U reinforces existing hierarchies—between institutions, students, and regions.

What’s missing from BlackRock’s story is any serious reflection on the ethical dimensions of its work or the broader implications of its presence in academia. Students aren’t being asked to examine the role that BlackRock plays in climate finance, corporate governance, housing markets, or public pensions. They’re not learning about the critiques of financialization or the democratic consequences of concentrated economic power. They’re learning how to use Aladdin.

In this way, BLK4U exemplifies the shift from education as a public good to education as workforce training. Students are taught to speak the language of portfolio optimization, but not to question why wealth is so unequally distributed or how the financial sector has shaped those outcomes. They’re trained in storytelling, but not in accountability.

The story’s hackathon origin is meant to emphasize grassroots innovation, but hackathons themselves are often used within corporations to generate ideas that serve institutional goals—not the public interest. It’s unlikely that a program like BLK4U would have moved forward if it didn’t align with BlackRock’s long-term strategy of influence-building, talent acquisition, and brand saturation. Calling this initiative a “win for students” is disingenuous without acknowledging the asymmetries of power it reinforces.

Even BlackRock’s claim to promote “financial well-being” deserves scrutiny. Whose financial well-being? For whom is this education truly built? The firm manages trillions in assets for governments, pension funds, and corporations, but its influence has drawn bipartisan criticism—from the left for its role in exacerbating inequality and climate risk, and from the right for its ESG positions and market dominance. Embedding BlackRock’s ideology into college finance programs risks training the next generation of financial professionals not to challenge that power, but to replicate it.

What we see in BLK4U is not an isolated case, but part of a broader trend in which corporate actors shape higher education behind the scenes. Whether through tech platforms, consulting partnerships, or curriculum design, companies like BlackRock are quietly steering the future of education toward their own ends. These programs may look like public service, but they function as strategic investments in control and compliance.

As the Higher Education Inquirer has long documented, the privatization of knowledge and the encroachment of financial interests into academic life are not theoretical concerns—they are unfolding in real time. BlackRock’s venture into the classroom is not just a story about mentorship or innovation. It’s a story about soft power, captured institutions, and the narrowing of what education is allowed to be.

In a truly democratic education system, students would not only learn how to use tools like Aladdin—they would also learn how to critique them. Until that’s part of the curriculum, programs like BLK4U deserve far more skepticism than celebration.

“We Can’t Make It Here Anymore” Still Rings True

More than twenty years after James McMurtry released We Can’t Make It Here Anymore, the song’s haunting verses continue to echo across the American landscape. Originally written during the early 2000s under the weight of offshoring, union busting, and post-9/11 disillusionment, McMurtry’s protest ballad has aged not with irrelevance but with renewed urgency.

McMurtry wrote about Vietnam veterans pushed aside by a society eager to forget its mistakes. Today, those veterans have been replaced by men and women who served in Iraq and Afghanistan—some with missing limbs, some with invisible wounds, many with few job prospects. The system still tells them “thanks for your service” while it sends their factories overseas, their benefits into the shredder, and their children into debt servitude at for-profit colleges or underfunded public universities.

The song’s refrain—“And the banks run the loan game, and the dollar jumps the track”—has only deepened in meaning in the era of trillion-dollar student loan burdens and the financialization of everything from housing to higher education. Entire zip codes have been gutted by opioid overdoses, job loss, and rising suicide rates. The technology is flashier now, but the despair McMurtry chronicled feels even more entrenched. The “big boys” still “don't like to lose,” and the factories are still “boarded up,” not just in Michigan and West Virginia, but now in the shadows of elite universities, where campuses flourish while surrounding communities falter.

Higher education, the supposed equalizer, has played its own part in this disillusionment. Where once it held the promise of upward mobility, it now too often offers low-wage adjunct jobs, debt without degrees, and institutions more concerned with branding and endowments than student welfare. McMurtry sings, “The doctor can't be reached, he has moved back to LA,” and in 2025, that’s still true—except now the doctor’s been replaced by a telehealth AI, and the local hospital has been bought out by a hedge fund.

We Can’t Make It Here Anymore is not nostalgia. It is indictment. It is reportage. It is prophecy. And like Woody Guthrie before him, McMurtry tells a story corporate media would rather ignore.

The song’s last verse ends not with hope, but with observation:
“Will work for food, will die for oil, will kill for power and to us the spoils.”
Two decades later, the empire has not changed course. It has just changed spokespeople.

The names may change—NAFTA to USMCA, Halliburton to BlackRock—but the machinery grinds on. And McMurtry’s anthem remains a soundtrack for those who never made it out of the wreckage, for the veterans of war and labor still trying to make it here.

Sources

• James McMurtry, We Can’t Make It Here Anymore, 2004

• U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics

• U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

• National Student Legal Defense Network

• Higher Education Inquirer archives

A Preliminary List of Private Colleges in Trouble

Private colleges in the United States—particularly small, tuition-dependent nonprofit institutions—are facing a mounting crisis that shows no sign of abating. Since 2020, dozens have closed, merged, or announced plans to shut down due to enrollment declines, unsustainable debt, and shrinking endowments. In 2025 alone, a growing number of private institutions have either declared their intention to close or been flagged as financially failing. The Higher Education Inquirer has compiled a preliminary and data-driven list of these institutions, including colleges that have shut down, plan to close, or have received failing financial grades from independent analysts.

According to Gary Stocker, founder of College Viability, the telltale signs of college failure are persistent and measurable. “When looking for at-risk colleges, the critical factor is trends. If enrollment and net tuition revenue are down for the past 5–10 years, it is highly unlikely that a turnaround is imminent or even possible,” Stocker explained. This insight reflects the compounding nature of decline in higher education finance. “One bad enrollment year negatively impacts a college for at least 4 years. Multiple bad enrollment years need to be followed by multiple really good enrollment years to have any chance of a financially successful recovery.”

That kind of recovery has proven elusive for a growing list of institutions:

• Siena Heights University in Adrian, Michigan, will close after the 2025–2026 academic year. Founded in 1919, the Catholic university has seen enrollment drop by nearly a third in the past decade, leaving fewer than 1,900 students. The Board of Trustees deemed its long-term outlook unsustainable.

• Limestone University in Gaffney, South Carolina, will close after Spring 2025. The school, burdened with $30 million in debt and dwindling enrollment (from over 3,000 students a decade ago to just over 1,600), failed to meet a $6 million emergency fundraising goal.

• St. Andrews University in Laurinburg, North Carolina, ceased operations in May 2025 after failing to resolve long-standing financial deficits. With fewer than 1,000 students and a modest endowment, it could not survive post-pandemic pressures.

• Eastern Nazarene College, near Boston, also announced it would close by year’s end. Enrollment declines and ineffective cost-cutting left the institution without viable options.

• Fontbonne University, a nearly century-old Catholic college in St. Louis, Missouri, will shut down after summer 2025. Enrollment fell below 1,000 students, and efforts to sell assets and cut costs proved insufficient.

• Northland College, in Ashland, Wisconsin, with fewer than 500 students, will also close in 2025. It had long struggled to maintain financial solvency.

These closures are not isolated events. According to BestColleges.com, more than 80 private nonprofit schools have closed or merged since the start of the pandemic, with nearly 50 shutting down entirely. Financial fragility is widespread and accelerating.

A broader snapshot comes from Forbes' 2024 “College Financial Grades,” which assessed over 900 private nonprofit colleges using data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). These institutions were rated on metrics including endowment per student, operating margin, admissions yield, and return on assets. In the 2024 analysis, 182 colleges received a D grade—up from only 20 in 2021.

Among the D-rated schools were:

• Anderson University (IN) – Financial score: 1.435

• Bethel University (IN) – Financial score: 1.223

• Simmons University (MA)

• Nichols College (MA)

• Faulkner University (AL)

• Spring Hill College (AL)

While not all of these schools are closing immediately, a D grade suggests serious financial vulnerability and potential for closure, merger, or drastic restructuring.

Another dimension of risk lies in overdependence on international tuition. A Forbes 2025 report identified 16 private colleges highly reliant on foreign students. Among them were Hult International Business School in Boston and St. Francis College in Brooklyn. With visa restrictions and geopolitical uncertainty, these colleges face added instability.

Some colleges have sought short-term survival strategies. Albright College in Pennsylvania, once identified as distressed, reported a small operating surplus in 2025 after selling off real estate and trimming staff. However, analysts and faculty remain skeptical, seeing this as a stopgap that may not resolve underlying issues.

Other closures underscore how quickly institutions can collapse:

• Union Institute & University closed in 2024 and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2025, citing more than $28 million in liabilities.

• University of Saint Katherine abruptly shut down in Spring 2024 due to a cash crisis.

• Paier College, an art school in Connecticut, lost accreditation and will not reopen.

These are not just institutional failures—they are signs of a broader structural contraction in U.S. higher education. Elite universities continue to thrive, but a parallel system of small, regionally based, tuition-driven colleges is eroding. Demographic decline, operational overhead, and public skepticism are converging to create a perfect storm.

Gary Stocker’s warning—based on years of viability research—deserves close attention. Institutions that cannot demonstrate clear upward trends in enrollment and revenue are unlikely to survive, even with aggressive intervention.

The Higher Education Inquirer will continue to update this list and monitor developments as the crisis unfolds.

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Sources
Gary Stocker, Founder of College Viability
https://www.bestcolleges.com/research/closed-colleges-list-statistics-major-closures
https://apnews.com/article/d4851555bd0fb360a92dee84a2d93140
https://www.ourmidland.com/news/article/siena-heights-catholic-university-saints-20402839.php
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Andrews_University_(North_Carolina)
https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/10/15/182207/more-colleges-set-to-close-in-2025-even-as-ivy-plus-schools-experience-application-boom
https://www.collegetransitions.com/blog/college-closures-and-mergers
https://bryanalexander.org/horizon-scanning/campus-cuts-mergers-and-closures-from-spring-2025
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/study/trumps-visa-policy-threatens-16-us-colleges-dependent-on-international-students/articleshow/122015680.cms
https://www.spotlightpa.org/berks/2025/07/higher-education-albright-college-financial-crisis-survival-plan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Institute_%26_University
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Saint_Katherine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paier_College
https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawhitford/2025/03/07/forbes-college-financial-grades-2025-americas-strongest-and-weakest-schools
https://deepthoughtshed.com/2024/12/29/colleges-most-likely-to-close-based-on-2024-forbes-financial-health-failing-grades
https://talk.collegeconfidential.com/t/forbes-2024-financial-grades/3672040
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/matt-spivey-22635436_colleges-most-likely-to-close-based-on-activity-7281304623183810560-2hCs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QljCVUn3tyc

Higher Education Inquirer Surpasses 1 Million Views, Including More Than 200,000 in July 2025

The Higher Education Inquirer has reached a major milestone: more than 1 million total views since its founding, with over 200,000 views in July 2025 alone—a record-breaking month for the independent investigative site. This surge in readership reflects growing public concern with the state of U.S. higher education, especially at a time of increasing economic precarity, political unrest, and institutional dysfunction.

As corporate media outlets continue to downsize or ignore coverage of student debt, credential inflation, predatory schools, and the exploitation of academic labor, readers are seeking more critical, independent voices. HEI, which has long focused on underreported stories within the higher education-industrial complex, is becoming a go-to resource for policymakers, whistleblowers, journalists, and everyday people trying to make sense of the education economy.

Most Viewed Stories in July 2025

A few standout articles reveal key themes that are resonating with readers:

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1. "Camp Mystic: A Century of Privilege, Exclusion, and Resilience Along the Guadalupe"
Views: 8,730
This deeply researched piece on the elite girls’ camp in Texas struck a nerve with readers interested in the intersection of inherited wealth, segregation, and performative philanthropy. Camp Mystic serves as a metaphor for the parallel institutions that shape American leadership in quiet, exclusive ways—far from public scrutiny.

Trend: Growing interest in how generational wealth and private networks perpetuate elite power and influence, especially through educational institutions.

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2. "The Big Beautiful Bill”: A Catastrophic Blow to College Affordability
Views: 1,290
This analysis of new legislation affecting federal student aid programs explores how a bill dressed in populist language has real consequences for working-class and middle-income families. Readers responded to its dissection of policy doublespeak and the structural defunding of public education.

Trend: Rising awareness of how both major political parties contribute to the erosion of affordable education—often under misleading rhetoric.

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3. "Santa Ono: Take the Money and Run"
Views: 956
A pointed critique of University of Michigan President Santa Ono’s high salary and revolving-door administrative career drew in readers frustrated by bloated leadership pay and lack of institutional accountability.

Trend: Increased public scrutiny of university presidents and boards of trustees, especially at elite institutions.

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4. "List of Schools with Strong Indicators of Misconduct, Evidence for Borrower Defense Claims"
Views: 943
This database-style article provided a valuable resource for former students, journalists, and attorneys. By documenting schools with troubling records, it supported those filing Borrower Defense to Repayment claims and highlighted the ongoing fallout from the for-profit college boom.

Trend: Continued demand for actionable consumer information amid the Biden Administration’s limited and politically fraught debt relief efforts.

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5. "Degrees of Discontent: Credentialism, Inflation, and the Global Education Crisis"
Views: 900
This global take on the failures of credential-driven economies resonated with a wide audience—from jobseekers with degrees they can’t use to educators struggling to make sense of shifting academic value.

Trend: A philosophical and economic reckoning with credentialism, especially as degrees lose value while tuition and debt skyrocket.

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6. "Layoffs at Southern New Hampshire University"
Views: 826
Coverage of SNHU, a major player in online education, shed light on the darker side of "innovation": layoffs, overwork, and instability for faculty and staff.

Trend: Growing doubts about the long-term sustainability and labor ethics of the online education model.

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7. "Universities Brace for Endowment Tax Hike, Rethink Investment Strategies"
Views: 687
A timely piece on elite university endowments caught the eye of readers interested in how wealth hoarding and financial engineering are baked into modern academia.

Trend: Rising critiques of nonprofit tax loopholes and the financialization of higher ed.

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8. "Liberty University in Black and White"
Views: 684
This critical examination of Liberty University’s public image, internal contradictions, and links to right-wing political power explored how Christian nationalist ideology operates through higher education.

Trend: High interest in the political roles of conservative religious institutions and their ties to the culture wars.

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9. "Corruption, Fraud and Scandal at Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD Whistleblower)"
Views: 615
A whistleblower-centered article on LACCD corruption revealed widespread misuse of funds and institutional cover-ups, especially in facilities projects.

Trend: Rising demand for investigative journalism focused on local corruption in publicly funded institutions.

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10. "Agency Information Collection Activities…Borrower Defense to Loan Repayment Universal Forms"
Views: Not Yet Indexed
While bureaucratic in title, this article was shared among policy experts and debt activists for its breakdown of how regulations—and public comment periods—impact real people trying to discharge fraudulent debt.

Trend: Readers are becoming more engaged in regulatory policy and more skeptical of federal agencies' ability or willingness to protect consumers.

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What Readers Want 

What these stories show is a distinct pattern: readers want more accountability, more transparency, and less propaganda from the education system that has long promised prosperity and delivered precarity. They’re fed up with bloated administrative salaries, empty credentials, elite hypocrisy, and legislative betrayal.

Thanks to grassroots support and collaborations with students, whistleblowers, and journalists, the Higher Education Inquirer continues to grow in both reach and relevance.

As we pass 1 million views, we’re not just marking clicks—we’re tracking the pulse of a system in crisis. And we’re not done yet.