The College Meltdown: A Retrospective

[In 2017, we collaborated with Crush the Street on a video describing the College Meltdown.]  

“Education is not merely a credentialing system; it is a humanizing act that fosters connection, purpose, and community.”

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Origins

The College Meltdown began in the mid-2010s as a blog chronicling the slow collapse of U.S. higher education. Rising tuition, mounting student debt, and corporatization were visible signs, but the deeper crisis was structural: the erosion of public accountability and mission.

By 2015, the warning signs were unmistakable to us. On some campuses, student spaces were closed to host corporate “best practices” conferences. At many schools, adjunct instructors carried the bulk of teaching responsibilities, often without benefits, while administrators celebrated innovation. Higher education was quietly being reshaped to benefit corporations over students and communities — a true meltdown.

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Patterns of the Meltdown

Enrollment in U.S. colleges began declining as early as 2011, reflecting broader demographic shifts: fewer children entering the system and a growing population of older adults. Small colleges, community colleges, and regional public universities were hardest hit, while flagship institutions consolidated wealth and prestige.

Corporate intermediaries known as Online Program Managers (OPMs) managed recruitment, marketing, and course design, taking large portions of tuition while universities retained risk. Fully automated robocolleges emerged, relying on AI-driven templates, predictive analytics, and outsourced grading. While efficient, these systems dehumanized education: students became data points, faculty became monitors, and mentorship disappeared.

“Robocolleges and AI-driven systems reduce humans to data points — an education stripped of connection is no education at all.”

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Feeding the AI Beast

As part of our effort to reclaim knowledge and influence public discourse, we actively contributed to Wikipedia. Over the years, we made more than 12,000 edits on higher education topics, ensuring accurate documentation of predatory practices, adjunct labor, OPMs, and corporatization. These edits both informed the public and, inadvertently, fed the AI beast — large language models and AI systems that scrape Wikipedia for training data now reflect our work, amplifying it in ways we could never have predicted.

“By documenting higher education rigorously, we shaped both public knowledge and the datasets powering AI systems — turning transparency into a tool of influence.”

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Anxiety, Anomie, and Alienation

The College Meltdown documented the mental health toll of these transformations. Rising anxiety, feelings of anomie, and widespread alienation were linked to AI reliance, dehumanized classrooms, insecure faculty labor, and societal pressures. Students felt like credential seekers; faculty suffered burnout.

“Addressing the psychological and social effects of dehumanized education is essential for ethical recovery.”

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Trump, Anti-Intellectualism, and Fear in the Era of Neoliberalism

The project also addressed the broader political and social climate. The Trump era brought rising anti-intellectualism, skepticism toward expertise, and a celebration of market logic over civic and moral education. For many, it was an era of fear: fear of surveillance, fear of litigation, fear of being marginalized in a rapidly corporatized, AI-driven educational system. Neoliberal policies exacerbated these pressures, emphasizing privatization, metrics, and competition over community and care.

“Living under Trump-era neoliberalism, with AI monitoring, corporate oversight, and mass surveillance, education became a space of anxiety as much as learning.”

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Quality of Life and the Call for Rehumanization

Education should serve human well-being, not just revenue. The blog emphasized Quality of Life and advocated for Rehumanization — restoring mentorship, personal connection, and ethical engagement.

“Rehumanization is not a luxury; it is the foundation of meaningful learning.”

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FOIA Requests and Whistleblowers

From the start, The College Meltdown relied on evidence-based reporting. FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests were used to obtain internal communications, budgets, and regulatory filings, shining light on opaque practices. Whistleblowers, including adjunct faculty and staff at universities and OPMs, provided firsthand testimony of misconduct, financial malfeasance, and educational dehumanization. Their courage was central to the project’s mission of transparency and accountability.

“Insider testimony and public records revealed the hidden forces reshaping higher education, from corporate influence to predatory practices.”

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Historical Sociology: Understanding the Systemic Collapse

The importance of historical sociology cannot be overstated in analyzing the decline of higher education. By examining the evolution of educational systems, we can identify patterns of inequality, the concentration of power, and the commodification of knowledge. Historical sociology provides the tools to understand how past decisions and structures have led to the current crisis.

“Historical sociology reveals, defines, and formulates patterns of social development, helping us understand the systemic forces at play in education.”

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Naming Bad Actors: Accountability and Reform

A critical aspect of The College Meltdown was the emphasis on naming bad actors — identifying and holding accountable those responsible for the exploitation and degradation of higher education. This included:

• University Administrators: Prioritizing profit over pedagogy.

• Corporate Entities: Robocolleges and OPMs profiting at the expense of educational quality.

• Political Figures and Ultraconservatives: Promoting policies that undermined public education and anti-intellectualism.

“Holding bad actors accountable is essential for meaningful reform and the restoration of education's ethical purpose.”

[In 2016, we called out several bad actors in for-profit higher education, including CEOs Jack Massimino, Kevin Modany, and Todd Nelson.] 

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Existential Aspects of Climate Change

The blog also examined the existential dimensions of climate change. Students and faculty face a dual challenge: preparing for uncertain futures while witnessing environmental degradation accelerate. Higher education itself is implicated, both as a contributor through consumption and as a forum for solutions. The looming climate crisis intensifies anxiety, alienation, and the urgency for ethical, human-centered education.

“Climate change makes the stakes of education existential: our survival, our knowledge, and our moral responsibility are intertwined.”

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Mass Speculation and Financialization

Another critical theme explored was mass speculation and financialization. The expansion of student debt markets, tuition-backed bonds, and corporate investments in higher education transformed students into financial instruments. These speculative dynamics mirrored broader economic instability, creating both a moral and systemic crisis for the educational sector.

“When education becomes a commodity for speculation, learning, mentorship, and ethical development are subordinated to profit and risk metrics.”

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Coverage of Protests and Nonviolent Resistance

The College Meltdown documented student and faculty resistance: tuition protests, adjunct labor actions, and campaigns against predatory OPM arrangements. Nonviolent action was central: teach-ins, sit-ins, and organized campaigns demonstrated moral authority and communal solidarity in the face of systemic pressures, litigation, and corporate intimidation.

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Collaboration and Resistance

Glen McGhee provided exceptional guidance, connecting insights on systemic collapse, inequality, and credential inflation. Guest authors contributed across disciplines and movements, making the blog a living archive of accountability and solidarity:

Guest Contributors:
Bryan Alexander, Ann Bowers, James Michael Brodie, Randall Collins, Garrett Fitzgerald, Erica Gallagher, Henry Giroux, David Halperin, Bill Harrington, Phil Hill, Robert Jensen, Hank Kalet, Neil Kraus, the LACCD Whistleblower, Wendy Lynne Lee, Annelise Orleck, Robert Kelchen, Debbi Potts, Jack Metzger, Derek Newton, Gary Roth, Mark Salisbury, Gary Stocker, Harry Targ, Heidi Weber, Richard Wolff, and Helena Worthen.

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Lessons from the Meltdown

The crisis was systemic. Technology amplified inequality. Corporate higher education rebranded rather than reformed. Adjunctification and labor precarity became normalized. Communities of color and working-class students suffered disproportionately.

Dehumanization emerged as a central theme. AI, automation, and robocolleges prioritized efficiency over mentorship, data over dialogue, and systems over human relationships. Rising anxiety, anomie, and alienation reflected the human toll.

“Rehumanization, mentorship, community, transparency, ethical accountability, and ecological awareness are essential to restore meaningful higher education.”

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Looking Forward

As higher education entered the Trump era, its future remained uncertain. Students, faculty, and communities faced fear under neoliberal policies, AI-driven monitoring, mass surveillance, litigation pressures, ultraconservative influence, climate crises, and financial speculation. Will universities reclaim their role as public goods, or continue as commodified services? The College Meltdown stands as a testament to those who resisted dehumanization and anti-intellectualism. It also calls for Quality of Life, ethical practice, mental well-being, environmental responsibility, and Rehumanization, ensuring education serves the whole person, not just the bottom line. 

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Sources and References

• Washington, Harriet A. Medical Apartheid. Doubleday, 2006.

• Rosenthal, Elisabeth. An American Sickness. Penguin, 2017.

• Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Crown, 2010.

• Nelson, Alondra. Body and Soul. University of Minnesota Press, 2011.

• Paucek, Chip. “2U and the Growth of OPMs.” EdSurge, 2021. link

• Ravitch, Diane. The Death and Life of the Great American School System. Basic Books, 2010.

• Alexander, Bryan. Academia Next. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020.

• U.S. Department of Education. “Closed School Information.” 2016–2020. link

• Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Student Debt Statistics, 2024. link

• Wayback Machine Archive of College Meltdown Blog: link

Buyer Beware: Why All Schools and Majors Carry Risk — and Why HBCUs Deserve Better

For decades, American students have been told that higher education is the surest ticket to success. Families invest years of savings—or mountains of debt—into a degree, believing it will guarantee upward mobility. But the reality of U.S. higher education in 2025 is far more complex and far less secure. Buyer beware applies not only to shady for-profits or obscure degree programs, but to all schools and all majors.

And within this uneven playing field, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) face a double bind: undervalued by mainstream rankings and underfunded by the very systems that claim to promote equity.

The Myth of the Golden Ticket

The dominant narrative says: “Go to college, pick the right major, and you’ll be fine.” Politicians repeat it. Universities market it. Parents cling to it. But the promise of a guaranteed return on investment has eroded.

• Student loan debt now exceeds $1.7 trillion.

• Nearly 40% of college graduates work in jobs that don’t require a degree, according to the Federal Reserve.

• Wages for many majors have stagnated, while housing, healthcare, and childcare costs soar.

Even high-demand majors like computer science or nursing come with risks: market saturation, burnout, and outsourcing.

No School Is Immune

Elite schools tout prestige, but that does not insulate graduates from financial stress. Many Ivy League students leave with heavy debt burdens, particularly those without family wealth. Alumni networks can open doors, but they cannot protect against systemic shocks like housing bubbles, pandemics, or global financial crises.

Regional public universities and community colleges provide affordable pathways, but decades of state disinvestment have left many underfunded. For-profits, meanwhile, continue to lure vulnerable students with aggressive marketing and dubious job-placement claims.

And HBCUs—often with smaller endowments and student populations that are more likely to be first-generation and lower-income—have been penalized by these very dynamics, despite their outsized impact.

Every Major Carries Risk

STEM fields are not immune to volatility. Tech layoffs in 2023–2024 showed that even software engineers can face sudden unemployment. Nursing and teaching, often called “recession-proof,” are plagued with overwork, poor pay, and high attrition.

Meanwhile, students in the arts, humanities, and social sciences face the stigma of “low ROI” degrees, even though their fields foster critical thinking, creativity, and civic engagement—the very qualities society desperately needs.

The truth is that all majors are shaped by larger economic forces—automation, globalization, financial speculation, climate disruption—that no individual student can control.

The HBCU Paradox

While all students must be cautious about the promises of higher ed, HBCUs offer something mainstream rankings often ignore: real impact in social mobility and professional pipelines.

• According to the National Science Foundation, nearly 25% of African American graduates with STEM bachelor’s degrees earned them at HBCUs.

• More than half of African American doctors and lawyers received their undergraduate degrees at HBCUs.

• A 2021 Brookings study concluded that HBCUs are “engines of upward mobility,” moving low-income students into higher income brackets at rates equal to or exceeding elite institutions.

Yet, systems like U.S. News & World Report, Forbes, QS, and Times Higher Education continue to underrate HBCUs because their metrics reward institutional wealth and exclusivity, not educational value.

By contrast, Washington Monthly, which measures social mobility, research benefiting society, and community service, consistently ranks HBCUs higher. Their success under these fairer metrics demonstrates how skewed the mainstream rankings truly are.

What Prospective Students Should Ask

Whether applying to an Ivy League university, a regional public, a for-profit, or an HBCU, students should treat college as a major financial investment. That means asking hard questions:

• What is the total cost of attendance after aid?

• What percentage of graduates find full-time work in their field within two years?

• What is the median debt load of graduates—and the median salary five and ten years after?

• What percentage of students drop out before graduating?

• How transparent is the school about these outcomes?

A System in Need of Reform

Ultimately, the “buyer beware” crisis in higher education is not about students making poor choices. It is about a system that pushes risk onto individuals while rewarding wealth and privilege.

HBCUs prove that institutions with fewer resources can deliver extraordinary results for students and society. But until rankings, funding formulas, and public policy recognize that value, students across the board will continue to shoulder the risks of a speculative credential market.

In today’s higher education economy, buyer beware applies to all schools and all majors—but students and society alike would be better served if we valued institutions, like HBCUs, that truly deliver on the promise of access and upward mobility.

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Sources:

• Federal Reserve Bank of New York (2023). Labor Market Outcomes of College Graduates.

• Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce (2022). ROI of College Majors.

• National Center for Education Statistics (2024). Student Loan Debt and Repayment.

• Brookings Institution (2021). The Economic Mobility of Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

• UNCF (2020). HBCUs Make America Strong: The Positive Economic Impact of Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

• Washington Monthly (2024). National University Rankings.

• National Science Foundation (2022). Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering.

Should Elites Get Bailed Out Again?

In 1929, when the stock market crashed, millions of Americans were plunged into unemployment, hunger, and despair. Yet the elites of Wall Street—whose reckless speculation fueled the disaster—often landed softly. By 1933, as the Great Depression deepened, nearly a quarter of the U.S. workforce was unemployed, thousands of banks had failed, and working families bore the brunt of the collapse. Ordinary people endured soup lines, Dust Bowl migration, and generational poverty. The government of Franklin D. Roosevelt eventually stepped in with reforms and safeguards like the FDIC and Glass-Steagall, but not before working-class Americans had paid the heaviest price.

Fast forward to 2008, when the global financial system once again teetered on collapse. This time, instead of letting the failures run their course, the U.S. government rushed to bail out Wall Street banks, auto manufacturers, and other corporate giants deemed “too big to fail.” Banks survived, CEOs kept their bonuses, and investors were shielded. Meanwhile, millions of working-class families lost their homes, jobs, and savings. Student loan borrowers, particularly those from working-class and minority backgrounds, never got a bailout. Adjunct faculty, contract workers, and gig laborers were left to navigate economic insecurity without systemic relief.

The pandemic brought the same story in a new form. Corporate bailouts, Federal Reserve interventions, and stimulus packages stabilized markets far more effectively than they stabilized households. Wall Street bounced back faster than Main Street. By 2021, the wealth of America’s billionaires had surged by more than $1.8 trillion, while ordinary workers struggled with eviction threats, childcare crises, and medical debt.

But the stakes are even higher today. U.S. elites are not only repeating past mistakes—they are doubling down on mass speculation across crypto, real estate, and equity markets. The rise and collapse of speculative cryptocurrencies revealed how wealth can be created and destroyed almost overnight, with everyday investors bearing the losses while venture capitalists and insiders cashed out early. Real estate speculation has driven housing prices beyond the reach of millions of working families, fueling homelessness and displacement. Equity markets, inflated by cheap debt and stock buybacks, have become disconnected from the real economy, rewarding executives while leaving workers behind.

This speculative frenzy is not just an economic issue—it is an environmental one. Fossil fuel corporations and their financiers continue to reap profits from industries that accelerate climate change, deforestation, and resource depletion. The destruction of ecosystems, the intensification of climate disasters, and the burden of environmental cleanup all fall disproportionately on working-class and marginalized communities. Yet when markets wobble, it is these same polluting elites who position themselves first in line for government protection.

The Federal Reserve has played a decisive role in this cycle. By keeping interest rates artificially low for years, it fueled debt-driven speculation in housing, equities, and corporate borrowing. When inflation spiked, the Fed shifted gears, raising rates at the fastest pace in decades. This brought pain to households through higher mortgage costs, rising credit card balances, and job insecurity—but banks and investment firms continued to receive lifelines through emergency lending facilities. The Fed’s interventions have too often prioritized elite stability over working-class survival.

Political leadership has compounded the problem. Under Donald Trump's first term, deregulation accelerated, with key provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act rolled back in 2018. Banks gained greater leeway to take risks, and oversight of mid-sized institutions weakened—a decision that later contributed to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in 2023. Trump’s tax cuts overwhelmingly favored corporations and the wealthy, further concentrating wealth at the top while leaving the federal government less able to respond to future crises. In his second term, Trump and his allies signal that they would pressure the Fed to prioritize markets over workers and strip down remaining regulatory guardrails.

The logic of endless bailouts assumes that the survival of elites ensures the survival of the economy. But history proves otherwise. Whether in 1929, 2008, or 2020, the repeated subsidization of corporations and financial elites entrenches inequality, fuels reckless risk-taking, and leaves working families with the bill. The banks, crypto funds, and private equity firms that profit most during boom times rarely share their gains, yet they demand protection in busts.

And the problem is no longer just domestic—it is geopolitical. While U.S. elites depend on bailouts, rival powers are recalibrating. China is building alternative banking systems through the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Belt and Road Initiative. Russia, sanctioned by the West, is tightening its economic ties with China and other non-Western states. India and Brazil, key players in the BRICS bloc, are exploring alternatives to U.S. dollar dominance. If the U.S. continues to subsidize private failure with public money, it risks undermining its own global credibility and ceding economic leadership to rivals.

National security is directly tied to economic and environmental stability. A U.S. that repeatedly bails out elites while leaving ordinary citizens vulnerable erodes trust not only at home but abroad. Allies may question American leadership, while adversaries see opportunity in its fragility. If the U.S. financial system is perceived as permanently rigged—propping up elites while disempowering its workforce—it will accelerate the shift of global influence toward China, Russia, India, and Brazil.

Perhaps it’s time to let the system fail—not in the sense of mass suffering for ordinary people, but in the sense of refusing to cushion elites from the consequences of their own decisions. If banks gamble recklessly, let them face bankruptcy. If private equity firms strip-mine industries, let them collapse under their own weight. If universities chase speculative growth with predatory lending and overpriced credentials, let them answer for it in the courts of law and public opinion.

Failure, though painful, can also be cleansing. Without bailouts, institutions would be forced to reckon with structural flaws instead of papering them over. Alternatives could emerge: community-based credit unions, worker-owned cooperatives, public higher education funded for the public good rather than private profit, and serious investment in green energy and sustainable development.

The real question is not whether elites deserve another bailout. The real question is whether the United States can afford to keep subsidizing them while undermining its working class, its environment, and its national security. For too long, workers, students, and families have shouldered the costs of elite failure. The survival of the U.S. economy—and its place in the world—may depend not on saving elites, but on building something stronger and fairer in their place.

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Sources:

• Congressional Budget Office, The 2008 Financial Crisis and Federal Response

• Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Bank Failures During the Great Depression

• Institute for Policy Studies, Billionaire Wealth Surge During COVID-19

• Federal Reserve, Monetary Policy and Emergency Lending Facilities

• Brookings Institution, Bailouts and Moral Hazard

• BRICS Policy Center, Alternative Financial Governance Structures

• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Climate Change 2023 Synthesis Report

• National Association of Realtors, Housing Affordability Data

• Public Law 115-174, Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act (2018)

Casino Colleges: How Higher Education Mirrors a Vegas-Style Economy

Higher education in the United States has become its own high-stakes game, where students—particularly those from working-class backgrounds—risk their futures on degrees that may never deliver the promised payoff. Like Las Vegas, the system thrives on speculation, scams, and extraction, creating a casino economy in which the house almost always wins.

The dynamics at play in universities mirror those of Las Vegas. Tuition fees have tripled over the last two decades, and in 2025, outstanding student loan debt in the U.S. exceeds $1.9 trillion, carried by over 45 million borrowers. For many graduates, the return on investment is uncertain: nearly 40% of college-educated workers report being in jobs they do not enjoy or that do not require a degree.

Las Vegas itself provides a cautionary tale. The city’s economy depends on high-risk speculation, from manipulated gaming odds to predatory pricing and real estate bubbles. Hospitality and gaming workers are trapped in precarious jobs, and tourists are increasingly voicing dissatisfaction with hidden fees and scams. The parallels with higher education are striking: both systems rely on extracting value from participants while minimizing risk for those in control.

Labor unrest in both arenas highlights the human cost. University adjuncts, graduate assistants, and service staff face low pay, unpredictable schedules, and limited benefits—even as administrators and shareholders reap the gains. Similarly, culinary and hospitality workers in Vegas struggle under similar dynamics, a reminder that exploitation scales across sectors.

Casino capitalism—the U.S. default—demonstrates that short-term profits often trump long-term stability. In higher education, the consequences include credential inflation, student debt crises, and a growing divide between those who can gamble successfully and those for whom the system is rigged. Just as Vegas may eventually face a tourist backlash, higher education risks a reckoning if working-class students continue to shoulder the losses of a speculative system.

In this economy, whether the stakes are on the strip or in the classroom, the house may always win—but only until the players refuse to play.

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Sources

• Higher Education Inquirer. “The Student Debt Crisis and For-Profit Colleges.” HEI, 2024. https://www.highereducationinquirer.org/2024/02/the-student

• Higher Education Inquirer. “Elite Universities on Lockdown: Labor, Debt, and Exploitation.” HEI, 2024. https://www.highereducationinquirer.org/2024/09/elite-universities-on-lockdown.html

• Higher Education Inquirer. “Elite University Presidents: Most Hated and Least Trusted.” HEI, 2025. https://www.highereducationinquirer.org/2025/02/elite-university-presidents-most-hated.html

• Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. “Student Loans and Household Debt Statistics.” 2025. https://fred.stlouisfed.org

• Pew Research Center. “Job Satisfaction and College Graduates in the U.S.” 2025. https://www.pewresearch.org

Investor Frenzy and Higher Education: Why a P/E Ratio of 30 Matters Beyond Wall Street

The U.S. stock market is approaching a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 30, a threshold that has historically signaled overvaluation and preceded major downturns, including the dot-com crash. For investors, this is cause for caution. For higher education, the implications are far more immediate and tangible.

Howard Marks, co-chairman of Oaktree Capital Management, warns that while the “Magnificent Seven” tech giants—Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Nvidia, and Tesla—remain grounded in strong fundamentals, the broader market is overextended. The remaining S&P 500 companies average a P/E ratio of 22, well above historical norms and potentially driven more by speculative enthusiasm than solid economic performance. Similarly, Erik Gordon, a professor of financial markets and technology, cautions that the financial fallout from the current AI boom could exceed the damage of the early 2000s dot-com crash. He points to dramatic stock drops in firms like CoreWeave, which lost $24 billion in valuation in just two days, as evidence of the speculative excesses pervading the market.

These market dynamics have profound consequences for higher education. Many universities, particularly elite institutions, rely on endowment returns to fund scholarships, research programs, and faculty salaries. A sudden market correction could sharply reduce these funds, forcing universities to cut programs, delay research, or freeze hiring—decisions that directly affect students, faculty, and staff. Economic instability also threatens student loan repayment and could pressure universities to raise tuition, placing additional burdens on graduates already navigating high debt.

Furthermore, corporate influence on campus—through research funding, partnerships, and internship pipelines—becomes more precarious when heavily invested tech and AI companies are overvalued and vulnerable to downturns. Cuts in this funding can reduce research opportunities and career pathways for students. Beyond the campus, economic shocks disproportionately impact lower-income and marginalized students, adjunct faculty, and other contingent workers, revealing how speculative market bubbles ripple through higher education, shaping access, equity, and the future of an educated workforce.

As the market approaches the 30 P/E ratio mark, reminiscent of levels that preceded the dot-com crash, HEI readers must understand that this is more than a finance story. It is a warning that economic speculation, institutional priorities, and the fragility of endowment-dependent universities are deeply interconnected, affecting both the opportunities available to students and the stability of higher education itself.

Sources:

• MarketWatch: One of America's most respected investors says the 'Magnificent Seven' isn't overvalued—the rest of the market is

• Business Insider: Tech guru Erik Gordon says investors will 'suffer' far more from the AI boom than the dot-com crash

• The Australian: AusSuper and UniSuper slash Wall Street tech holdings as Howard Marks issues valuations warning

Make America Crash Again (Glen McGhee and Dahn Shaulis)

The United States faces a complex mix of economic, social, and environmental challenges that, if left unaddressed, could lead to a significant downturn. These challenges include ongoing financial speculation, escalating climate impacts, regulatory rollbacks, rising isolationism, expanding surveillance, immigration enforcement policies, tariff conflicts, and the shifting global balance with the rise of BRICS nations. Alongside these issues, the growing student debt crisis and institutional vulnerabilities compound the nation’s fragility.

Financial markets continue to carry risks linked to speculative activity, which could destabilize critical sectors. The student loan debt, now over $1.7 trillion and affecting millions, limits economic opportunities for many Americans. Particularly concerning are the high-cost, for-profit education models that leave students burdened without clear paths to stable employment. This financial strain reflects broader systemic weaknesses that threaten sustained growth.

Climate change has begun to have immediate effects, with increasing natural disasters disrupting communities and infrastructure. Reduced environmental regulations have intensified these risks, disproportionately affecting vulnerable populations and increasing economic costs.

The rollback of regulatory protections in finance, environment, and education has allowed risky practices to grow while reducing oversight. This shift has raised the chances of economic shocks and deepened social inequalities.

Trade disputes and reduced international cooperation have weakened key economic and diplomatic relationships. At the same time, BRICS countries are expanding their influence, altering the global economic landscape in ways that require careful attention.

The expansion of surveillance programs and strict immigration enforcement have raised concerns about civil liberties and community trust. These pressures threaten the social cohesion needed to address larger systemic issues.

Recent reporting by the Higher Education Inquirer shows that the student debt crisis and speculative financial pressures in higher education mirror and magnify these broader challenges. The sector’s increasing reliance on debt financing not only affects students but also contributes to wider economic fragility (HEI 2025).

Earlier analysis emphasized that these trends were predictable outcomes of longstanding policy decisions and economic structures (HEI 2020).

             [Analysis of US Economic Downturns for duration and population impact]

Preventing a serious downturn requires coordinated action on multiple fronts. Strengthening regulations is necessary to reduce financial risks and protect consumers. Effective climate policies are essential, particularly those focused on vulnerable communities. Reforming higher education financing to reduce unsustainable debt burdens can ease economic pressures. Restoring international cooperation and fair trade practices will help rebuild economic and diplomatic relationships. Protecting civil rights and fostering social trust are crucial to maintaining social cohesion.

These issues are deeply interconnected and require comprehensive approaches.

Sources

Higher Education Inquirer, Let’s Pretend We Didn’t See It Coming...Again (June 2025): https://www.highereducationinquirer.org/2025/06/lets-pretend-we-didnt-see-it-comingagain.html
Higher Education Inquirer, The US Working‑Class Depression: Let’s All Pretend We Couldn’t See It Coming (May 2020): https://www.highereducationinquirer.org/2020/05/lets-all-pretend-we-couldnt-see-it.html
Federal Reserve, Consumer Credit Report, 2025
U.S. Department of Education, Student Loan Debt Statistics, 2025
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Sixth Assessment Report, 2023
Council on Foreign Relations, The BRICS and Global Power, 2024

Troubled Future: Data Centers, Crypto, and EPA Downsizing

The environmental costs of digital infrastructure and financial speculation are rising rapidly, while federal oversight remains inconsistent and under-resourced. Data centers and cryptocurrency mining now consume vast amounts of electricity and water across the United States, yet much of this resource use is poorly tracked or omitted from public emissions reporting. At the same time, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has seen significant staffing losses, rule reversals, and new threats to its institutional survival.

These trends are not isolated. Together, they reflect a shift toward energy-intensive technologies, deregulation of high-polluting industries, and a weakened capacity to respond to environmental harm. The long-term consequences will be difficult to reverse.

The Energy and Water Demands of Data Centers

Data centers are expanding to meet demand for cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and digital storage. These facilities rely heavily on continuous electricity and water for cooling. Some consume millions of gallons of water per day, and projections show their electricity use may double in the next few years. Many are located in areas already under water stress.

The environmental impact of data centers goes beyond their daily operations. Construction materials, server manufacturing, and on-site diesel backup generators all contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. Yet these emissions are often excluded from formal greenhouse gas inventories, especially when they occur outside the facility’s geographic or corporate boundaries.

Crypto Mining as an Unregulated Energy Sector

Cryptocurrency mining, especially Bitcoin, requires massive computing power. These operations have migrated to U.S. states with low energy prices and minimal regulatory oversight. Bitcoin mining alone now consumes more electricity annually than many countries.

The emissions from crypto mining are significant, but they are not consistently tracked. Facilities often operate below emissions reporting thresholds or through decentralized networks that fall outside EPA scrutiny. In many cases, power is sourced from fossil fuels, and companies are not required to disclose their energy mix or carbon footprint.

Residents living near crypto facilities have reported noise, pollution, and local grid strain. Yet enforcement is limited or nonexistent in most jurisdictions.

The Shrinking Capacity of the EPA

The Environmental Protection Agency has lost hundreds of experienced staff since 2017, including scientists and enforcement personnel. Budget cuts, political pressure, and legal constraints have made it difficult for the agency to maintain oversight of fast-growing industries like digital infrastructure and blockchain technology.

Many environmental rules were rolled back between 2017 and 2020, increasing overall emissions and reducing safeguards for air and water. Although some regulations have been restored, the agency remains under political threat. Proposals to reorganize or dismantle the EPA altogether have resurfaced, potentially removing the last federal layer of accountability in many regions.

Greenhouse gas reporting systems still rely heavily on corporate self-reporting. Emerging sectors such as AI, crypto, and hyperscale data storage are not fully integrated into federal carbon inventories, and indirect emissions—such as those from supply chains and off-site electricity generation—are often omitted entirely.

A Delayed and Unequal Cost

The consequences of these developments will accumulate slowly but with increasing severity. Emissions released today will remain in the atmosphere for decades. Water used to cool servers will not be available to communities experiencing drought or contamination.

Those who profit from these trends—tech corporations, crypto investors, and political donors—will not be the ones facing the costs. The burden will fall on future generations, frontline communities, and the global South.

Institutions of higher education, many of which depend on cloud platforms, server farms, and AI applications, are deeply connected to this digital growth. They also have an opportunity—and arguably a responsibility—to examine the long-term impacts of these systems and hold corporate partners accountable.

Technological advancement has material consequences. The energy and water behind our digital lives are not virtual, and the lack of environmental regulation only increases the harm. Without accurate measurement and stronger enforcement, damage will continue without acknowledgement—and without remedy.

Sources
International Energy Agency, Electricity 2024
U.S. Department of Energy, Quadrennial Technology Review, 2023
Ma, J. et al., “The Water Footprint of Data Centers,” Nature Communications, 2023
Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, 2023
White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Crypto-Assets Report, 2022
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks, 2024
Government Accountability Office, EPA Workforce Report, 2021
Brookings Institution, Deregulation Tracker, 2020
Greenpeace USA, Poisoned by Pollution: Crypto Mining’s Environmental Toll, 2022
ProPublica, The Real Cost of the Cloud, 2023

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

Trump Signs Crypto Bill: A Gateway to Corruption and Financial Oppression

On July 17, 2025, Donald Trump signed into law the “American Digital Freedom Act,” a sweeping piece of legislation that federalizes and deregulates cryptocurrency markets in the United States. While hailed by supporters as a victory for innovation and financial autonomy, the new law is more accurately understood as a major victory for crypto billionaires, libertarian think tanks, and political operatives seeking to reshape American financial life with minimal public accountability.

This bill, which strips oversight powers from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and restricts consumer protections, was heavily influenced by the cryptocurrency lobby. It legitimizes risky, unregulated financial products, undermines state enforcement power, and further embeds private power into public infrastructure. Far from delivering financial freedom to everyday Americans, this law opens the door to unprecedented corruption and control, continuing a pattern long warned about in the pages of the Higher Education Inquirer.

Echoes of Student Debt, EdTech Fraud, and Neoliberal Capture

In our May 2025 article, "How the New Cryptocurrency Bill Could Open the Door to Corruption and Control," we warned that the crypto bill was less about democratizing finance and more about creating new extractive markets. As with the for-profit college industry, the gigification of academic labor, and the student loan crisis, the crypto sector markets itself to the financially desperate, the underemployed, and the debt-burdened.

Cryptocurrency platforms promise opportunity and empowerment, just as subprime for-profit colleges did during the early 2000s. Instead, they profit from volatility, speculation, and financial illiteracy. The collapse of companies like FTX and the unraveling of various "blockchain for education" experiments—like those pitched by Minerva, 2U, and Lambda School—should have served as a warning. Instead, the American Digital Freedom Act enshrines their business models into law.

From Financial Risk to Political Weapon

While proponents describe the law as a pro-innovation framework, the political context suggests otherwise. The crypto bill was pushed through by some of the same operatives behind efforts to weaken the Department of Education, dismantle Title IX protections, and privatize public universities. The legislation also dovetails with Trump-aligned plans to create “digital citizenship” systems linked to financial identity—a move critics argue could be used to surveil and suppress dissent.

By reducing AML (Anti-Money Laundering) standards and weakening Know Your Customer (KYC) rules, the new law also makes it easier for dark money to enter U.S. elections and political campaigns. The line between crypto lobbying, national security risks, and voter manipulation is already blurred—and this legislation will only accelerate the trend.

As the Higher Education Inquirer, there is a growing convergence of tech capital, deregulated finance, and political ideology that promotes “freedom” while gutting accountability. The crypto bill fits squarely within this pattern.

Targeting the Dispossessed

The communities that will bear the brunt of the consequences are already stretched thin: working-class students drowning in loan debt, unemployed graduates with useless credentials, and gig workers living paycheck to paycheck. These are the same groups now being told that speculative crypto investments are their only shot at economic mobility.

It’s no surprise that crypto apps are targeting community college students, veterans, and underbanked populations with gamified interfaces and referral incentives—echoing the same predatory logic as diploma mills. Instead of building generational wealth, these platforms often lock users into a new form of digital serfdom, driven by data extraction and monetized hype.

The Long Game of Financialized Authoritarianism

The Higher Education Inquirer has consistently highlighted the dangers of unregulated private capital colonizing public institutions. Whether through for-profit colleges, hollow credential marketplaces, or now unregulated crypto markets, the pattern is the same: promise empowerment, deliver exploitation, and consolidate power.

The crypto bill signed by Trump is not an end—it is a gateway. A gateway to a political economy where finance, tech, and politics are indistinguishable, and where the price of dissent may be counted not only in speech, but in digital wallets and blockchain-based reputations.

We will continue reporting on the consequences of this legislation—especially where it intersects with higher education, student debt, and the erosion of democratic infrastructure. If you’ve been affected by crypto scams in academic settings or targeted by blockchain-backed “innovation” schemes, we want to hear from you.

Sources:

• “How the New Cryptocurrency Bill Could Open the Door to Corruption and Control,” Higher Education Inquirer, May 2025

• “Socrates in Space: University of Austin and the Billionaire Pipeline,” Higher Education Inquirer, July 2024

• U.S. Congressional Record, July 17, 2025

• CoinDesk, “Trump Signs Historic Crypto Deregulation Bill,” July 2025

• Public Citizen, “Crypto Lobby’s Push to Rewrite U.S. Law,” June 2025

• SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s Remarks, April–June 2025

• Financial Times, “Digital Authoritarianism and Financial Surveillance,” May 2025

The Functional Poverty of US Higher Education

In 1971, sociologist Herbert J. Gans published The Positive Functions of Poverty, a provocative essay that argued poverty persists not due to a lack of solutions, but because it benefits powerful institutions. Over fifty years later, his thesis haunts U.S. higher education, which does not merely reflect inequality but actively relies on it. The system functions less as an engine of mobility and more as a mechanism for managing and monetizing the poor.

Today, poverty is not an accident of the US higher education system—it is a prerequisite for its operation.

Poverty as Institutional Legitimacy

Colleges and universities frequently promote themselves as pathways out of poverty, showcasing stories of Pell Grant recipients and first-generation students to validate their missions. These narratives help secure federal funding, private donations, and political goodwill. Yet the vast majority of poor students never cross the commencement stage. Instead, their presence serves to bolster institutional credibility while masking the reality of systemic failure.

Programs like TRIO, GEAR UP, and Promise scholarships function not to eliminate poverty, but to manage it. They offer modest hope while ensuring the system continues undisturbed.

Poor Students as a Revenue Stream

The financial foundation of higher education rests heavily on low-income students. For-profit colleges, many of them reincarnated under new branding or partnerships, depend almost entirely on federal aid and student loans tied to impoverished enrollees. These institutions aggressively recruit students with big promises and deliver little in return. Graduation rates remain dismal, while student debt mounts.

Private student lenders have filled the remaining gaps left by federal aid caps and rising tuition. Fintech platforms like SoFi, College Ave, and Earnest offer loans with complex terms and minimal consumer protections, particularly to vulnerable students desperate for access. For many borrowers, this creates a lifetime of indebtedness for a credential that may never yield a return.

The Administrative Industry of Poverty

A burgeoning sector of higher education administration is devoted to managing the symptoms of poverty. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) offices—now under political assault—often oversee food banks, mental health outreach, and “resilience” programming for first-gen students. Meanwhile, a growing HR specialty has emerged to “track and support” the poor.

These staffers may act with sincere intention, but their existence also reveals the transactional nature of institutional concern. Without poor students to manage, their roles—and the bureaucracies behind them—would shrink. Food insecurity and academic struggle have become normalized to the point that colleges maintain food pantries as a permanent feature of campus life.

Exploiting the Educated Underclass

As sociologist Gary Roth has observed, higher education produces a surplus of credentialed workers with no corresponding demand. These graduates, often from poor backgrounds, return to campus as adjunct faculty, graduate assistants, or gig workers—essential but expendable.

Their labor sustains the system at low cost. They teach core courses, staff libraries, and support faculty research while earning poverty wages themselves. The promise of education becomes a loop of unfulfilled mobility.

Poor Students as Research Subjects

Low-income students are not only sources of revenue and labor—they are also the subjects of academic research. Entire disciplines, from sociology to education and public health, have been built upon the study of poverty. Yet few researchers challenge the institutional structures that perpetuate the very inequalities they document.

Faculty careers flourish. Tenure is won. Grants are secured. The students themselves often see no tangible benefit from this knowledge production.

Reinforcing the Myth of Meritocracy

Elite universities use a handful of poor students to validate the myth of meritocracy. These “success stories” are amplified through PR campaigns, donor appeals, and glossy admissions brochures. They function as symbolic proof that the system works—even as the vast majority of poor students are shunted into lower-tier institutions with fewer resources and worse outcomes.

The truth is clear: wealth remains the strongest predictor of educational success in the United States.

Stratification by Design

The U.S. higher education system is structured to reproduce class hierarchy. Community colleges and regional public universities disproportionately enroll poor and working-class students. Flagship publics and elite privates cater to the children of the professional and ruling classes.

This credentialing hierarchy maintains social order while offering just enough upward mobility to justify its existence.

Political Utility: Blame the Poor

When institutions face financial shortfalls or declining enrollment, they often scapegoat the poor. Students are labeled unprepared, unmotivated, or emotionally fragile. Rarely are structural causes—such as rising tuition, defunded public services, or predatory loan systems—acknowledged.

Neoliberal reforms and conservative attacks on “woke” education continue to target vulnerable populations, obscuring the institutional failures that drive inequity.

Private Equity and the Monetization of Student Housing

One of the latest frontiers in the commodification of poverty within higher education is campus-adjacent real estate. Private equity (PE) firms are aggressively acquiring student housing near flagship state universities, turning basic shelter into another site of financial extraction.

Evidence of PE Expansion:
Private equity firms such as Investcorp, Rockpoint, and KKR have amassed significant portfolios of student housing near schools like the University of Florida, University of Texas at Austin, and College of Charleston. These acquisitions are not random—they target institutions with large, stable enrollment and limited new housing supply.

Rents on the Rise:
In cities like Tampa, rents increased by 49% from 2019 to 2023—a jump partly attributed to institutional investors, although the exact role of PE firms in driving this increase is contested. Still, anecdotal reports and advocacy groups point to rising rents, increased fees, and aggressive management practices following PE takeovers.

Housing Scarcity as Leverage:
While it's difficult to isolate private equity's influence from broader housing shortages and enrollment growth, it's clear that PE is exploiting structural constraints—just as for-profit colleges exploit financial aid loopholes. Where public universities fail to build sufficient housing, private investors step in, profiting from desperation.

A System That Needs Poverty

Herbert Gans argued that poverty survives because it serves essential functions for society’s powerful institutions. In American higher education, this dynamic is not theoretical—it is lived reality. Colleges and universities don’t just educate the poor; they extract value from them at every level.

From student loans and real estate speculation to adjunct labor and administrative bloat, the system is built around managing—not eradicating—poverty.

Until higher education confronts its own complicity in perpetuating structural inequality, it will remain what it is today: an industry that feeds on hope, and thrives on hardship.

Sources
Gans, Herbert J. “The Positive Functions of Poverty.” American Journal of Sociology, 1971.
Roth, Gary. The Educated Underclass: Students and the Promise of Social Mobility. Pluto Press, 2019.
National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)
U.S. Department of Education, College Scorecard
Private Equity Stakeholder Project
RealPage Analytics
Advocacy reports on student housing and rent inflation
Higher Education Inquirer FOIA research files

The Real Downgrade: America’s Bond Rating Is Falling—But Our Quality of Life Is Falling Faster

In July 2025, the United States was dealt another blow to its financial credibility: a downgrade of its sovereign bond rating by Fitch Ratings, with warnings from Moody’s and S&P that further cuts may be imminent. The downgrade reflects ballooning federal deficits, unsustainable debt servicing costs, and chronic political dysfunction. Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office has lowered GDP projections for the remainder of the decade, citing long-term productivity declines, labor instability, and extreme climate disruption.

Yet behind these headline-grabbing financial developments lies a much more dangerous, and far more insidious, crisis: the downgrade of American quality of life. This is not measured in basis points or stock indices, but in rising mortality rates, falling life expectancy, crumbling infrastructure, unaffordable housing, and the widespread erosion of trust in national institutions. No credit agency can fully quantify it, but Americans are living through it every day.

Add to this grim picture the looming risk of a crypto-fueled financial collapse—an entirely preventable disaster that Congress now seems intent on accelerating.

The U.S. Congress is on the brink of passing a sweeping cryptocurrency bill that, under the banner of “fostering innovation,” may be setting the stage for the next major financial crisis. While crypto lobbyists and venture capitalists celebrate the bill as long-overdue regulatory clarity, critics argue it guts consumer protections, legalizes financial opacity, and drastically weakens federal oversight.

The bill, pushed forward by a bipartisan coalition flush with campaign donations from the crypto industry, transfers much of the regulatory authority over digital assets from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to the more industry-friendly Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). In doing so, it reclassifies most cryptocurrencies as commodities, effectively shielding them from the stricter standards that govern securities and financial disclosures.

Loopholes in the bill allow for weakened Know-Your-Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) requirements. It legalizes many decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms that operate without any institutional accountability. Oversight of stablecoins—whose volatility helped crash markets in 2022—is minimal. The bill even offers tax exemptions for certain crypto gains, encouraging high-risk speculation under the guise of "financial inclusion."

This legislation arrives not in a vacuum but after multiple crypto meltdowns that wiped out more than $2 trillion in market value between 2021 and 2022. Companies like FTX, Celsius, and Voyager Digital collapsed in spectacular fashion, leaving millions of retail investors with empty wallets while insiders escaped with fortunes. Despite this history, Congress appears ready to invite a repeat—only on a much larger, more systemically dangerous scale.

A full-blown crypto crash under this new legal framework could trigger a financial chain reaction through pension funds, university endowments, small banks, and public finance institutions already dabbling in digital assets. Lacking meaningful regulatory authority, the federal government would be left unable to respond effectively—much like in the early days of the 2008 mortgage crisis.

The real casualties of this will not be Silicon Valley billionaires or hedge fund managers. It will be working Americans, already burdened by stagnant wages, crushing student loan debt, and unaffordable housing. Desperate for financial relief or upward mobility, many are being drawn into crypto speculation. When the crash comes, they’ll be the ones holding the bag—again.

Young people, especially recent college graduates, are particularly vulnerable. Burdened with degrees that offer little job security, forced into gig work or unpaid internships, and priced out of housing and healthcare, they now face a new threat: the destruction of their meager savings and long-term stability in yet another engineered financial disaster. As the Higher Education Inquirer has reported, this educated underclass is not a fluke of the labor market—it is a design of an extractive economic system that prioritizes capital over community, and deregulation over accountability.

This crypto bill is just the latest chapter in a broader crisis of governance. America is no longer investing in the basics that make life livable—healthcare, housing, education, climate infrastructure—but it continues to write blank checks for speculative markets and corporate interests. The national obsession with GDP and innovation has created an economy that generates record profits but widespread misery. We’ve become a nation of downward mobility, hidden under the veneer of “growth.”

As public services are hollowed out, life expectancy is falling. Maternal and infant mortality are rising. Suicide and drug overdoses have become common causes of death. Public schools and universities are under attack from all sides—defunded, corporatized, and politicized. Millions go without healthcare, adequate food, or secure housing. And amid it all, Congress is preparing to deregulate one of the most volatile sectors of the global economy.

The U.S. bond rating matters—but it does not capture the full truth of our national decline. GDP growth means little when it’s accompanied by hunger, burnout, sickness, and despair. The real downgrade isn’t in our financial paper—it’s in our national soul.

If this crypto bill passes, we may look back on it as the moment when lawmakers abandoned even the pretense of protecting the public in favor of appeasing tech lobbyists and private equity donors. A financial crash is not just likely—it is all but inevitable. And when it happens, it will further degrade the quality of life for a population already stretched to the breaking point.

The Higher Education Inquirer calls on journalists, educators, student activists, and policymakers to treat this crisis with the seriousness it demands. Our future should not be mortgaged to crypto speculators and congressional opportunists.

The credit downgrade is a symptom. The GDP slump is a warning. But the real emergency is human: a population losing faith in its institutions, its economy, and its future.

And unless we change course, that’s a downgrade no rating agency can reverse.

Sources:

Fitch Ratings Downgrade Report, July 2025
Congressional Budget Office Economic Outlook, 2025–2030
Redfin Housing Market Insights, Q2 2025
CDC Life Expectancy and Mortality Data, 2024
Brookings Institution: “Crypto and Systemic Risk” (2024)
Senate Financial Services Committee Testimony, May 2025
National Bureau of Economic Research: “GDP vs. Wellbeing” (2023)