The Brown University Killing, the Educated Underclass, and the Politics of Control

When a killing becomes associated with an elite institution such as Brown University, the public narrative hardens quickly. The event is framed as an unforeseeable rupture—either the product of individual pathology or evidence that universities have failed to control dangerous people in their midst. Missing from both accounts is a deeper examination of how elite higher education produces an educated underclass, how mental illness is managed rather than treated, how international students are uniquely exposed to risk, and how mass surveillance and reporting regimes increasingly substitute for care.

Elite universities project an image of abundance: intellectual freedom, global opportunity, and moral seriousness. Yet beneath that image lies a population living with chronic insecurity. Graduate students, adjuncts, postdoctoral researchers, and international students occupy a paradoxical position—highly educated, institutionally dependent, and structurally disposable. They are central to the university’s labor model and global prestige, yet peripheral to its safety nets and decision-making structures.

Mental illness must be addressed directly, but not in the reductive way it is often invoked after violence occurs. Campus mental health systems are overwhelmed, under-resourced, and shaped by liability concerns rather than therapeutic commitments. Students in severe psychological distress frequently encounter long waitlists, fragmented care, or administrative responses that blur the line between support and discipline. Crisis is managed, not resolved.

For international students, these failures are magnified. Visa status is typically contingent on continuous enrollment and academic performance. A mental health crisis can threaten not only a student’s education but their legal right to remain in the country. Seeking help may carry perceived—or real—risks: loss of funding, forced leaves of absence, housing instability, or immigration consequences. Cultural stigma, racism, language barriers, and social isolation further discourage engagement with already inadequate systems.

Rather than expanding care, universities have increasingly expanded surveillance. Elite campuses now operate dense ecosystems of monitoring: security cameras, access controls, data analytics, behavioral intervention teams, and anonymous “concerned citizen” tip lines. These systems are justified as preventative safety measures, but they often function as tools of social control. “Concerning behavior” is deliberately undefined, allowing subjective judgments to trigger institutional scrutiny.

Such systems disproportionately affect those who already stand out—students who are foreign, mentally ill, socially isolated, or racially marginalized. For international students in particular, being flagged by a tip or threat assessment process can escalate rapidly, drawing in campus police, local law enforcement, or federal immigration authorities. Surveillance does not replace care; it displaces it.

In the aftermath of violence, political responses tend to reinforce this displacement. Donald Trump’s reactions to campus-related violence and crime have followed a consistent pattern: emphasis on “law and order,” denunciations of universities as irresponsible or ideologically corrupt, and calls for stronger policing, harsher penalties, and increased monitoring. Mental illness is often invoked rhetorically, but rarely accompanied by proposals for expanded treatment, housing stability, or protections for vulnerable students—especially non-citizens.

This framing matters. When elite campus violence is interpreted through a punitive lens, it legitimizes further surveillance, broader reporting mandates, and closer coordination between universities and law enforcement. It shifts responsibility away from institutional structures and onto individuals deemed dangerous or deviant. For foreign students and members of the educated underclass, this environment deepens fear and discourages help-seeking, even as pressure intensifies.

The concept of the educated underclass helps explain why these dynamics are so volatile. Contemporary higher education produces vast numbers of highly trained individuals for a shrinking set of secure positions. International students are recruited aggressively, charged high tuition, and celebrated as evidence of global prestige, yet offered limited pathways to stable employment or belonging. Universities benefit enormously from this arrangement while externalizing its human costs.

None of this excuses violence. Accountability is essential, and the suffering of victims must remain central. But focusing exclusively on individual blame—or on punitive political responses—allows institutions to preserve comforting myths about themselves. It obscures how structural precarity, untreated mental illness, immigration vulnerability, and surveillance-based governance interact in predictable ways.

What incidents connected to elite universities ultimately reveal is not merely individual failure, but institutional contradiction. Universities claim to value diversity while subjecting foreign students to heightened scrutiny. They speak the language of wellness while expanding systems of monitoring and reporting. Political leaders denounce campuses while endorsing the very control mechanisms that exacerbate isolation and distress.

Until universities invest seriously in mental health care, protect international students from cascading penalties, and confront the harms of surveillance-first approaches—and until political leaders move beyond carceral reflexes—elite campuses will remain places where suffering is managed rather than addressed. When that management fails, the consequences can be catastrophic.

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Sources

American Psychiatric Association. Mental Health in College Students.
https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/college-students/mental-health-in-college

Eisenberg, D., et al. “Mental Health and Academic Success in College.” The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 2009.

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Vintage Books.

Institute of International Education. Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange.
https://opendoorsdata.org

Lipson, S. K., & Eisenberg, D. “Mental Health and Academic Attitudes and Expectations in University Populations.” Journal of Adolescent Health, 2018.

Monahan, Torin. Surveillance in the Time of Insecurity. Rutgers University Press.

Newfield, Christopher. The Great Mistake: How We Wrecked Public Universities and How We Can Fix Them. Johns Hopkins University Press.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security. SEVP Guidance for International Students.
https://www.ice.gov/sevis

Trump, Donald J. Public statements and campaign remarks on crime, universities, and law enforcement, 2016–2024.

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

Violence, Safety, and the Limits of Campus Security: From MIT to Brown and Beyond

The Monday killing of MIT professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts has shaken the academic community and reinforced a troubling reality already examined in Higher Education Inquirer’s recent reporting on campus safety and mental health: violence affecting higher education in the United States is neither isolated nor confined to campus boundaries.

Loureiro, a Portuguese-born physicist and internationally respected scholar in plasma science and fusion research, was a senior leader at MIT and director of its Plasma Science and Fusion Center. His death occurred off campus, yet it reverberated powerfully within higher education because it underscores how scholars, students, and staff exist within a broader national environment shaped by widespread gun violence, strained mental-health systems, and limited preventive safeguards.

Authorities have confirmed the incident as a homicide. At the time of writing, no suspect has been publicly identified, and investigators have released few details about motive. The uncertainty has compounded the shock felt by colleagues, students, and international collaborators who viewed Loureiro as both a scientific leader and a deeply committed mentor.

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A Pattern, Not an Anomaly

Loureiro’s killing followed a series of violent incidents tied to U.S. college campuses throughout 2025, reinforcing that these events are not aberrations but part of a broader pattern.

Just days earlier, a deadly shooting at Brown University left two students dead and several others wounded when a gunman opened fire in an academic building during final exams. The attack disrupted campus life, forced lockdowns, and exposed vulnerabilities in building access and emergency response procedures.

Earlier in the year, Florida State University experienced a mass shooting in a heavily trafficked campus area, resulting in multiple fatalities and injuries. The suspect, a student, was taken into custody, but the psychological impact on students and faculty persisted long after classes resumed.

At Kentucky State University, a shooting inside a residence hall claimed the life of a student and critically injured another. The alleged shooter was not a student but a parent, underscoring how campus violence increasingly involves individuals with indirect or external connections to institutions.

In September 2025, violence took an explicitly political turn when Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, was assassinated during a public speaking event at Utah Valley University. Kirk was shot during a large outdoor gathering attended by thousands. The killing, widely described as a political assassination, was unprecedented in recent U.S. campus history and raised urgent questions about security at high-profile events, free expression, and political polarization within academic spaces.

Together, these incidents — spanning elite private universities, public flagship institutions, regional campuses, and HBCUs — illustrate how violence in higher education now crosses institutional type, geography, and purpose, from classrooms and residence halls to public forums and nearby neighborhoods.

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The Limits of Traditional Campus Safety Models

HEI’s recent analysis of U.S. campus safety emphasized a central tension: colleges and universities rely heavily on reactive security measures — armed campus police, surveillance infrastructure, emergency alerts — while underinvesting in prevention, mental-health care, and community-based risk reduction.

The events of 2025 highlight the limitations of these approaches. Even well-resourced institutions cannot fully secure campus perimeters or prevent violence originating beyond institutional control. Nor can security infrastructure alone address the social isolation, untreated mental illness, ideological extremism, and easy access to firearms that underlie many of these incidents.

Federal compliance frameworks such as the Clery Act prioritize disclosure and reporting rather than prevention. Meanwhile, the expansion of campus policing has often mirrored broader trends in U.S. law enforcement, raising concerns about militarization without clear evidence of improved safety outcomes.

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Violence Beyond Active Shooters

While mass shootings and assassinations draw national attention, they represent only one part of a wider landscape of harm in higher education. HEI has documented other persistent threats, including hazing deaths, sexual violence, domestic abuse, stalking, false threats that provoke armed responses, and institutional failures to protect vulnerable populations.

Mental health remains a critical and often neglected dimension. Many acts of campus-related violence intersect with untreated mental illness, financial stress, academic pressure, and inadequate access to care — conditions exacerbated by rising tuition, housing insecurity, and uneven campus support systems.

For international students in particular, exposure to U.S. gun violence and emergency lockdowns can be deeply destabilizing, challenging assumptions about safety that differ sharply from conditions in other countries.

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An Urgent Moment for Higher Education

The deaths of individuals such as Professor Loureiro and Charlie Kirk, alongside students at Brown, Florida State, and Kentucky State, underscore a central truth: American campuses do not exist apart from the society around them. No amount of prestige, branding, or technology can fully insulate higher education from national patterns of violence.

For administrators and policymakers, the lesson is not simply to harden security, but to rethink safety holistically — integrating physical protection with mental-health infrastructure, transparent accountability, community engagement, and policies that address deeper cultural and structural drivers of violence.

As Higher Education Inquirer has argued, campus safety is inseparable from broader questions of public health, social policy, and institutional responsibility. Without sustained attention to these connections, tragedies across U.S. campuses will continue to be framed as shocking exceptions rather than symptoms of a deeper and ongoing crisis.

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Sources

Associated Press reporting on the MIT professor killing
Reuters coverage of campus shootings in 2025
Reporting on the Brown University shooting
Coverage of the Florida State University shooting
Reporting on the Kentucky State University residence hall shooting
PBS NewsHour and national reporting on the Charlie Kirk assassination at Utah Valley University
Higher Education Inquirer – Understanding U.S. Campus Safety and Mental Health: Guidance for International Students

Understanding U.S. Campus Safety and Mental Health: Guidance for International Students

The tragic shooting at Brown University in December 2025, which claimed two lives and left nine students wounded, is a stark reminder that even elite U.S. campuses are not immune to violence. For international students, understanding this incident requires placing it in the broader context of the United States’ history of social dangers, treatment of mental illness, and policies affecting foreigners.

The United States has historically had higher rates of violent crime, including gun-related incidents, than many other developed nations. While campus shootings remain statistically rare, they reflect deeper societal issues: widespread gun access, social inequality, and a culture that often prioritizes armed self-protection over preventative public safety measures. Universities, traditionally viewed as open spaces for learning and discussion, are increasingly sites of surveillance and armed response, reshaping the student experience.

Foreign students and immigrants may face additional vulnerabilities. Throughout U.S. history, immigrants have often been subject to discrimination, harassment, or violence based on nationality, race, or religion. Universities are not insulated from these pressures, and international students can be particularly susceptible to microaggressions, exclusion, or even targeted hostility. These risks were heightened under the Trump administration, when rhetoric and policies frequently cast foreigners as suspicious or undesirable. Visa restrictions, heightened scrutiny of foreign scholars, and public statements fostering distrust created an environment in which international students might feel unsafe or isolated.

Mental illness plays a critical role in understanding campus violence, but its treatment in the United States is inconsistent. While many universities provide counseling centers, therapy services, and crisis hotlines, the broader mental health system in the U.S. remains fragmented and under-resourced. Access often depends on insurance coverage, ability to pay, and proximity to care, leaving some individuals untreated or inadequately supported. Cultural stigmas and underdiagnosis can exacerbate the problem, particularly among minority and immigrant populations. International students, unfamiliar with local mental health norms or hesitant to seek care due to cost or cultural barriers, may be less likely to access help until crises arise.

U.S. universities deploy extensive surveillance systems, emergency protocols, and campus police to respond to threats. These measures aim to mitigate harm once an incident occurs but focus less on prevention of violence or addressing underlying causes, including untreated mental illness. Students are required to participate in drills and safety training, creating a reactive rather than preventative model.

Compared to other countries, the U.S. approach is distinct. Canadian universities emphasize mental health support and unarmed security. European campuses often maintain open environments with minimal surveillance and preventive intervention strategies. Many Asian universities operate in low-crime contexts with community-based safety measures rather than extensive surveillance. The U.S. approach emphasizes rapid law enforcement response and monitoring, reflecting a society with higher firearm prevalence and less coordinated mental health infrastructure.

The Brown University tragedy underscores a sobering reality for international students: while the U.S. offers world-class education, it is a nation with elevated risks of violent crime, inconsistent mental health care, and historical and ongoing challenges for foreigners. Awareness, preparedness, community engagement, and proactive mental health support are essential tools for international students navigating higher education in this environment.

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Sources

The Guardian: Brown University shooting: police release more videos of person of interest as FBI offers reward
Reuters: Manhunt for Brown University shooter stretches into fourth day
Washington Post: Hunt for Brown University gunman starts anew as tension rises
AP News: Brown University shooting victims identified
People: Brown University shooting victim Kendall Turner
WUSF: Brown University shooting victims update
Wikipedia: 2025 Brown University shooting
Pew Research Center: International Students in the United States
Brookings Institution: Immigrant Vulnerability and Safety in the U.S.
National Alliance on Mental Illness: Mental Health in Higher Education
Journal of American College Health: Mental Health Services Utilization Among College Students

How Educated Neoliberals Built the Homelessness Crisis—and Why HUD’s New Cuts Will Make It Worse

The US Department of Housing and Urban Development has quietly announced one of the most drastic federal rollbacks in homelessness policy in decades: a massive cut to permanent housing under the Continuum of Care (CoC) program, with more than half of its 2026 funding diverted to transitional housing and compliance-based services. HUD’s own internal estimates warn that up to 170,000 people could lose housing as a result of the shift. For millions of Americans, especially those on the margins, this is not a policy adjustment; it is the beginning of a humanitarian disaster.

To understand how we arrived here, it is not enough to point at the Trump administration, the ideological crusade against “Housing First,” or the White House Faith Office now shaping federal grantmaking. One must also examine the educated neoliberals who built and normalized the system that made this possible.

HUD’s policy change overturns decades of federal commitment to permanent supportive housing, an evidence-backed model that dramatically reduces chronic homelessness. The new Notice of Funding Opportunity caps permanent housing at just 30 percent of CoC dollars, down from 87 percent in prior years, while the remainder is funneled toward transitional housing, work or service requirements, mandatory treatment, and faith-based compliance programs. The total funding for 2026 is roughly $3.9 billion across 7,000 grants. That amount, spread across hundreds of thousands of people experiencing homelessness, is barely sufficient to provide minimal assistance, let alone stable housing or the comprehensive services this population needs. One-third of existing programs will run out of funds before the new awards are issued in May, leaving vulnerable individuals exposed to eviction during the harshest months of winter. Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness and a former HUD official, described the rollout as deeply irresponsible, warning that the administration is setting communities up for failure.

For decades, U.S. policy has been shaped not just by conservatives but also by a sprawling class of highly educated managers: MBAs, MPPs, JDs, think-tank fellows, foundation executives, nonprofit administrators, and “innovation” consultants. They came from America’s elite universities, fluent in market logic, managerialism, and austerity politics. They preached efficiency, accountability, metrics, and self-sufficiency. Many also personally accumulated wealth, often owning multiple homes, benefiting from investment income, and exploiting loopholes to minimize or avoid taxes. Meanwhile, the programs they manage shrink support for the poor and vulnerable.

Through their influence, housing became a program, not a public good. Public housing construction largely disappeared, replaced by a grant-driven, nonprofit marketplace controlled by elite professionals. Even the funding allocated for CoC programs, though nominally in the billions, is deliberately minimal. This scarcity forces competition, instability, and suffering among poor people. Nonprofit executives, most of whom depend on federal contracts and foundation dollars, rarely challenge the economic and political structures that produce homelessness. Accountability rhetoric replaced structural change, reframing homelessness as an issue of individual behavior rather than a systemic failure. The academy normalized the idea that poor people should suffer, teaching a generation of managers to prioritize markets, metrics, and “innovation” over human need. This bipartisan, university-trained professional class laid the foundation for the HUD cuts now threatening hundreds of thousands of lives.

HUD argues that the new model “restores accountability” and reduces the purported waste of Housing First, but decades of research contradict that claim. Permanent supportive housing reduces chronic homelessness, lowers emergency and policing costs, stabilizes people with disabilities, and is cheaper than institutionalization or shelters. Transitional housing with mandatory compliance, on the other hand, repeatedly pushes people back to the streets, disproportionately harms people with disabilities, increases mortality, inflates administrative costs, and creates churn rather than stability. The policy is not a mistake; it reflects the calculated priorities of an elite managerial class whose worldview demands austerity for the poor while allowing them to flourish materially.

The response in Washington has been striking. Forty-two Senate Democrats warned HUD that the shift violates the McKinney-Vento Act, undermines local decision-making, and rejects decades of federally funded research. Even twenty House Republicans urged careful implementation to avoid destabilizing services for seniors and disabled people. Yet decades of neoliberal policymaking—funded and legitimized by universities, foundations, and think tanks—have already created a system in which poverty and suffering are baked into federal policy. This latest HUD action simply codifies that worldview.

The crisis unfolding now is not just the product of Trump’s ideological war on Housing First. It is the logical endpoint of decades of privatization, the erosion of public housing, elite consensus around austerity, credentialed managerialism, the nonprofit-industrial complex, the foundation-university revolving door, and the belief—deeply embedded in higher education—that markets and metrics should govern everything. Many of these policymakers and nonprofit executives own multiple homes, refuse to pay taxes, and structure federal policy to ensure the poor remain dependent, unstable, and suffering. The people most directly harmed are those with the least political power: disabled people, elderly tenants, veterans, people with serious mental illness, women fleeing violence, and families trying to survive an economy that no longer works for them. Behind them stands a class of educated neoliberals who built the systems that made this outcome possible, often congratulating themselves for “innovation” while allowing misery to proliferate. This is not failure. This is design.

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Sources:

• Politico, “HUD to Cut Permanent Housing Funding for Homeless Programs,” 2025.

• National Alliance to End Homelessness, internal HUD funding documents, 2025.

• Ann Oliva, National Alliance to End Homelessness, statements to POLITICO, 2025.

• McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, 1987.

• HUD Notice of Funding Opportunity, 2026 Continuum of Care Program.

• Executive Order: “Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets,” White House, 2025.

Why People Under 35 Are Not Afraid of Democratic Socialism

For Americans under 35, the term “democratic socialism” triggers neither fear nor Cold War reflexes. It represents something far simpler: a demand for a functioning society. Younger generations have grown up in a world where basic pillars of American life—higher education, medicine, economic mobility, and even life expectancy—have deteriorated while inequality has soared. Democratic socialism, in their view, is not a fringe ideology but a practical response to systems that have ceased to serve the common good.

Nowhere is this clearer than in higher education. Millennials and Gen Z entered adulthood as universities became corporate enterprises, expanding administrative layers, pushing adjunct labor to the brink, and relying on debt-financed tuition increases to keep the machine running. Public investment collapsed, predatory for-profit chains proliferated, and nonprofit universities acted like hedge funds with classrooms attached. Students saw institutions with billion-dollar endowments operate as landlords and asset managers, all while passing costs onto working families. When Bernie Sanders called for tuition-free public college, young people did not hear utopianism—they heard a plan grounded in global reality, a model that exists in Germany, Sweden, Finland, and other social democracies that treat education as a public good rather than a revenue stream.

Healthcare tells an even harsher story. Americans under 35 watched their parents and grandparents navigate a system more focused on billing codes than care, one where an ambulance ride costs a week’s wages and a bout of illness can mean bankruptcy. They experienced the rise of corporatized university medical centers, private equity–owned emergency rooms, and insurance bureaucracies that ration access more cruelly than any state. They saw life-saving drugs priced like luxury goods and mental health services pushed out of reach. Compare this to nations with universal healthcare: longer life expectancy, lower infant mortality, and far less medical debt. Again, Sanders’ Medicare for All resonated not because of ideology but because young people recognized it as a plausible path toward the kind of humane medical system described by scholars like Harriet Washington, Elisabeth Rosenthal, and Mahmud Mamdani, who all critique the structural violence embedded in systems of unequal care.

Life expectancy itself has become a generational indictment. For the first time in modern U.S. history, it has fallen, driven by overdose deaths, suicide, preventable illness, and worsening inequities. Younger Americans know that friends and peers have died far earlier than their counterparts abroad. They see that countries with strong public services—childcare, unemployment insurance, housing supports, universal healthcare—live longer, healthier lives. They also see how austerity and privatization have hollowed out public health infrastructure in the United States, leaving communities vulnerable to crises large and small. The message is clear: societies that invest in people live longer; societies that treat health as a commodity do not.

Quality of Life (QOL) ties all of this together. People under 35 face rent burdens unimaginable to previous generations, debts that prevent them from forming families, stagnant wages, and a labor market defined by precarity. They face the erosion of public space, public transit, libraries, and social supports—what Mamdani would describe as the slow unraveling of the civic realm under neoliberalism. When they look abroad, they see countries with social democratic frameworks offering guaranteed parental leave, subsidized childcare, free or nearly free college, universal healthcare, and robust worker protections. These are not distant fantasies; they are functioning models that produce higher happiness levels, stronger social trust, and more stable democracies.

Older generations often accuse young people of radicalism, but the reality is the reverse. Millennials and Gen Z are pragmatic. They have lived through the failures of unfettered capitalism: historic inequality, monopolistic industries, soaring costs of living, and a political class unresponsive to their material conditions. They have read Sanders’ critiques of oligarchy and Mamdani’s analyses of state power and structural violence, and they see themselves reflected in those diagnoses. Democratic socialism appeals because it is rooted in material improvements to daily life rather than in abstract political theory. It promises a society where income does not determine survival, where education does not require lifelong debt, where parents can afford to raise children, and where basic health is not a luxury good.

People under 35 are not afraid of democratic socialism because they have already seen what the absence of a social democratic framework produces. They are not seeking revolution for its own sake. They are seeking a livable future. And increasingly, they view democratic socialism not as a radical break but as the only realistic path toward rebuilding public institutions, revitalizing democracy, and ensuring that future generations inherit a country worth living in.

Sources
Sanders, Bernie. Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In.
Sanders, Bernie. Where We Go from Here: Two Years in the Resistance.
Mamdani, Mahmood. Define and Rule: Native as Political Identity.
Mamdani, Mahmood. Neither Settler nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities.
Washington, Harriet. Medical Apartheid.
Rosenthal, Elisabeth. An American Sickness.
Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
Baldwin, Davarian. In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower.
Bousquet, Marc. How the University Works.

"ACTIVE SHOOTER" at Villanova University was a "cruel hoax."

News sources in the Philadelphia area were alerted today that there was an active shooter at Villanova University. Students received text messages and rushed for safety. About two hours later, the university President Rev. Peter M. Donohue called it a "cruel hoax."

Campus hoaxes are not mere pranks. They are crimes and a dangerous reflection of a society where the line between reality and rumor blurs under the shadow of violence. Each false alarm chips away at the sense of security that universities promise their students. Until the United States addresses the root causes of both gun violence and the culture of fear it breeds, campus hoaxes will remain part of higher education’s uneasy reality.

The Broader Context: America’s Culture of Violence

The threat of harm is not abstract. In the U.S., campus shootings have become a recurring tragedy: Virginia Tech (2007), Northern Illinois University (2008), Umpqua Community College (2015), and Michigan State (2023), among many others. This context makes hoaxes especially dangerous: police and students cannot know in the moment whether the threat is real. A single misstep could cost lives.

Accountability and Prevention

Universities and local authorities have begun tracking and prosecuting hoaxes and swatting calls, but enforcement is difficult. Prevention may require better technology, coordinated responses, and clear communication with students. Most importantly, it requires addressing the broader conditions that make both real shootings and hoaxes possible: widespread access to firearms, untreated mental illness, and a culture desensitized to violence.

August 21, 2025 Dear Members of the Villanova Community, Today, as we are celebrating Orientation Mass to welcome our newest Villanovans and their families to our community, panic and terror ensued with the news of a possible shooter at the Law School. Mercifully, no one was injured, and we now know that it was a cruel hoax—there was no active shooter, no injuries and no evidence of firearms present on campus. While that is a blessing and relief, I know today’s events have shaken our entire community.  I would like to thank everyone involved in securing the safety of our community, especially our Villanova Public Safety department and the first responders from Radnor Police and other local police departments. I would also like to thank our Orientation Counselors and all of the Villanova staff in attendance at the Orientation Mass, who responded calmly and compassionately to a very frightening and unnerving situation. Amid my thanks, I would like to apologize to our first-year students and their families. This is not the introduction to Villanova that I had hoped for you. And while I cannot do anything to relieve the unrest that you are feeling right now, I can offer a prayer. As generations of Villanovan know, this prayer is how I close Orientation Mass each year. Since we were interrupted today, I would like to offer it now. Whomever you are with, I ask that you reach out to them and repeat after me. May God bless you and protect you. May your heart and mind be united in faith so that you may be able to love wisely, work creatively, laugh heartily, and live honestly. May you use your education to bring justice and peace to the world, for the benefit of our human family and all of God’s creation. And may you always know that you are loved. Amen I am sure there will be more questions in the coming days and weeks, and we will share as much information with you as we can, but for now, I am thankful that everyone is safe.  With Caritas, Rev. Peter M. Donohue, OSA President

The Disillusioned Young Man and Higher Ed in the US

Across the United States, growing numbers of young men are dropping out—of college, of the labor market, and of public life. They are disillusioned, disappointed, and increasingly detached from the institutions that once promised stability and purpose. Higher education is at the center of this unraveling. For many young men, it has become a symbol of a broken social contract—offering neither clear direction nor tangible reward.

Enrollment numbers reflect this retreat. Women now account for nearly 60 percent of U.S. college students. Men, particularly working-class men, have been withdrawing steadily for years. They are not disappearing from education simply out of disinterest—they are being priced out, pushed out, and in some cases replaced.

College has become a high-risk gamble for those without economic security. Some students take out tens of thousands of dollars in loans and find themselves dropping out or graduating into dead-end jobs. Others gamble in a more literal sense. The explosion of online sports betting and gambling apps has created a public health crisis that is largely invisible. Research shows that college students, particularly men, are significantly more likely to develop gambling problems than the general population. Some have even used federal student aid to fund their gambling. The financial and psychological toll is severe.

Alcohol remains another outlet for despair. While binge drinking has long been part of campus life, it is now more frequently a form of self-medication than social bonding. The stresses of debt, job insecurity, isolation, and untreated mental illness have led many young men to drink excessively. The consequences—academic failure, expulsion, addiction, violence—are often invisible until they are catastrophic.

The education system offers few lifelines. Counseling services are understaffed. Mentorship is scarce. For-profit colleges and nonselective public institutions offer quick credentials but little career mobility. Internships are often unpaid. Adjunct professors, who now make up the majority of the college teaching workforce, are overworked and underpaid, with little time for student engagement. The result is an environment where young men are left to fend for themselves, often without guidance, community, or hope.

Into this vacuum step political influencers who promise meaning and belonging—but offer grievance and distraction instead. Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, has become one of the most recognizable figures appealing to disaffected young men. His message is simple: college is a scam, the system is rigged against you, and the left is to blame. But Kirk’s rhetoric does little to address real economic suffering. Instead of empowering young men with tools for analysis, organizing, or resilience, he offers them a worldview of resentment and victimhood. It's ideology without substance—an escape route that leads nowhere.

Compounding the crisis is the transformation of the U.S. labor market. Union jobs that once offered working-class men decent wages and stability have been gutted by automation, offshoring, deregulation, and union-busting campaigns. The pathways that allowed previous generations to thrive without a college degree have largely disappeared. Retail and service jobs dominate the landscape, with low pay, high turnover, and little dignity.

Meanwhile, higher education institutions have increasingly turned to international students to fill seats and boost tuition revenue. Many universities, especially at the graduate level, rely on international students—who often pay full price—to subsidize their operations. These students frequently gain access to internships, research positions, and jobs in STEM fields, sometimes edging out U.S. students with less financial or academic capital. While international students contribute intellectually and economically to American higher ed, their presence also reflects a system more concerned with revenue than with serving local and regional populations.

This mix of economic decline, addiction, alienation, and displacement has left many young men feeling irrelevant. Some turn to substances. Some drop out entirely. Others embrace simplistic ideologies that frame their loss as cultural rather than structural. But the deeper truth is this: they are caught between institutions that extract from them and influencers who exploit them.

The American higher education system has failed to adapt to the reality of millions of young men who no longer see it as a path forward. Until colleges address the psychological, social, and economic pain these men are facing—until they offer real support, purpose, and value—the disillusionment will deepen. Until labor policy creates viable alternatives through union jobs, apprenticeships, and living wages, higher education will continue to function not as a ladder of mobility but as a mirage.

Sources:
National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, Current Term Enrollment Estimates
University at Buffalo, Clinical and Research Institute on Addictions
International Center for Responsible Gaming
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance
Turning Point USA public statements and financial filings
U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics: Union Membership Data
Institute of International Education, Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange
The Higher Education Inquirer archives on student debt, labor displacement, and campus disinformation campaigns

How Neoliberalism Haunts Our Lives: 24/7/365

Neoliberalism isn’t just an economic theory or a dry policy framework. It’s a lived reality that operates around the clock, shaping our lives in ways many people don’t fully see. Neoliberalism tells us that markets solve everything, that individual responsibility trumps social solidarity, and that human worth is best measured by productivity, consumption, and credentialing. Its presence is constant—at work, in education, in healthcare, in housing, even in our relationships.

This is not a new critique. But as the 21st century drags on and late capitalism becomes more extractive, predatory, and digitally surveilled, the impacts of neoliberal ideology have intensified. For the working class, for students, for adjuncts, for debtors, for renters, and for the chronically ill, neoliberalism is not an abstraction—it is a system of permanent exhaustion.

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The Day Begins: Sleep-Deprived and Algorithmically Watched

The neoliberal day begins before the alarm rings. If you’re poor, you may be sleeping in your car or waking up in a crowded home. If you’re middle-class, the first thing you see is likely your phone, already feeding you metrics about your body (sleep scores, heart rate, missed messages). Neoliberal logic tells us our time must be optimized, even our rest must be productive.

Gig workers check their apps to see if they’ll get enough rides or orders to survive. Others log into remote jobs monitored by keystroke trackers, digital timesheets, or AI productivity tools. Control is constant, and surveillance is internalized: we discipline ourselves with planners, metrics, reminders, shame.

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Education: Credentials Over Knowledge

For students, neoliberal education is a high-cost simulation of opportunity. Degrees are sold as investments in "human capital," with ever-rising tuition and debt. Public funding is replaced by predatory loans, branding consultants, and privatized ed-tech platforms. The curriculum is shaped by market demand, not civic responsibility. Liberal arts are gutted, and adjuncts are paid poverty wages while administrators balloon in number.

The university, once imagined as a space for critical thinking and collective inquiry, is now a debt-fueled credential mill—an HR pipeline for corporations, a subscription model of social mobility that rarely delivers.

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Healthcare: A Business of Despair

Neoliberalism doesn’t take a break when you get sick. In fact, your illness becomes a profit center. In the U.S., the healthcare system is a financial trap. Insurance is often tied to employment; losing your job means losing your access to care. Big Pharma, hospital chains, and insurance conglomerates operate under the logic of maximizing shareholder value—not public health.

Even mental health is commodified. Wellness apps, “self-care” products, and Instagram therapy push the idea that individual solutions will fix systemic problems. Suffering is reframed as personal failure.

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Housing: A Market, Not a Human Right

Housing insecurity is one of neoliberalism’s clearest failures. Real estate speculation, gentrification, and the financialization of housing have made shelter a luxury good. Renters face skyrocketing costs and eviction threats, while homes sit vacant as investment vehicles.

Public housing is stigmatized and underfunded. Homelessness becomes a criminal issue instead of a humanitarian one. You’re told to “pull yourself up” while the ladder is systematically removed.

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Work and Labor: You're Always On

The 9-to-5 is no longer the norm. Neoliberal work is either hyper-precarious or all-consuming. The gig economy pretends to offer flexibility, but in practice it strips away rights, benefits, and security. Professional workers face unpaid overtime, side hustles, and an expectation of constant availability. Labor laws lag decades behind. Union-busting is normalized.

At the same time, those without work are treated with suspicion. Unemployment, disability, and even retirement are framed as moral failings or burdens on the system.

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Nightfall: No Rest for the Weary

At night, the apps don’t sleep. Your data is still harvested. Your bank is still charging fees. Your landlord’s algorithm is still adjusting rent. Your student loan is still accruing interest. Your body, overstressed and under-cared-for, begins to break down.

Even dreams aren’t free: entertainment has been colonized by neoliberal culture, feeding you aspirational lifestyles and endless content to dull your exhaustion. Everything is monetized. Everything is a subscription.

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Resistance in the Cracks

Despite its pervasiveness, neoliberalism is not invincible. People are resisting in small and large ways—through union organizing, mutual aid, alternative media, degrowth activism, and radical pedagogy. These aren’t just political choices; they are survival strategies.

But for resistance to grow, we must name the problem clearly. Neoliberalism is not just a phase of capitalism—it’s an ideology embedded in every institution and mediated by every platform. It isolates us, overworks us, and extracts from us while pretending to offer freedom and choice.

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The 24/7/365 Trap

We live in neoliberalism’s world, but we don’t have to live by its rules. That starts with refusing its myths: that poverty is personal failure, that education is a private good, that health must be earned, that the market is sacred.

As long as neoliberalism governs our lives without challenge, inequality will deepen and democracy will continue to erode. The question isn’t whether we can afford to abandon neoliberalism—the question is whether we can survive if we don’t.

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Sources:

• Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos

• David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism

• Sarah Jaffe, Work Won’t Love You Back

• Marion Fourcade and Kieran Healy, “Seeing Like a Market”

• Astra Taylor, The Age of Insecurity

• Michael Hudson, The Destiny of Civilization

• Maurizio Lazzarato, The Making of the Indebted Man

The Professor is In, 2nd Edition (Karen Kelsky)

Help The Second Edition Come Out This Fall!

By Karen Kelsky | July 1, 2025

PLEASE READ: 2nd Edition Book News and Promotion

I just got word that the second edition of The Professor Is In book – orig. planned for September – might be *delayed*!

It can’t ship out until we sell the extra inventory of the 1st edition that is still on hand at Amazon, Random House, and other sellers (about 2000 copies).

I REALLY want the second edition to come out Fall 2025 in time for its 10th anniversary, so I’m running a special promotion!

If you buy 100 (new) copies of the first edition (ie, the one that’s on sale now at Amazon, Random House, etc.) I will do a FREE 1 hour virtual talk for your department or program on any aspect of the academic or post-academic job search, grant writing, book proposals, or any other topic in my repertoire.

If you buy 200 new copies, I’ll do a full 1.5 hour virtual talk!

//Rest assured, the actual job search advice content is virtually unchanged between the two editions! So the first edition remains 100% effective for anyone seeking an academic job in 2025. (For reference, the big difference in the second ed., is in the wider contextualization of this advice – deteriorating conditions of academic labor, attacks on tenure and DEI, considerations for marginalized job seekers around issues of disability, gay and trans identity, BIPOC identity, and mental illness and neurodivergency, making the decision to leave, and above all, prioritizing your personal health and well-being). The one chapter of advice that has been entirely rewritten is the one on “What to Wear”, and I’m happy to send along pdfs of that chapter to anyone who participates in this promotion and wants the updated fashion advice!//

But wait, there’s more! 🙂

If you buy 50 books, I will do a 30 minute Q & A with your class or program.

If you buy 25, I’ll give you a discounted rate for a virtual or in person talk.

And if you buy 1 to 10 copies, send me the receipt (at gettenure@gmail.com) and I’ll put you in a drawing for a free suite of services – editing your job or grant documents, doing a zoom consultation with me, etc. – worth $500! You will get as many entries as copies you buy, up to 10.

Of course, if you’re a Dean or Provost and want to buy 1000+ copies for all the grad students in your college … well, DM me and let’s talk! I’d be glad to reciprocate in some big way that benefits your program.

Thanks, and please share widely! I hope together we can get this done!

Filed Under: Academic Job Search, Alt-University Critique, Marginalized Voices, Mental Health and Academia, Post-Ac Job Search

Medicaid Cuts Threaten Medical and Mental Health Providers Dependent on Medicaid — and Graduates of Online “Robocolleges”

As states grapple with budget shortfalls and federal funding shifts, Medicaid—the nation’s largest public health insurance program—faces potential cuts that could severely impact medical and mental health providers who depend heavily on Medicaid reimbursements. This looming threat not only jeopardizes access to critical healthcare services but also risks destabilizing the very providers that serve some of the most vulnerable populations in the United States.

Medicaid: A Lifeline for Providers and Patients

Medicaid covers over 80 million Americans, including low-income families, people with disabilities, and seniors. For many medical and mental health providers, Medicaid reimbursements constitute a significant portion of their revenue. Clinics in underserved areas, community health centers, and behavioral health providers often rely on Medicaid funding to stay afloat.

The federal-state partnership funds Medicaid, but states have discretion in determining eligibility and reimbursement rates. When states face fiscal pressures, cutting Medicaid funding or tightening reimbursement rates is often considered a quick fix.

The Domino Effect of Medicaid Cuts

Cuts to Medicaid funding translate directly into lower payments to providers. Unlike private insurance, Medicaid rates are often already low. Further reductions can mean providers lose money on each Medicaid patient treated.

This financial strain can force clinics and mental health programs to:

• Reduce services or limit patient intake

• Cut staff, including essential behavioral health professionals

• Close locations, especially in rural or underserved areas

These outcomes create barriers for patients who already face challenges accessing care. Individuals with serious mental illness, chronic conditions, or disabilities are particularly at risk of losing consistent care.

Impact on Medical Education and Training

Medicaid cuts can also disrupt medical and mental health education programs affiliated with teaching hospitals and universities. These programs often serve Medicaid patients in their clinical training sites. Reduced funding means fewer training opportunities for students and residents, potentially exacerbating workforce shortages in critical health fields.

Mental Health Providers: A Vulnerable Sector

Mental health providers are especially vulnerable to Medicaid cuts. Behavioral health services are frequently underfunded compared to general medical care. Medicaid often serves as the primary payer for mental health treatment, including therapy, psychiatric care, and substance use disorder programs.

Cuts could reduce access to outpatient therapy, crisis intervention, and community-based services, worsening outcomes for people with mental health conditions. The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the urgent need for robust mental health infrastructure, and cuts threaten to reverse progress made.

Robocollege Graduates: An Overlooked Impact

Another group at risk from Medicaid cuts are recent graduates of online for-profit colleges, sometimes disparagingly called "robocolleges." These institutions often produce graduates with degrees in healthcare-related fields such as nursing, health administration, or medical assisting.

Many of these graduates rely on Medicaid-funded healthcare settings for employment. Clinics and community health centers that serve Medicaid patients are common entry points for these workers. Cuts in Medicaid funding could lead to reduced hiring or layoffs in these settings, disproportionately affecting graduates struggling to launch their careers.

Moreover, the limited job security and lower wages typical of such entry-level positions compound the economic challenges for these workers, many of whom already face significant student debt and limited career mobility.

Broader Social and Economic Consequences

Limiting access to healthcare and mental health services has far-reaching consequences beyond individual health. Untreated illness can lead to increased hospitalizations, emergency room visits, and interactions with the criminal justice system. These outcomes are far more costly to society than preventative or ongoing care.

Policy Recommendations

To protect the health and stability of vulnerable populations, the providers who serve them, and entry-level healthcare workers including robocollege graduates, policymakers should:

• Avoid disproportionate Medicaid cuts that undermine care quality

• Invest in community health centers and behavioral health programs

• Maintain adequate reimbursement rates to sustain provider networks and employment

• Support integrated care models that combine physical and mental health services

• Consider workforce development initiatives that support graduates entering Medicaid-funded care settings

Medicaid is a cornerstone of America’s healthcare safety net, especially for medical and mental health providers serving those in greatest need. Cuts to Medicaid funding threaten not only provider viability but the health and well-being of millions—including the newest healthcare workers striving to build careers. As budget debates continue, preserving and strengthening Medicaid funding is essential to ensuring equitable access to quality care and supporting the providers and workforce on the front lines.

Frances Perkins, Secretary if Labor (Friday's Labor Folklore)

View and share as a webpage. Friday's Labor Folklore

Thank you Frances Perkins! First Woman Cabinet Secretary Longest-serving Secretary of Labor Key Architect of the New Deal

"I came to Washington to work for God, FDR and the millions of forgotten, plain common working men."

Born in Boston, Mass. (1880) and graduated high school in Worcester. Earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry and physics from Mount Holyoke College where she became involved in progressive politics and the suffrage movement. Held a variety of teaching positions and volunteered at settlement houses, including Hull House in Chicago, where she worked with Jane Addams. She moved to Philadelphia where she worked as a social worker and enrolled in the Wharton School where she studied economics. Moved to Greenwich Village, where she attended Columbia University, earning a master's degree in 1910. She became active in the suffrage movement, speaking on street corners and attending protests.

Achieved statewide prominence as head of the New York office of the National Consumers League where she lobbied for better working hours and conditions. As a professor of sociology she taught classes at Adelphi College. She witnessed the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, a pivotal event in her life. As the appointed head of the Committee on Safety of the City of New York she promoted fire safety; in 1912 she was instrumental in getting the New York legislature to pass a "54-hour bill" capping the number of hours women and children could work.

She married Paul Caldwell Wilson, an economist and was insistent on keeping her birth name. Gave birth to a daughter, Susanna, in 1916. Throughout the remainder of her marriage her husband would be institutionalized frequently for mental illness. She supported herself and raised their young daughter alone. In 1929 New York governor Franklin Roosevelt appointed her as the state's Industrial Commissioner where she championed the minimum wage, unemployment insurance, workplace health and safety and an end to child labor. In 1933 President Franklin Roosevelt appointed her the Secretary of Labor becoming the first woman to hold a cabinet position in the United States. She helped shape the New Deal, working to design and implement the Social Security Act of 1935.

She helped millions of people get back to work during the Great Depression and she fought for the rights of workers to organize and bargain collectively. Was the longest-serving Secretary of Labor (12 years) whose successful programs were supported consistently by President Roosevelt. Following her career in government service she remained active as a teacher and lecturer until her death in 1965, at age 85. In 1980 President Jimmy Carter named the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Labor as "The Frances Perkins Department of Labor Building." On Dec. 16, 2024 President Joe Biden designated the Frances Perkins Homestead National Historic Landmark in Newcastle, Maine. President Biden's designation was issued as he directed in Executive Order 14121, Recognizing and Honoring Women's History (March 27, 2024).

In 1933, Roosevelt summoned Perkins to ask her to join his cabinet. Perkins presented Roosevelt with a long list of labor programs for which she would fight, from Social Security to minimum wage. "Nothing like this has ever been done in the United States before," she told Roosevelt. "You know that, don’t you?" (Wikipedia)

from the play I Am Not Content an Hour with Frances Perkins by Stephen LaRocque ------------------------ A staged reading by Kathie Mack (video : 1.51 min.)

Thank You Frances Perkins (song : 2.21 min.) by Austin Moffa

Friday's Labor Folklore Saul Schniderman, Editor forward to a friend

Sources from which I summarized, paraphrased or quoted directly: Wikipedia, "President Biden designates Frances Perkins homestead as new national monument," press release, 12/16/2022; Executive Order 14121, Section 3a report, Dec. 2024; Hall of Secretaries, U. S. Dept. of Labor.