College Meltdown 2026 (Glen McGhee)

As the United States moves deeper into the 2020s, the College Meltdown is no longer a speculative concept but a structural reality. The crisis touches nearly every part of the system: enrollment, finances, labor, governance, and the perceived value of a college degree itself. The forces fueling this meltdown are not sudden shocks but accumulated pressures — demographic contraction, policy failures, privatization schemes, student debt burdens, and decades of mission drift — that now converge in 2026 with unprecedented intensity.

The Waning of College Mania

For decades, higher education sold an uncomplicated dream: go to college, get ahead, and move securely into the middle class. This college mania was promoted by policymakers, corporate interests, university marketers, and a compliant media ecosystem. But the spell is breaking. Students at elite universities are skipping classes, disillusioned not only by campus turmoil but by the reality that a degree, even from a prestigious institution, no longer guarantees a stable future. Employers increasingly question the value of credentials that have become inflated, inconsistent, and disconnected from workplace needs.

Yet paradoxically, many jobs still require degrees — not because the work demands them, but because credentialing has become a screening mechanism. The U.S. has built a system in which people must spend tens of thousands of dollars for access to a job that may not even require the knowledge their degree supposedly certifies. This contradiction lies at the heart of the meltdown.

Moody’s Confirms the Meltdown: A Negative Outlook for 2026

The financial rot is now too deep to ignore. Moody’s Investors Service recently issued a negative outlook for all of U.S. higher education for FY2026, confirming what researchers, debtors, and frontline faculty have been warning for years. Demographic decline continues to shrink the pool of traditional college-age students, leaving hundreds of institutions with no plausible path to enrollment stability.

Moody’s expects expenses to grow 4.4% in 2026, while revenues will grow only 3.5% — and for small tuition-dependent institutions, revenue growth may fall to 2.5–2.7%. In other words, the business model simply no longer works. Institutions are already turning to hiring freezes, early retirements, shared services, layoffs, and mergers. These austerity strategies hit labor and students hardest while preserving administrative bloat at the top, mirroring broader patterns of inequality across the U.S. economy.

Compounding the problem, federal loan reforms — particularly the elimination or capping of Grad PLUS loans — threaten universities that rely on overpriced master’s programs as revenue engines. Many of these programs were built during the boom years as financial lifelines, not academic commitments. The bottom is falling out of that model too.

[Image: HEI's baseline model shows steady losses between 2026 and 2036. And it could get much worse].  

White-Collar Unemployment and the Broken Value Proposition

A new generation is confronting economic realities that undermine the old promise of higher education. Recent data show that college graduates now make up roughly 25% of all unemployed Americans, a startling indicator of white-collar contraction. The unemployment rate for bachelor’s degree holders rose to 2.8%, up half a point in a year.

If higher education was once treated as an automatic economic escalator, it is now a much riskier gamble — often with a lifetime of debt attached.

Demographic Collapse and Institutional Failures

The so-called “demographic cliff” is no longer a future event; colleges in the Midwest, Northeast, and South are already competing for shrinking numbers of high-school graduates. Some institutions have resorted to predatory recruitment, deceptive marketing, and desperate discounting — the same tactics that fueled the for-profit college boom and collapse.

Meanwhile, the FAFSA disaster, mismanagement at the Department of Education, and the chaos surrounding federal financial aid verification have caused enrollment delays and intensified uncertainty. Institutions like Phoenix Education Partners (PXED) are already trying to shift blame for their own recruitment failures and history of fraud onto the federal government, signaling a new round of accountability evasion reminiscent of the Corinthian Colleges and ITT Tech eras.

Student Debt, Inequality, and Loss of Legitimacy

Student debt remains above $1.7 trillion, reshaping the life trajectories of millions and reinforcing racial and class disparities. Black borrowers, first-generation students, and low-income communities bear the heaviest burdens. Many institutions — especially elite medical centers and flagship universities — are simultaneously cash-rich and inequality-producing, perpetuating the dual structure of American higher education: privilege for the few, precarity for the many.

Faculty and staff face their own meltdown. Contingent labor now constitutes the majority of the instructional workforce, while administrators grow more numerous and more insulated from accountability. Shared governance is weakened, academic freedom is eroding, and political interference is rising, particularly in states targeting DEI programs, history curricula, and dissent.

The Road Ahead: Contraction, Consolidation, and Possibility

The College Meltdown will continue in 2026. More closures are coming, especially among small private colleges and underfunded regional publics. Mergers will be framed as “strategic realignments,” but for many communities — especially rural and historically marginalized ones — they will represent the loss of an anchor institution.

Yet contraction also opens space for reimagining. The United States could choose to rebuild higher education around equity, public purpose, and social good, rather than market metrics and debt financing. That would require:

• substantial public reinvestment,

• free or low-cost pathways for essential programs,

• accountability for predatory institutions,

• democratized governance, and

• a commitment to racial and economic justice.

Whether the nation takes this opportunity remains unclear. What is certain is that the system built on college mania, easy credit, and limitless expansion is collapsing — and Moody’s latest warning simply confirms what students, workers, and communities have felt for years.

The College Meltdown is here. And it’s reshaping the future of higher education in America.

Conspiracies, Influence, and Grief: The Candace Owens–Erika Kirk Controversy Through a Higher Education Lens

The September 2025 assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk sent shockwaves through the political and academic worlds. It also ignited a public feud between two figures whose influence stretches across campus activism and national media: Candace Owens, a former Turning Point USA (TPUSA) strategist turned media provocateur, and Erika Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk and newly appointed leader of TPUSA. The conflict exposes not only the personal and political stakes involved but also the broader dynamics of media influence, ideological factionalism, and the politics of grief in contemporary higher education.

Charlie Kirk: Architect of Campus Controversy

Charlie Kirk built his public persona on provocation and confrontation. He staged highly orchestrated debates on college campuses, often targeting liberal-leaning students with “Prove Me Wrong” events that were designed to go viral. Turning Point USA’s social media strategy amplified these conflicts, rewarding spectacle over substantive discussion. Kirk also courted controversy through statements on race and opportunity, claiming in interviews that a Black woman had “taken his slot” at West Point, and through his unabashed support of fossil fuels, rejecting many climate mitigation policies.

Under Kirk’s leadership, TPUSA expanded its influence with aggressive initiatives. The Professor Watchlist cataloged faculty allegedly promoting leftist propaganda, drawing condemnation from academic freedom advocates who argued it chilled open debate and exposed professors to harassment. In 2019, TPUSA, through its affiliated nonprofit Turning Point Action, acquired Students for Trump, integrating campus organizing with national political campaigns. These moves cemented Kirk’s reputation as a strategist who thrived on conflict, spectacle, and the orchestration of young conservative voices, setting the stage for the posthumous clashes between Owens and Erika Kirk.

Candace Owens: Insider Knowledge Meets Provocation

Candace Owens leveraged her experience as a TPUSA strategist into a national media presence. Her commentary is known for being provocative, frequently conspiratorial, and sometimes antisemitic. After Kirk’s death, Owens publicly questioned the official narrative, hinting that TPUSA leadership may have failed Kirk or been complicit. She amplified unverified reports, including accounts of suspicious aircraft near the crime scene, drawing criticism for exploiting tragedy for attention. Owens’ stature as a former insider gave her claims credibility in some circles, but her approach exemplifies the hazards of insider knowledge weaponized against organizations and individuals in moments of vulnerability.

Erika Kirk: Navigating Grief and Ideological Contradiction

Erika Kirk’s public response has been markedly different. As TPUSA’s new CEO and widow of its co-founder, she emphasized factual communication, transparency, and respect for grieving families. Yet her messaging presents a striking tension. She has publicly urged women to “stay at home and have children,” even as she leads a major national organization herself. This contradiction highlights the challenges faced by leaders whose personal actions do not neatly align with ideological prescriptions, especially within high-profile, media-saturated contexts.

Erika Kirk’s stance against conspiracy and misinformation underscores the responsibilities of institutional leadership in politically charged environments. By rejecting Owens’ speculation and emphasizing ethical communication, she models crisis management that prioritizes credibility and accountability, even as ideological tensions complicate her public image.

The Groypers: External Pressure on Campus Politics

The feud did not remain internal. The Groypers, a far-right network led by Nick Fuentes, inserted themselves into the controversy, criticizing TPUSA for insufficient ideological purity and aligning with Owens’ confrontational rhetoric. Their intervention escalated tensions, highlighting how external actors can exploit internal disputes to influence narratives, polarize supporters, and pressure campus organizations. The Groypers’ involvement illustrates the precarious environment student-focused organizations face, where internal conflict can quickly become a battleground for external ideological agendas.

Media, Campus Power, and Ethical Considerations

The Owens–Kirk conflict exemplifies the challenges inherent in politically engaged campus organizations. Insider knowledge can confer authority, but it can also be leveraged in ways that destabilize institutions. Personal grief and tragedy can be amplified in the media, creating narratives that are part advocacy, part spectacle. Organizations like TPUSA, with expansive networks, high-profile donors, and initiatives such as the Professor Watchlist and Students for Trump, are uniquely vulnerable to reputational damage and internal discord. Kirk’s legacy of confrontation and spectacle created fertile ground for sensationalism, factionalism, and opportunistic interventions by groups such as the Groypers.

Toward Responsible Leadership

The feud offers a cautionary lesson for student-focused political organizations and higher education at large. While former insiders may provide valuable insight, amplification of unverified claims can destabilize leadership, undermine institutional credibility, and warp student engagement. Erika Kirk’s insistence on restraint, transparency, and fact-based discourse demonstrates the importance of ethical leadership, media literacy, and principled decision-making in sustaining credible campus organizations.

Entangled Worlds as Spectacle  

The conflict between Candace Owens and Erika Kirk is more than a personal dispute. It reflects the entangled worlds of media influence, ideological factionalism, and institutional accountability in higher education. For observers, the episode offers a vivid study of how grief, ideology, and spectacle collide, and how effective leadership must navigate these pressures with clarity, ethical judgment, and a steady commitment to institutional integrity.

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Sources

Candace Owens – Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candace_Owens

Owens vs. Erika Kirk, AOL News: https://www.aol.com/news/candace-owens-strangely-accuses-erika-154928626.html

Erika Kirk public statements, WABC Radio: https://wabcradio.com/2025/12/11/erika-kirk-snaps-back-at-candace-owens

Megyn Kelly mediation reports, AOL: https://www.aol.com/articles/megyn-kelly-reveals-she-helped-220748120.html

Charlie Kirk career and assassination, UPI: https://www.upi.com/Voices/2025/09/11/charlie-kirk-activist-fatal-shooting/5321757598392

Conflict-driven persona, Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/09/10/charlie-kirk-dead/

Campus engagement and media amplification, PBS: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/charlie-kirk-dead-at-31-trump-says

Charlie Kirk’s statements on race and West Point, Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/09/13/charlie-kirk-turning-point-politics-debates

Professor Watchlist – Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turning_Point_USA

Students for Trump acquisition, Charlie Kirk – Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Kirk

Groypers intervention, Nick Fuentes – Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Fuentes

Media Request to Turning Point USA about Protecting Children

Turning Point USA (TPUSA) presents itself as a youth-driven organization committed to “freedom,” “family values,” and protecting young people from ideological harm. Its events, chapters, conferences, and online ecosystem actively recruit high school and college students, many of them minors. That reality alone demands scrutiny. When an organization mobilizes thousands of young people, invites them into closed social networks, overnight conferences, mentorship relationships, and ideologically intense spaces, the question of safeguarding is not optional. It is foundational.

The Higher Education Inquirer is formally requesting that Turning Point USA explain—clearly, publicly, and in detail—how it protects its juvenile members from abuse, exploitation, harassment, grooming, and radicalization.

History shows what happens when powerful institutions prioritize reputation, growth, and loyalty over the safety of children. The Boy Scouts of America concealed decades of sexual abuse. The Catholic Church systematically reassigned abusive clergy while silencing victims. In both cases, leadership claimed moral authority while “looking the other way” to preserve power and legitimacy. These failures were not accidents; they were structural. They occurred in organizations that mixed hierarchy, ideology, secrecy, and minors.

TPUSA operates in a similarly charged environment. Its chapters are often led by young adults with little training in youth protection. Its national leadership cultivates celebrity figures, informal mentorships, and a grievance-driven culture that discourages internal dissent. Its conferences place minors in proximity to adult influencers, donors, and political operatives. Yet TPUSA has not meaningfully explained what independent safeguards are in place to prevent abuse or misconduct.

This concern is heightened by TPUSA’s proximity to extremist online subcultures. The organization has repeatedly intersected with or failed to decisively distance itself from INCEL-adjacent rhetoric and Groypers—a network associated with white nationalism, misogyny, antisemitism, and harassment campaigns targeting young people, especially women and LGBTQ students. Groypers, in particular, have demonstrated an ability to infiltrate conservative youth spaces, weaponize irony, and normalize dehumanizing ideas under the guise of “just asking questions.” These are not abstract risks. They are documented dynamics in digital youth radicalization.

Young men who feel isolated, humiliated, or angry are especially vulnerable to grooming—not only sexual grooming, but ideological grooming that funnels resentment into rigid hierarchies and scapegoating narratives. When organizations valorize grievance, masculinity panic, and enemies within, they create conditions where abuse can flourish and victims are pressured into silence for the “greater cause.”

TPUSA frequently positions itself as a protector of children against educators, librarians, and public schools. That posture invites reciprocal accountability. Who conducts background checks for chapter leaders and event staff? What mandatory reporting policies exist? Are there trauma-informed procedures for handling allegations? Are minors ever placed in unsupervised housing, transportation, or digital spaces with adults? What training is provided on boundaries, consent, and power dynamics? And crucially, what independent oversight exists beyond TPUSA’s own leadership and donors?

Safeguarding cannot be reduced to slogans or moral posturing. It requires transparency, external review, and a willingness to confront uncomfortable truths—even when they implicate allies. Institutions that refuse such scrutiny do not protect children; they protect themselves.

The Higher Education Inquirer awaits Turning Point USA’s response. Silence, deflection, or culture-war theatrics will only deepen concern. If TPUSA truly believes in protecting young people, it should welcome this scrutiny—and prove that it has learned from the catastrophic failures of institutions that came before it.

Sources

Wikipedia, “Turning Point USA”
Wikipedia, “Boy Scouts of America sex abuse cases”
Wikipedia, “Catholic Church sexual abuse cases”
Anti-Defamation League, “Groyper Movement”
Southern Poverty Law Center, reports on white nationalist youth recruitment and online radicalization
Moonshot CVE, research on incel ideology and youth radicalization
New York Times, reporting on abuse scandals in youth-serving institutions
ProPublica, investigations into institutional cover-ups involving minors

AmericaFest After Charlie Kirk: Conservative Youth Mobilization and the Long Shadow Over U.S. Campuses

PHOENIX — Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest returned to Phoenix this December as both a spectacle and a reckoning. The annual conference, one of the most influential gatherings in conservative youth politics, unfolded for the first time without its founder, Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated earlier this year. His death transformed what is typically a triumphalist rally into a memorialized assertion of continuity, as speakers, organizers, and attendees sought to project strength, unity, and purpose amid uncertainty about the movement’s future.

AmericaFest 2025 featured a familiar lineup of conservative politicians, media figures, donors, and student activists. Speakers framed the event as proof that the movement Kirk helped build would not only survive but expand. The rhetoric emphasized free speech, opposition to what participants described as ideological capture of higher education, and preparation for the 2026 midterm elections. Yet outside the convention hall, and within higher education itself, Turning Point USA’s presence remains deeply contested.

For almost a decade, Higher Education Inquirer has documented Turning Point USA’s activities on college campuses, tracing a pattern that extends well beyond conventional student organizing. While the group presents itself as a champion of intellectual diversity, its methods have repeatedly generated controversy, fear, and institutional strain. Central to those concerns is TPUSA’s use of public targeting tools, including its Professor Watchlist, which names faculty members accused of promoting so-called leftist ideology. Critics argue that such lists chill academic freedom, invite harassment, and undermine the basic principles of scholarly inquiry. Faculty across the country have reported intimidation, threats, and reputational harm after being singled out.

In August 2025, Higher Education Inquirer published a campus warning urging students to avoid contact with Turning Point USA. That advisory was grounded in years of investigative reporting, campus testimony, and analysis of the organization’s tactics. The warning cited confrontational recruitment practices, opaque funding relationships, and a political strategy that often prioritizes provocation over dialogue. It also highlighted TPUSA’s expansion beyond higher education into school boards and K–12 education, raising alarms among educators about the normalization of partisan activism within public education systems.

AmericaFest took place against this backdrop of sustained scrutiny. While speakers inside the convention center invoked Kirk as a martyr for free speech, HEI’s reporting has consistently shown that TPUSA’s operational model frequently relies on pressure campaigns rather than open debate. The organization’s portrayal of campuses as hostile territory has, in practice, fostered a siege mentality that rewards conflict and amplifies polarization. University administrators are often left navigating legal obligations to recognize student groups while absorbing the consequences of protests, security costs, and fractured campus climates.

The aftermath of Kirk’s death has further intensified these dynamics. TPUSA leaders report a surge in student interest in forming new chapters, developments that have already reignited recognition battles at colleges and universities nationwide. Some institutions have approved chapters over strong objections from faculty and students, citing free-speech obligations. Others have resisted, pointing to TPUSA’s documented history of harassment and disruption. These disputes expose the growing tension between constitutional protections and institutional responsibility for student safety and academic integrity.

AmericaFest also underscored TPUSA’s evolution into a well-funded national political operation with deep donor networks and significant influence over educational discourse. What began as a student-focused nonprofit now operates as a coordinated political apparatus embedded within academic spaces. This shift raises fundamental questions about whether TPUSA should still be treated as an ordinary student organization or recognized as a strategic political entity operating on campus terrain.

For supporters, AmericaFest was a declaration that conservative youth politics will advance undeterred by tragedy or criticism. For higher-education observers, it was a reminder that the struggle over campuses is not merely ideological but structural. The question is no longer whether conservative voices belong in higher education; they do. The question is whether organizations built on surveillance, targeting, and intimidation can coexist with universities’ core mission as spaces for inquiry rather than instruments of ideological warfare.

As Turning Point USA charts its post-Kirk future, colleges and universities face a parallel challenge. They must defend free expression without surrendering academic freedom, protect student participation without enabling political exploitation, and ensure that campuses remain places of learning rather than permanent battlegrounds. AmericaFest may celebrate momentum, but the consequences of that momentum will continue to unfold far beyond the convention floor, in classrooms, faculty offices, and student communities across the country.

Sources

Associated Press. “Turning Point youth conference begins in Phoenix without founder Charlie Kirk.” December 2025.
https://apnews.com/article/turning-point-charlie-kirk-americafest-c1ef8d3535191e58ce2aa731d242be

Higher Education Inquirer. “Campus Warning: Avoid Contact with Turning Point USA.” August 2025.
https://www.highereducationinquirer.org/2025/08/campus-warning-avoid-contact-with.html

Higher Education Inquirer. Turning Point USA coverage archive.
https://www.highereducationinquirer.org/search?q=TPUSA

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

From Classroom Crisis to System Change: How One Educator Turned Her Son’s Story Into a Lifeline for Schools

Jessica Werner, Ph.D., CEO and Founder of Northshore Learning, has spent more than 20 years as an educator, specialist, and advocate for students with complex needs. But the turning point in her work didn’t come in a classroom or at a conference. It came the day her own son was asked to leave preschool.

Her son, who has a behavior disorder, was struggling in a setting that wasn’t prepared to support him. Eventually, the preschool told Jessica that his needs were too complex and that he could no longer attend.

In an instant, the roles shifted. Jessica, who had spent years helping schools strengthen their systems and better support students, suddenly found herself on the other side of the table — as a parent being told that her child didn’t fit.

“He won’t be the last child you see like this,” Werner told the preschool administration. “While I understand that you can’t support him now, just know, there will be more coming.”

She was right.

A Full-Circle Moment

Several years later, the same school reached back out to Jessica.

They were now seeing more students like her son. They saw children with higher needs, complex behaviors, and significant regulation and emotional challenges. Their teachers were overwhelmed. Their existing tools, training, and systems weren’t enough.

They needed help.

Jessica agreed without hesitation. Today, she partners with that school to train and mentor its teachers. The same system that once had to ask her son to leave is now working with her to build capacity, compassion, and practical tools for the next generation of students.

What was once a personal heartbreak has become a catalyst for change.

“The Hardest Part of Teaching Wasn’t the Teaching”

Jessica’s journey started like that of so many teachers: with passion, heart, and a deep belief that she could make a difference.

She did not expect what she experienced in her first year.

“The hardest part of teaching wasn’t the teaching,” she recalls. “It was the behavior, regulation, and emotional needs of my students, and I wasn’t prepared.”

Like many new educators, she had strong content knowledge and a solid academic foundation. But she quickly realized that her students needed more than lessons. They needed support with self-regulation, behavior, and emotional safety. And she needed a different kind of training to meet those needs.

Determined not to leave the profession, Jessica made a decision that would shape the rest of her career. She spent an entire summer interviewing experts, seeking out mentors, attending trainings, and rebuilding her approach from the ground up.

She returned to the classroom as, in her words, “a completely new teacher.”

A Story Playing Out in Schools Everywhere

Jessica’s experience is no longer an exception; it is increasingly the norm.

Schools across the country and around the world are grappling with a similar reality:

• Teachers are overwhelmed by rising student behavior and mental-health needs.
  
  

• Parents are navigating systems that are stretched thin and often not designed for the level of complexity they now face.
  
  

• Administrators are struggling to support staff and maintain stability in a post-COVID landscape.
  
  

• Schools are searching desperately for tools, training, and models that actually work in today’s classrooms.
  

The gap between what students need and what schools are prepared to provide has grown too large to ignore. Teachers report burnout at record levels. Classrooms are more complex than ever. And children like Jessica’s son are often the first to fall through the cracks when systems can’t keep up.

Bridging the Gap

Jessica’s work now sits directly in that gap.

Drawing on her experience as a teacher, specialist, and mother of a child with a behavior disorder, she partners with schools worldwide to:

• Train and mentor educators in behavior and regulation support
  
  

• Help schools build systems that are proactive rather than reactive

• Equip staff with practical tools for de-escalation, connection, and co-regulation

• Support administrators in creating sustainable, teacher-friendly frameworks

Her mission is simple, but profound: support teachers, understand students, and prepare schools for today’s classrooms.

That mission is rooted in both research and lived experience. Jessica knows the strain educators are under. She knows the heartbreak parents feel when systems can’t support their children. And she knows that with the right training and structures, schools can become places where both kids and adults are more regulated, supported, and successful.

Preparing for the Students Already Walking Through the Door

When Jessica told her son’s preschool, “There will be more coming,” she wasn’t issuing a threat. She was naming a truth that many schools are only now beginning to fully confront.

The students are already here: children with trauma histories, behavior disorders, anxiety, depression, autism, ADHD, and complex emotional needs. Post-pandemic, their numbers and needs have only intensified.

What began as a painful personal experience, having her own child turned away, has become a full-circle story of partnership and possibility. The same school that once said, “We can’t do this,” now says, “Help us learn how.”

For Jessica Werner, the work is deeply professional and personal. And for the schools she serves, it’s essential.

Security Threats: Groypers on Campus

Across the United States, far-right networks have quietly built their presence on college campuses—not through mass rallies or overt displays, but through a loose coalition of digital activists and in-person operatives known as Groypers.

The Groypers, inspired by the alt-right, white-nationalist, and “America First” ecosystems of the late 2010s and early 2020s, represent a new iteration of extremist youth organizing: savvy, antagonistic, and optimized for a social-media landscape where attention is currency and disruption is strategy.

Their influence is not as visible as Turning Point USA tabling events or Young America’s Foundation speaker tours. Instead, the Groyper presence grows through infiltration, targeted disruption, and online radicalization that spills into student life. As economic anxiety and political distrust intensify, campuses have become fertile ground for this phenomenon.

What Are Groypers?
Groypers are part of a decentralized far-right subculture aligned with white-nationalist figures and Christian nationalist ideologues. They are not a formal organization; rather, they are a network of memetic identities, recognizable by:
the cartoon Groyper frog mascot (an offshoot of the Pepe image ecosystem),
online anonymity/alter-egos,
ideological tropes centered on nativism, Christian nationalism, and “white identity,”
disruptive tactics aimed at embarrassing mainstream conservatives and intimidating progressive students.

Their overall goal is to pull young conservatives—and disaffected apolitical students—toward a more extreme worldview.

Why Campuses Are Targets
1. Transitional Vulnerability
First-year students often experience isolation, uncertainty, and identity formation. Groypers prey on this transitional moment by offering belonging, brotherhood, and contrarian confidence.

2. Political Vacuum
As universities retreat from serious civic education and as student affairs offices shrink under austerity, space opens for fringe networks to fill the ideological void.

3. Online Radicalization Pipelines
Groypers thrive in places like:

Discord
Telegram
X/Twitter
anonymous forums
niche livestream communities

Campus life becomes an extension of these networks, where online provocations evolve into real-world harassment or orchestrated spectacle.

4. Conservative Student Groups as Entry Points
Mainstream Republican or “free speech” groups are often targeted for infiltration. Groypers show up:
to push Q&A sessions into racist or antisemitic talking points,
to pressure student Republicans to shift further right,
to create rifts between libertarian, traditional conservative, and MAGA factions.

The strategy is division, not dialogue.

Common Groyper Tactics on Campus
1. Ambush Questioning
At public lectures or campus Republican events, Groypers coordinate to dominate Q&A sessions, posing racially charged or conspiratorial questions designed to go viral.

2. Online Harassment and Dogpiling
Students—often women, LGBTQ+ students, or activists—find themselves targeted with:

brigade attacks,
doxxing attempts,
edited clips taken out of context,
swarm-like intimidation.

3. Misery Farming
Groypers intentionally provoke negative reactions to harvest “proof” that campuses are hostile to conservatives. This content is then fed into national media pipelines.

4. Grooming and Recruitment
They seek out students who feel:
lonely
unsupported
resentful
ideologically adrift
economically anxious

A mix of dark humor, contrarian bravado, and “insider knowledge” becomes the grooming pathway.

The Institutional Problem: Campuses Are Not Prepared
Universities often misread these actors as:
“just trolls,”
“rowdy conservatives,”
“free speech activists.”

They’re not.

Groypers are engaged in ideological recruitment and targeted harassment that can escalate into threats, coordinated disruption, and offline violence. Yet institutions remain slow to respond because:
they lack digital literacy,
they fear backlash from right-wing media,
they outsource security and student affairs to PR firms,
administrators underestimate decentralized extremist networks.

Faculty—especially contingent or early-career academics—often feel unsupported or intimidated.

How Groypers Fit into the Larger Campus Crisis
The Groypers’ rise exposes deeper fractures:
neoliberal hollowing of the university
growing distrust in democratic institutions
political polarization fueled by billionaire-backed media
the decline of genuine civic education
surveillance capitalism and algorithmic radicalization

Campuses have become battlegrounds—not by accident, but because they sit at the intersection of youth, identity, technology, and national politics.

What Higher Education Must Do Now
Universities need to respond with clarity, not panic, and with structural solutions, not symbolic statements.

1. Treat Digital Extremism as Part of Student Safety
This means training staff, hiring specialists, and supporting targets of online harassment.

2. Reinvest in Human Infrastructure
Student Affairs, counseling centers, and campus journalism must be strengthened—not cut or replaced with outsourcing contracts.

3. Support Independent Investigative Student Journalism
Student reporters are often the first to detect radicalization trends—but only if their newsrooms are funded and protected.

4. Protect Academic Freedom Without Ceding Ground to Harassment
“Free speech” cannot be a shield for sustained intimidation campaigns.

5. Strengthen Civic Education Rooted in Truth and Inclusion
The real antidote to extremism is not censorship—it’s meaningful democratic literacy.

Seeing the Threat Clearly
Groypers are not the dominant force on campus. Most students reject their worldview. But they are a growing presence within a broader crisis where U.S. higher education lacks the stability, funding, and courage to defend its mission.

The real danger is not the meme or the mascot—it’s the vacuum that allows extremist networks to flourish.

The Higher Education Inquirer will continue monitoring this issue as the 2026 and 2028 election cycles approach, when radical groups often intensify campus recruitment and provocation.

Erika Kirk’s Advice on Motherhood Raises Questions About Liberty University’s Online Degrees and Conservative Messaging

Erika Kirk, widow of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, has become the center of a storm after advising young women not to delay motherhood in pursuit of career ambitions. Her comments, made on The Megyn Kelly Show, were framed as a warning against prioritizing education or professional advancement over family. Yet Kirk herself pursued multiple degrees—including a Juris Master from Liberty University’s online program—before stepping into her current role as CEO of Turning Point USA.

The controversy exposes a deeper tension between higher education, conservative cultural messaging, and the lived experiences of public figures. Liberty University, where Kirk earned her advanced degree, has built one of the largest online education platforms in the country. It markets these programs as rigorous, flexible, and empowering for working adults, particularly women who balance professional and family responsibilities. Kirk’s own enrollment and completion of the program demonstrate the value of such opportunities. But her public advice now discourages younger women from following a similar path, raising questions about whether her message undermines the very educational model she benefited from.

Critics argue that Kirk’s remarks reflect a broader pattern in conservative circles: leaders who leverage higher education and professional networks to build influence, while prescribing traditional gender roles to the broader public. This double standard is particularly visible in faith-based institutions like Liberty, which promote academic achievement while simultaneously reinforcing cultural narratives that prioritize early marriage and motherhood. The contradiction is stark—Kirk’s advanced degree bolstered her credibility, yet she now suggests that women should subordinate similar ambitions to family life.

For higher education observers, the issue is not simply Kirk’s personal hypocrisy but the institutional dynamics at play. Liberty University profits from the demand for online graduate education, especially among women seeking advancement. At the same time, its alumni and affiliated figures often promote messages that diminish the importance of those very opportunities. This tension raises critical questions: How does Liberty reconcile its role as a provider of advanced education with the cultural messaging of its graduates? Does the institution benefit from women’s enrollment while tolerating rhetoric that discourages others from pursuing the same path?

The Erika Kirk controversy is more than a cultural flashpoint. It is a case study in how higher education intersects with politics, religion, and gender expectations. It highlights the contradictions between institutional marketing and alumni messaging, and it underscores the need for scrutiny of how universities—especially those with strong ideological identities—shape and are shaped by the public figures they produce.

Sources:

• Yahoo News – Erika Kirk Under Fire Over Pregnancy Remark

• MSN – Erika Kirk Dubbed a Hypocrite Over Pregnancy Advice

• AOL – Erika Kirk Tells Megyn Kelly She Prayed She Was Pregnant

• Mediaite – Erika Kirk Reveals She Was Praying to God She Was Pregnant

• Factually – Erika Kirk’s Education Background

How U.S. Higher Education Helped Create Nick Fuentes

In the aftermath of each new outrage involving Nick Fuentes, pundits scramble to explain how a 20-something suburban Catholic kid became one of the most influential white supremacists in America. Many insist Fuentes is an anomaly, a glitch, a fringe figure who somehow slipped through the cracks of democracy and decency. But this narrative is both comforting and false.

Fuentes is not an anomaly. He is the logical product of the systems that shaped him—especially American higher education.

While institutions obsess over rankings, fundraising, and branding campaigns, they have quietly abandoned entire generations of young people to debt, alienation, status anxiety, and a digital culture that preys on male insecurity. In this vacuum, extremist networks thrive, incubating figures like Fuentes long before the public notices.

HEI warned about this trend years ago. Since 2016, the publication tracked the rise of Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA, noting how TPUSA used campus culture wars to radicalize disaffected young men. HEI saw that for-profit-style marketing, donor-driven politics, and relentless culture-war agitation were creating an ecosystem where reactionaries could build both influence and profit. Fuentes did not arise outside that ecosystem—he evolved from it, even as he later turned on Kirk as insufficiently extreme.

What fuels this pipeline? A generation of young men raised on the promise of meritocracy but delivered a reality of spiraling costs, precarious futures, and institutional betrayal. Many arrive at college campuses burdened by debt, anxious about their place in an unforgiving economy, and deeply online. They bear the psychological bruises of a culture that has replaced community with competition and replaced meaning with metrics.

This is also the demographic most vulnerable to incel ideology, a misogynistic worldview built around grievance, rejection, humiliation, and resentment. Incel communities overlap heavily with the digital spaces where Fuentes built his early audience. The mix is combustible: sexually frustrated young men who feel mocked by mainstream culture, priced out of adulthood, and invisible to institutions that once guided them. The result is a fusion of white nationalism, male resentment, Christian nationalism, ironic fascism, and livestream entertainment—perfectly tailored to a generation raised on Twitch and YouTube.

And yet the higher-education establishment insisted for years that white supremacists were primarily rural “rednecks”—poor, uneducated, easily dismissed. This stereotype blinded journalists, academics, and administrators to the reality developing right in front of them. Higher Education Inquirer knew better because we corresponded for years with Peter Simi, one of the country’s leading scholars of extremism. Simi’s research demonstrated clearly that white supremacists were not confined to rural backwaters. They were suburban, middle-class, sometimes college-educated, often tech-savvy, and deeply embedded in mainstream institutions.

Simi’s work showed that white supremacist movements have always thrived among people with something to lose, people who feel their status slipping. They recruit in fraternities, gaming communities, campus political groups, military circles, and online spaces where young men spend their most lonely hours. They build identities around grievance and belonging—needs that universities once helped students navigate but now too often ignore.

This is the world that produced Nick Fuentes.

Fuentes entered higher education during a moment of fragmentation and distrust. Tuition was skyrocketing. Campuses were polarizing. Students were increasingly treated as revenue streams rather than whole human beings. Administrators were more focused on donor relations and culture-war optics than on the psychological welfare of their students. And universities outsourced so many vital functions—to police, to lobbyists, to tech platforms—that they ceded responsibility for the very students they claimed to educate.

Into that void stepped extremist influencers who offered simple answers to complex problems, validation for resentment, and a community that cared—if only in the performative, transactional sense of internet politics.

The tragedy is not simply that Fuentes emerged. The tragedy is that the conditions to generate many more like him remain firmly in place.

American higher education created the environment: hyper-competition, abandonment of the humanities, the collapse of community, the normalization of precarity, and a relentless emphasis on personal failure over systemic dysfunction. It created the audience: anxious, isolated, indebted young men looking for meaning. And it created the blind spot: a refusal to take extremism seriously until it reaches mainstream visibility.

Fuentes is not a glitch in the system. He is the system’s mirror held up to itself.

Unless universities confront their complicity in this radicalization pipeline—economically, culturally, and psychologically—the next Nick Fuentes is already in a dorm room somewhere, streaming at 2 a.m., finding thousands of followers who feel just as betrayed as he does.

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Sources

Angela Nagle, Kill All Normies: Online Culture Wars from 4chan and Tumblr to Trump and the Alt-Right (2017).
Peter Simi & Robert Futrell, American Swastika: Inside the White Power Movement’s Hidden Spaces of Hate (2010, updated 2015).
Kathleen Belew, Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America (2018).
Joan Donovan & danah boyd, “Stop the Presses? The Crisis of Misinformation” (Harvard Kennedy School).
Cynthia Miller-Idriss, Hate in the Homeland: The New Global Far Right (2020).
Michael Kimmel, Healing from Hate: How Young Men Get Into—and Out of—Violent Extremism (2018).
Whitney Phillips, “The Oxygen of Amplification: Better Practices for Reporting on Extremists.”
Brian Hughes & Cynthia Miller-Idriss, “Youth Radicalization in Digital Spaces.”
David Futrelle, We Hunted the Mammoth archive on incel ideology.
Higher Education Inquirer (2016–2024 coverage of TPUSA, Charlie Kirk, and campus extremism).

"Peak Higher Education" Book Debuts January 6, 2026 (Bryan Alexander)

Peak Higher Ed: How to Survive the Looming Academic Crisis by Bryan Alexander debuts January 6, 2026.  Here's a synopsis. 

Over the past decade, American colleges and universities have seen enrollment decline, campuses close, programs cut, faculty and staff laid off, and public confidence erode. In Peak Higher Ed, futurist Bryan Alexander forecasts what the next decade might hold if we continue down this path. He argues that the United States has passed its high-water mark for postsecondary education and now faces a critical turning point. How will higher ed institutions respond to this wave of change and crisis?

Combining data-driven research with scenario modeling, Alexander outlines a powerful framework for understanding what led to this moment: declining birthrates, surging student debt, rising tuition, shifting political winds, and growing skepticism about the value of a college degree. He maps out how these forces, if left unchecked, could continue to reshape academia by shrinking its footprint, narrowing its mission, and jeopardizing its role in addressing the planet's most pressing challenges, from climate change to artificial intelligence. Alexander explores how institutions might adapt or recover, presenting two possible futures: a path of managed descent and a more hopeful course of reinvention.

Peak Higher Ed examines the fraying of the "college for all" consensus, the long shadow of pandemic-era disruptions, and the political polarization that has placed universities in the crosshairs. Written for educators, policymakers, students, and anyone invested in the future of higher learning, this book offers a deeply informed, unflinching look at the road ahead and the choices that will determine whether colleges and universities retreat from their peak or rise to a new one.