End of an Era

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

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

**********************************************

Use the search tools and click on these hashtags for more information from our archives.  

#accountability #addiction #adjunct #AI #AImeltdown #alcoholism #alienation #Ambow #anomie #anti-intellectual #anxiety #austerity #BDR #bot #boycott #BRICS #charliekirk #China #civilwar #climate #collegemania #collegemeltdown #crypto #CTE #democracy #deportation #dissent #DOD #divest #doomloop #edtech #edugrift #enshittification #epstein #epsteinfiles #FAFSA #fascism #freespeech #genocide #greed #Harvard #HHS #history #ICE #IDR #immigration #incel #India #jobless #kleptocracy #labor #medugrift #militarization #MIT #moralcapital #myth 

#NCAA #NDA #neoliberal #nokings #nonviolence #Palantir #Princeton #protest #PSLF #PXED #QOL #rehumanization #resistance #robocollege #robostudent #roboworker #Russia #solidarity #strikedebt #surveillance #tech #temperance #TPUSA #transparency #Trump #UATX #umich 

#underemployment #VA #value #veritas #virtue #wikipedia #WWIII #Yale

*****************************************************

   Higher Education and Class Sorting. Image by Glen McGhee

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

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

Dahn Shaulis and Glen McGhee

The Educated Underclass Without Borders

Gary Roth’s The Educated Underclass describes a growing population of college-educated people who, despite credentials and effort, are increasingly locked out of stable, dignified work. While Roth’s analysis focuses primarily on the United States, the framework extends naturally—and urgently—to international students educated in the U.S. and to the global labor markets they enter after graduation. When immigration regimes, artificial intelligence, and comparative higher education systems are considered together, the educated underclass emerges not as a national failure, but as a transnational condition produced by modern higher education itself.

U.S. colleges and universities aggressively recruit international students, presenting the American degree as a global passport to opportunity. These students pay higher tuition, subsidize institutional budgets, and enhance global prestige. What is far less visible is that access to the U.S. labor market after graduation is narrow, temporary, and increasingly unstable. Programs such as Optional Practical Training and the H-1B visa tie legal status to continuous employment, transforming graduates into a compliant workforce with little leverage. Job loss does not merely mean unemployment; it can mean removal from the country.

Indian students in STEM fields illustrate this dynamic clearly. Drawn by promises of innovation and demand, they enter graduate programs in computer science, engineering, and data analytics, only to find themselves funneled into a lottery-based visa system dominated by outsourcing firms and consulting intermediaries. Visa dependency suppresses wages, discourages job mobility, and creates a workforce that is educated but structurally insecure. Roth’s educated underclass is visible here, but intensified by deportability.

Artificial intelligence compounds this precarity. Entry-level technical and analytical roles—software testing, junior programming, data cleaning, research assistance—are increasingly automated or augmented. These were precisely the jobs that once absorbed international graduates. AI-driven labor contraction now collides with rigid visa timelines, turning technological displacement into enforced exit. Immigration policy quietly performs the work of labor market triage.

Chinese students in business, economics, and the social sciences encounter a different version of the same trap. U.S. employers are often reluctant to sponsor visas outside STEM, while Chinese labor markets are saturated with domestically educated elites. Meanwhile, geopolitical tensions—intensified during the Trump administration—have normalized suspicion toward Chinese students and scholars, particularly in research-adjacent fields. The American degree, once a clear marker of distinction, increasingly yields managerial precarity, contract work, or prolonged dependence on family support.

China’s own higher education system complicates this picture. Massive state investment has expanded elite universities and research capacity, producing millions of highly credentialed graduates each year. Yet employment growth has not kept pace. Underemployment among Chinese graduates has become routine, and returnees from U.S. programs often find that their foreign credentials no longer guarantee elite status. In both systems, education expands faster than secure work, producing surplus aspiration and managed disappointment.

Canada is often presented as a counterexample to U.S. hostility toward international students, but its outcomes reveal similar structural dynamics. Canadian universities rely heavily on international tuition, while immigration pathways—though more predictable—still channel graduates into precarious labor markets. Many international students end up in low-wage service or contract work unrelated to their degrees while awaiting permanent residency. At the same time, domestic Canadian graduates face rising competition for limited professional roles, particularly in urban centers. The result is not inclusion, but stratified precarity distributed across citizenship lines.

These global dynamics have domestic consequences that are rarely acknowledged honestly. International students and foreign graduates are increasingly perceived as occupying educational and professional positions that might otherwise go to people whose families have lived in the United States for generations. In elite universities, graduate programs, and competitive labor pipelines, institutions often prefer international applicants who pay full tuition, arrive pre-trained by global inequality, and are more willing to accept insecure work.

For historically rooted communities—Black Americans, Indigenous peoples, and long-established working-class families—the resentment is especially acute. After centuries of exclusion from education and professional employment, they are told that opportunity is scarce and must now be globally competitive. The contradiction is profound: a nation that never fully delivered educational justice at home markets opportunity abroad while declaring it unattainable domestically.

Trump-era immigration policies exploited this tension by framing foreign students and workers as threats rather than as participants in a system designed by elites. Travel bans, visa restrictions, attacks on OPT, and open hostility toward immigrants transformed structural failure into cultural conflict. Yet the animosity did not originate with Trump. It reflects decades of policy choices that expanded higher education without expanding secure employment, substituted global labor arbitrage for domestic investment, and left working- and middle-class Americans to absorb the losses.

Universities play a central role in sustaining this arrangement. They function as global sorting machines, extracting tuition from abroad, conferring credentials with declining labor-market value, and disclaiming responsibility for outcomes shaped by immigration law and AI-driven contraction. Career services rarely confront these realities directly. Transparency would threaten enrollment pipelines, so silence prevails.

In Roth’s terms, this enlarges the educated underclass while fracturing it internally. Domestic and foreign graduates are pitted against one another for shrinking footholds, even as both experience debt, insecurity, and diminishing returns on education. The conflict is horizontal, while power remains vertical.

The educated underclass is no longer emerging. It is already global, credentialed, indebted, and increasingly unnecessary to the systems that trained it. Until institutions, employers, and governments in the U.S., Canada, China, and beyond are held accountable for the scarcity they engineer, higher education will continue to function not as a ladder to mobility, but as a mechanism for managing inequality across borders.

---

Sources

Gary Roth, The Educated Underclass
Harriet A. Washington, Medical Apartheid
Elisabeth Rosenthal, An American Sickness
OECD, Education at a Glance
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, OPT and H-1B program materials
National Foundation for American Policy, reports on H-1B labor markets
Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, credential inflation studies
International Labour Organization, global youth and graduate employment reports
China Ministry of Education, graduate employment statistics
Statistics Canada, international students and labor market outcomes
David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs
Richard Wolff, writings on global labor surplus and credentialism

Higher Education Inquirer Resources, Spring 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cottom, Tressie McMillan (2016). Lower Ed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Selingo, J. (2013). College Unbound.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Washburn, J. (2006). University Inc.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Activists, Coalitions, Innovators, and Alternative Voices

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

 College Choice and Career Planning Tools

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

Innovation and Reform

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

Higher Education Policy

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

Data Sources

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

Trade publications

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

HELU's Wall-to-Wall & Coast-to-Coast Report: December 2025

 

Upcoming Online Events:

January 21 – HELU Open House February 4 – Library Workers Organizing Meeting & Strategy Session

From the Blog:

End-of-Year HELU Project Reports

Each of these projects grew organically out of a felt need as we set out on our wall-to-wall and coast-to-coast organizing project. Steering committee members, delegates, and at-large members then stepped up to make them happen.

Read more

ICE Seizes UUP and CSEA Members at Hearing

While attending a scheduled immigration hearing on October 29, 2025, Upstate Medical Center UUP member Alex Ramírez González and CSEA member Yan Vázquez, a married couple who fled repression in Cuba, were seized by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

Read more

“None of us can win it alone”: Northeast Regional Bargaining Summit January 9-10, 2026

To win the higher education system we want will require national, coordinated, multi-union organizing campaigns that build collective power across the sector. As one important step towards this broader goal, HELU is organizing a Northeast Regional Bargaining Summit in Amherst, MA on Jan 9-10, 2026.

Read more

The Long Push for Collective Bargaining in Virginia: A Week in the Life

United Campus Workers of Virginia, CWA 2265, is dedicating January 2026 to getting a strong public sector collective bargaining bill for Virginia. As preparation for passing the bill, we are doing a Higher Ed Week of Action here in Virginia.

Read more

United Campus Workers Arizona smacks Trump “compact” off the table – for now

In October 2025, the Trump Administration took its next swing at higher education — offering nine universities a Compact for Higher Education. Here in Arizona, the University of Arizona (UA) was one of the nine original targets of the administration, and United Campus Workers of Arizona (UCWAZ) was ready to respond.

Read more

HELU Retreat: Big dark cold city, small bright warm group

On December 5 & 6, the city of Detroit and Wayne State University hosted the incoming and outgoing HELU steering committee, other electeds, and staff for a strategic planning retreat and lesson handover.

Read more

Higher Ed Labor in the News:

Illinois State U student support workers file to unionize – WGLT UMaine graduate workers vote to ratify first union contract – Maine Morning Star On-campus unions push back against further pay increases for CSU presidents and execs – CSU LA University Times Penn State faculty file to hold union election. ‘We haven’t had a voice’ – Centre Daily Times Deep cuts at The New School threaten hundreds of positions – The Chief

Want to support our work? Make a contribution & buy HELU merch!

We invite you to support HELU's work by making a direct financial contribution. While HELU's main source of income is solidarity pledges from member organizations, these funds from individuals help us to grow capacity as we work to align the higher ed labor movement.

Contribute to HELU

We’re building a higher ed labor movement wall-to-wall and coast-to-coast. Time to dress like it! HELU hats, t-shirts, and hoodies are available now.

Buy HELU Merch

Image: Becky Givan, HELU Steering Committee member, wearing a first edition HELU sweatshirt