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 publications, 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. 

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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

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   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), Aaron Glantz, 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

Higher Education Without Illusions

In 2025, the landscape of higher education is dominated by contradictions, crises, and the relentless churn of what might be called “collegemania.” Underneath the polished veneer of university marketing—the glossy brochures, viral TikToks, and celebrity endorsements—lurks a network of systemic pressures that students, faculty, and society at large must navigate. The hashtags trending below the masthead of Higher Education Without Illusions capture the full spectrum of these pressures: #accountability, #adjunct, #AI, #AImeltdown, #algo, #alienation, #anomie, #anxiety, #austerity, #BDR, #bot, #boycott, #BRICS, #climate, #collegemania, #collegemeltdown, #crypto, #divest, #doomloop, #edugrift, #enshittification, #FAFSA, #greed, #incel, #jobless, #kleptocracy, #medugrift, #moralcapital, #nokings, #nonviolence, #PSLF, #QOL, #rehumanization, #resistance, #robocollege, #robostudent, #roboworker, #solidarity, #strikedebt, #surveillance, #temperance, #TPUSA, #transparency, #Trump, #veritas.

Taken together, these words map the terrain of higher education as it exists today: a fragile ecosystem strained by debt, automation, political polarization, and climate urgency. Students are increasingly treated as commodities (#robostudent, #strikedebt), faculty are underpaid and precarious (#adjunct, #medugrift), and universities themselves are subjected to the whims of markets and algorithms (#algo, #AImeltdown, #robocollege).

Financial pressures are unrelenting. The FAFSA system, once intended as a bridge to opportunity, now functions as a tool of surveillance and debt management (#FAFSA, #BDR). Public service loan forgiveness (#PSLF) continues to be delayed or denied, leaving graduates to navigate the twin anxieties of indebtedness and joblessness (#jobless, #doomloop). Meanwhile, austerity measures squeeze institutional budgets, often at the expense of research, mental health support, and academic freedom (#austerity, #anomie, #anxiety).

Automation and artificial intelligence are now central to the higher education ecosystem. AI grading tools, predictive enrollment algorithms, and administrative bots promise efficiency but often produce alienation and ethical dilemmas (#AI, #AImeltdown, #roboworker, #bot). In this context, “robocollege” is not a metaphor but a lived reality for many students navigating hyper-digitized classrooms where human mentorship is increasingly rare.

Political and cultural currents further complicate the picture. From the influence of conservative campus organizations (#TPUSA, #Trump) to global shifts in power (#BRICS), universities are battlegrounds for ideological and material stakes. Moral capital—the credibility and legitimacy of an institution—is increasingly intertwined with corporate sponsorships, divestment movements, and climate commitments (#moralcapital, #divest, #climate). At the same time, greed and kleptocracy (#greed, #kleptocracy) permeate administration and policy decisions, eroding trust in higher education’s social mission.

Yet amid this bleakness, there are threads of resistance and rehumanization. Student debt strikes, faculty solidarity networks, and advocacy for transparency (#strikedebt, #solidarity, #transparency, #rehumanization) reveal a persistent desire to reclaim the university as a space of collective flourishing rather than pure financial extraction. Nonviolence (#nonviolence), temperance (#temperance), and boycotts (#boycott) reflect strategic, principled responses to systemic crises, even as anxiety and alienation persist.

Ultimately, higher education without illusions demands that we confront both the structural and human dimensions of its crises. Universities are not just engines of credentialing and profit—they are social institutions embedded in broader networks of power, ideology, and technology. A recognition of #veritas and #QOL (quality of life) alongside the demands of #collegemania and #enshittification is essential for any hope of reform.

The hashtags are more than social media markers—they are diagnostics. They chart a system in flux, exposing the frictions between automation and humanity, austerity and access, greed and moral responsibility. They call on all of us—students, educators, policymakers, and citizens—to act with accountability, solidarity, and courage.

Higher education without illusions is not pessimism; it is clarity. Only by naming the pressures and contradictions can we begin to imagine institutions that serve human flourishing rather than perpetuate cycles of debt, alienation, and social inequality.

Sources & Further Reading:

• An American Sickness, Elisabeth Rosenthal

• Medical Apartheid, Harriet Washington

• Body and Soul, Alondra Nelson

• HEI coverage of student debt, adjunct labor, and AI in higher education

Robocolleges, Artificial Intelligence, and the Dehumanization of Higher Education

In 2019, the Higher Education Inquirer began writing about the ruthless automation of academic work. We were looking for information on how the ideas of Frederick Taylor and his intellectual progeny (e.g. Harvard Business School's Clayton Christensen) resulted in an academic assembly line for low-grade higher education.  A subprime education for the masses. 

It was obvious that large for-profit colleges had been divesting in academic labor for decades, replacing full-time instructors with adjunct faculty. And they eventually replaced thousands of physical learning sites with exclusively online learning. Over time, content creators and other ghost workers replaced adjuncts. And the remaining adjuncts worked as deskilled labor. Shareholder profits, and branding, advertising, and enrollment numbers were more important than student outcomes. 

Two years later we used the terms "robocollege" and "robostudent" to acknowledge the extent of dehumanization in higher education. We noted that this process was taking place not only at for-profit colleges, but shadow for-profits, mid-rung state-run schools--and even at more elite schools who were looking for increased profits. 

Community colleges continue to dehumanize significant portions of their adjunct workforces with low pay and precarity. Online education makes it more alienating but more convenient for working folks. 

Expensive public and private universities continue to use grad assistants, lecturers, and other adjunct instructors in high-tech lecture halls. Classes almost as alienating and unproductive as online instruction.     

Over the last four decades, thousands of satellite campuses have closed across the US, making local connections less possible. Night schools at the local high school are a thing of the past.

For-profit Online Program Managers (OPMs) like Academic Partnerships and 2U recruit students for regional and elite state universities and private schools--hoping to profit from the growth of online education. But learning outcomes, completion rates, and debt-to-earnings ratios may be riskier bets for consumers choosing to take the more convenient and seemingly cheaper online route.  

Studies indicate that medical school students in face-to-face programs fall short in empathy.  So what can we expect from online instruction in education, nursing, psychology, social work, and other professions where empathy is necessary?   

Where does the process of dehumanization stop in US higher education?  It's difficult to believe that an extension of all this automation, artificial intelligence, will make human existence more humane for the masses--not under our current political economy that values greed and excess.  

It doesn't appear that accreditors, government agencies, labor unions, the media, or higher ed institutions themselves are deeply interested in countering these technological trends--or even in understanding its consequences.  It could be argued that this new wave of education serves US elites well by delivering subprime outcomes: making the "educated underclass" easier to control and less able to compete. 

Academic labor has had a few recent wins at a few brand name public universities but this seems less likely to occur where the labor supply is less valued. 

The numbers of full-time faculty continue to drop at robocolleges.  And where there are already few full-time faculty, US workers at Southern New Hampshire University and Purdue Global are being replaced by cheap academic labor working remotely from India.  This itself may only be a stop gap as artificial intelligence replaces intellectual labor.  

How about other private and state run schools in decline?  Will they follow the same desperate path of dehumanization to stem the bleeding?

What lies ahead for online students?  If student-consumers are merely present to acquire or upgrade credentials, why won't they use AI and other methods to escalate levels of intellectual dishonesty?  For those who are unemployed or underemployed, is returning to online education worth the financial risk and the time away from work, friends, and family?  Will their educational work be obsolete before they can put it to good use?  

Related links: 

The Higher Education Assembly Line

The Growth of "RoboColleges" and "Robostudents"

College Meltdown 2.2: Who’s Minding the Store?

State Universities and the College Meltdown

Sharing a Dataset of Program-Level Debt and Earnings Outcomes (Robert Kelchen) 

OPM Market Landscape And Dynamics: Spring 2023 Updates (Phil Hill)

Cheating Giant Chegg, Shrinks (Derek Newton)