The Higher Education Inquirer's viewership continues to grow. In the last week, we have had more than 30,000 views, and that's without SEO help. Some of the content in HEI may be found elsewhere, but our in-depth historical and sociological analysis is rare for a blog or any other news source. HEI also relies on scholars and activists for our outstanding content. Thank you, Henry Giroux, Gary Roth, and Bryan Alexander for allowing us to post your work. And thanks to LACCD Whistleblower and Michael S. Hainline for your investigative exposes. If you missed any of their articles, please click on their links. FYI: The Higher Education Inquirer archive also includes more than 700 articles and videos. Please check them out and let us know what you think. We want to hear from all sides of the College Meltdown.
"No Kings" Day of Protest June 14, 2025 across the US. #NoKings. Send tips to Glen McGhee at gmcghee@aya.yale.edu.
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Thursday, June 5, 2025
Wednesday, May 28, 2025
Corruption, Fraud and Scandal at Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD Whistleblower)
The focus of these articles was corruption, fraud and scandal in the Los Angeles Community College District, primarily at Los Angeles Valley College’s Media Arts Department.
A few of these articles summarized.
Erika Endrijonas faces new questions in LACCD fraud | May 2, 2023 |
Pasadena City College President-Superintendent Erika Endrijonas being fired from the institution and trying to get a job at Santa Barbara City College, Mt. SAC, and Los Angeles City College. Endrijonas had been subjected to a vote of no confidence by the Pasadena Academic Senate, Pasadena Full-Time Faculty Union, protests by Part-Time Faculty, and finally the vote to reduce her contract by the newly elected board of trustees.
The article dived into Endrijonas’s tenure at her previous institution – Los Angeles Valley College. Endrijonas was announced in her new role at PCC in December 2018, the same week that a jury in Van Nuys awarded a former LAVC employee $2.9 million jury award for illegal retaliation and abuse. A few months earlier, the Los Angeles Times published a major story about the Valley Academic and Cultural Center – a project meant to be Endrijonas’s crowning achievement – being an alleged massive racketeering scheme.
Further it documented the Media Arts Department the VACC would house had a lengthy history of lawsuits and accreditation complaints against the faculty for not providing the education and training advertised – negating the need for the new building. The building’s approval vote happened in August 2016, the lawsuit happened in 2009, and the Accreditation Complaints happened in June 2016.
Dozen LAVC Cinema Students Narratives challenge Erika Endrijonas’s LACCD Success Story | May 5, 2023 |
This article covered a release of an email thread from a dozen students in 2016 that was ultimately sent to the Accreditation Commission for Junior and Community Colleges in 2016, substantiating that there was widespread fraud in the department. Classes were not scheduled by Department Chair Eric Swelstad, training was not provided, labs were not held, etc . . .
Van Nuys/Los Angeles College Screenwriting Professor Faked Writer’s Guild Membership | May 17, 2023 |
Revealed that LAVC Media Arts Department Chair Eric Swelstad faked his membership in the Writer’s Guild of America – West, and then used it in multiple professional bios.
Los Angeles Valley College perpetuated wage theft against students on Julie Su’s watch | May 19, 2023 |
Documented how Grant Director Dan Watanabe engaged in wage theft against students for two years from 2013 – 2016.
Two Los Angeles Film Professors Bilked Taxpayers Over $3.5 Million Dollars | May 21, 2023 |
Described how LAVC Media Arts Department Founder Joseph Dacursso’s retirement first as Department Chair, then as a full-time faculty in 2012, left Department Chair Eric Swelstad and Arantxa Rodriguez to engage in petty infighting and squabbling that spilled over into scheduling decisions. In short, two faculty members collected six-figure-salaries while putting students in the middle of department in-fighting.
LAVC Omsbudsman Stalked Whistleblowers | August 8, 2023 |
Described how LAVC’s Dean of Students, Annie G. Reed (Goldman) retaliated and stalked students that went to Accreditation, going as far as running a smear campaign that one of them was a potential school shooter. Worse, she began stalking him after he left school – including on social media.
Further articles questioned where Academic Degrees were given out to students who had not completed Academic classes and criteria, the role of Jo Ann Rivas turned YouTube Personality ‘AuditLA’ who was on the Los Angeles Valley College Citizen’s Building Oversight Committee, whether a number of students with falsified resumes received payments from a Grant as ‘Professional Experts’ etc . . .
The scrubbing of these articles coincided with the formal appointment of Alberto J. Roman as the new Chancellor of the Los Angeles Community College District, following the retirement of disgraced administrator Francisco Rodriguez.
It also came with the publication of two final articles. One about Annie G. Reed’s being named as a Defendant in a lawsuit by former faculty at Los Angeles City College, who came to her about an administrator engaging in illegal behavior – including planting drugs on employees to get them fired.
The second article, probed Los Angeles Valley College Department Chair, Eric Swelstad’s professional bio again and provided evidence that he repeatedly lied and engaged in deceptive advertising and practices for two decades. It provided students who held loans with information about student borrower defenses.
The censorship also came months after Jo Ann Rivas aka AuditLA, herself probed by the articles, launched a barrage of attacks for about a week in January about a former student who had grievance's against the school. Rivas had previously engaged in a similar barrage in July 2020.
This was not the first time that an attempt was made to censor this news stream.
In 2020, an attempt was made to hack the community news feed account on Twitter/X.com @LACCDW. Then a week before the LACCD Board of Trustees election in November 2020, Twitter suspended the community newsfeed altogether. It was only restored two years later after Twitter's sale and the re-evaluation of previous suspended accounts.
In a final update – The Valley Academic and Cultural Center, despite having a 2018 completion date, remains unfinished. According to minutes of the LAVC Work Environment Committee Minutes from 2025-05-08;
“The Valley Academic and Cultural Center (VACC) is as of Friday, May 8th, about 80% complete. They are still patching the roof. There are still some critical items like stage protection net.”
Monday, January 6, 2025
HEI Resources 2025
[Editor's Note: Please let us know of any additions or corrections.]
Books
- Alexander, Bryan (2020). Academia Next: The Futures of Higher Education. Johns Hopkins Press.
- Alexander, Bryan (2023). Universities on Fire. Johns Hopkins Press.
- Angulo, A. (2016). Diploma Mills: How For-profit Colleges Stiffed Students, Taxpayers, and the American Dream. Johns Hopkins University Press.
- Apthekar, Bettina (1966) Big Business and the American University. New Outlook Publishers.
- Apthekar, Bettina (1969). Higher education and the student rebellion in the United States, 1960-1969 : a bibliography.
- Archibald, R. and Feldman, D. (2017). The Road Ahead for America's Colleges & Universities. Oxford University Press.
- Armstrong, E. and Hamilton, L. (2015). Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality. Harvard University Press.
- Arum, R. and Roksa, J. (2011). Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses. University of Chicago Press.
- Baldwin, Davarian (2021). In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities Are Plundering Our Cities. Bold Type Books.
- Bennett, W. and Wilezol, D. (2013). Is College Worth It?: A Former United States Secretary of Education and a Liberal Arts Graduate Expose the Broken Promise of Higher Education. Thomas Nelson.
- Berg, I. (1970). "The Great Training Robbery: Education and Jobs." Praeger.
- Berman, Elizabeth P. (2012). Creating the Market University. Princeton University Press.
- Berry, J. (2005). Reclaiming the Ivory Tower: Organizing Adjuncts to Change Higher Education. Monthly Review Press.
- Best, J. and Best, E. (2014) The Student Loan Mess: How Good Intentions Created a Trillion-Dollar Problem. Atkinson Family Foundation. Bledstein, Burton J. (1976). The Culture of Professionalism: The Middle Class and the Development of Higher Education in America. Norton.
- Bogue, E. Grady and Aper, Jeffrey. (2000). Exploring the Heritage of American Higher Education: The Evolution of Philosophy and Policy.
- Bok, D. (2003). Universities in the Marketplace : The Commercialization of Higher Education. Princeton University Press.
- Bousquet, M. (2008). How the University Works: Higher Education and the Low Wage Nation. NYU Press.
- Brennan, J & Magness, P. (2019). Cracks in the Ivory Tower. Oxford University Press.
- Brint, S., & Karabel, J. The Diverted Dream: Community colleges and the promise of educational opportunity in America, 1900–1985. Oxford University Press. (1989).
- Cabrera, Nolan L. (2024) Whiteness in the Ivory Tower: Why Don't We Notice the White Students Sitting Together in the Quad? Teachers College Press.
- Cabrera, Nolan L. (2018). White Guys on Campus: Racism, White Immunity, and the Myth of "Post-Racial" Higher Education. Rutgers University Press.
- Caplan, B. (2018). The Case Against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money. Princeton University Press.
- Cappelli, P. (2015). Will College Pay Off?: A Guide to the Most Important Financial Decision You'll Ever Make. Public Affairs.
- Carney, Cary Michael (1999). Native American Higher Education in the United States. Transaction.
- Childress, H. (2019). The Adjunct Underclass: How America's Colleges Betrayed Their Faculty, Their Students, and Their Mission University of Chicago Press.
- Cohen, Arthur M. (1998). The Shaping of American Higher Education: Emergence and Growth of the Contemporary System. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
- Collins, Randall. (1979/2019) The Credential Society. Academic Press. Columbia University Press.
- Cottom, T. (2016). Lower Ed: How For-profit Colleges Deepen Inequality in America
- Domhoff, G. William (2021). Who Rules America? 8th Edition. Routledge.
- Donoghue, F. (2008). The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities.
- Dorn, Charles. (2017) For the Common Good: A New History of Higher Education in America Cornell University Press.
- Eaton,
Charlie. (2022) Bankers in the Ivory Tower: The Troubling Rise of
Financiers in US Higher Education. University of Chicago Press.
- Eisenmann, Linda. (2006) Higher Education for Women in Postwar America, 1945–1965. Johns Hopkins U. Press.
- Espenshade, T., Walton Radford, A.(2009). No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal: Race and Class in Elite College Admission and Campus Life. Princeton University Press.
- Faragher, John Mack and Howe, Florence, ed. (1988). Women and Higher Education in American History. Norton.
- Farber, Jerry (1972). The University of Tomorrowland. Pocket Books.
- Freeman, Richard B. (1976). The Overeducated American. Academic Press.
- Gaston, P. (2014). Higher Education Accreditation. Stylus.
- Ginsberg, B. (2013). The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All Administrative University and Why It Matters
- Gleason, Philip. Contending with Modernity: Catholic Higher Education in the Twentieth Century. Oxford U. Press, 1995.
- Golden, D. (2006). The Price of Admission: How America's Ruling Class Buys its Way into Elite Colleges — and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates.
- Goldrick-Rab, S. (2016). Paying the Price: College Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American Dream.
- Graeber, David (2018) Bullshit Jobs: A Theory. Simon and Schuster.
- Hamilton, Laura T. and Kelly Nielson (2021) Broke: The Racial Consequences of Underfunding Public Universities Hampel, Robert L. (2017). Fast and Curious: A History of Shortcuts in American Education. Rowman & Littlefield.
- Johnson, B. et al. (2003). Steal This University: The Rise of the Corporate University and the Academic Labor Movement
- Keats, John (1965) The Sheepskin Psychosis. Lippincott.
- Kelchen, R. (2018). Higher Education Accountability. Johns Hopkins University Press.
- Kezar, A., DePaola, T, and Scott, D. The Gig Academy: Mapping Labor in the Neoliberal University. Johns Hopkins Press.
- Kinser, K. (2006). From Main Street to Wall Street: The Transformation of For-profit Higher Education
- Kozol, Jonathan (2006). The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America. Crown.
- Kozol, Jonathan (1992). Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools. Harper Perennial.
- Labaree, David F. (2017). A Perfect Mess: The Unlikely Ascendancy of American Higher Education. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Labaree,
David (1997) How to Succeed in School without Really Learning: The
Credentials Race in American Education, Yale University Press.
- Lafer, Gordon (2004). The Job Training Charade. Cornell University Press.
- Loehen, James (1995). Lies My Teacher Told Me. The New Press.
- Lohse, Andrew (2014). Confessions of an Ivy League Frat Boy: A Memoir. Thomas Dunne Books.
- Lucas, C.J. American higher education: A history. (1994).
- Lukianoff, Greg and Jonathan Haidt (2018). The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure. Penguin Press.
- Maire, Quentin (2021). Credential Market. Springer.
- Mandery, Evan (2022) . Poison Ivy: How Elite Colleges Divide Us. New Press.
- Marti, Eduardo (2016). America's Broken Promise: Bridging the Community College Achievement Gap. Excelsior College Press.
- Mettler, Suzanne 'Degrees of Inequality: How the Politics of Higher Education Sabotaged the American Dream. Basic Books. (2014)
- Newfeld, C. (2011). Unmaking the Public University.
- Newfeld, C. (2016). The Great Mistake: How We Wrecked Public Universities and How We Can Fix Them.
- Paulsen, M. and J.C. Smart (2001). The Finance of Higher Education: Theory, Research, Policy & Practice. Agathon Press.
- Rosen, A.S. (2011). Change.edu. Kaplan Publishing.
- Reynolds, G. (2012). The Higher Education Bubble. Encounter Books.
- Roth, G. (2019) The Educated Underclass: Students and the Promise of Social Mobility. Pluto Press
- Ruben, Julie. The Making of the Modern University: Intellectual Transformation and the Marginalization of Morality. University Of Chicago Press. (1996).
- Rudolph, F. (1991) The American College and University: A History.
- Rushdoony, R. (1972). The Messianic Character of American Education. The Craig Press.
- Selingo, J. (2013). College Unbound: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students.
- Shelton, Jon (2023). The Education Myth: How Human Capital Trumped Social Democracy. Cornell University Press.
- Simpson, Christopher (1999). Universities and Empire: Money and Politics in the Social Sciences During the Cold War. New Press.
- Sinclair, U. (1923). The Goose-Step: A Study of American Education.
- Stein, Sharon (2022). Unsettling the University: Confronting the Colonial Foundations of US Higher Education, Johns Hopkins Press.
- Stevens, Mitchell L. (2009). Creating a Class: College Admissions and the Education of Elites. Harvard University Press.
- Stodghill, R. (2015). Where Everybody Looks Like Me: At the Crossroads of America's Black Colleges and Culture.
- Tamanaha, B. (2012). Failing Law Schools. The University of Chicago Press.
- Tatum, Beverly (1997). Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria. Basic Books
- Taylor, Barret J. and Brendan Cantwell (2019). Unequal Higher Education: Wealth, Status and Student Opportunity. Rutgers University Press.
- Thelin, John R. (2019) A History of American Higher Education. Johns Hopkins U. Press.
- Tolley, K. (2018). Professors in the Gig Economy: Unionizing Adjunct Faculty in America. Johns Hopkins University Press.
- Twitchell, James B. (2005). Branded Nation: The Marketing of Megachurch, College Inc., and Museumworld. Simon and Schuster.
- Vedder, R. (2004). Going Broke By Degree: Why College Costs Too Much.
- Veysey Lawrence R. (1965).The emergence of the American university.
- Washburn, J. (2006). University Inc.: The Corporate Corruption of Higher Education
- Washington, Harriet A. (2008). Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. Anchor.
- Whitman, David (2021). The Profits of Failure: For-Profit Colleges and the Closing of the Conservative Mind. Cypress House.
- Wilder, C.D. (2013). Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America's Universities.
- Winks, Robin (1996). Cloak and Gown:Scholars in the Secret War, 1939-1961. Yale University Press.
- Woodson, Carter D. (1933). The Mis-Education of the Negro.
- Zaloom, Caitlin (2019). Indebted: How Families Make College Work at Any Cost. Princeton University Press.
- Zemsky, Robert, Susan Shaman, and Susan Campbell Baldridge (2020). The College Stress Test:Tracking Institutional Futures across a Crowded Market. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Activists, Coalitions, Innovators, and Alternative Voices
- Academe Blog
- Adjunct Crisis
- Adjunct Nation
- American Federation of Teachers Adjunct-Contingent Faculty Caucus
- Bryan Alexander (Futurist)
- Campus News (New York)
- Clery Center
- Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor
- College Futures Foundation (California, K-20)
- College is a Risky Business (Thomas B. Walsh)
- College Promise (Free Community College)
- College Tuition Advisory Services (CTAS)
- College Viability App (Gary Stocker)
- Con Job: Stories of Adjunct and Contingent Faculty
- Confessions of a College Professor (Professor Doom)
- Debt Collective
- Deep Thoughts on Higher Education (Jeff Doyle)
- Diane Ravitch (K-12)
- EdTrust
- Higher Ed Not Debt
- Higher Education Labor United
- Higher Education Strategy Associates
- I Am Ai
- ITT Tech Warriors
- Jim Wolfston and the Social Mobility Index (CollegeNet)
- Jonathan Kozol (K-12)
- Kelchen on Education
- National Consumer Law Center
- New Faculty Majority (Adjuncts)
- New Laws For America (Bob Hertz)
- Outside the Law School Scam
- Presidents Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration
- Project on Predatory Student Lending
- Randall Collins (Credentialism and Credential Inflation)
- Remaking the University
- Republic Report (David Halperin)
- Saving For College (Mark Kantrowtitz)
- SEIU Faculty Forward (Adjuncts)
- Steve Foerster (Technologist and Educator)
- Strike Debt Portland
- Student Borrower Protection Center
- Student Debt Crisis
- Student Loan Justice
- Terri Givens (Radical Empathy)
- The Best Classroom is the Struggle (Joshua Sooter)
- TuitionFit (Mark Salisbury)
- Whistleblower Revolution (Heidi Weber)
- Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor
- Wrench in the Gears: A Skeptical Parent's Thoughts on Digital Curriculum (K-12)
College Choice and Career Planning Tools
- Modern States (free college credits)
- College Promise
- TuitionFit
- College Viability App
- College Scorecard (NCES)
- Washington Monthly College Rankings
- Apprenticeship Finder (US Department of Labor)
- FinAid
- College Navigator (NCES)
- Best Value Colleges (PayScale)
- Hechinger Report College Fitness Tracker
- NBC News Investigation: Certificate schools are leaving many students in debt and unable to find jobs
- 2/3s of US Employees Regret Their College Degrees (CBS News)
- The Future of Work Won't Be About College Degrees (CNBC, Stepane Kasriel)
- Student Loan Meltdown (Dave Ramsey)
- Permanent Underemployment for College Grads (Burning Glass Technologies)
- College Is A Risky Proposition For The Working Class (Jon Marcus, Hechinger Report)
- Apprenticeships are a trending alternative to college — but there’s a hitch (Jon Marcus, Hechinger Report)
- 15 Things College Doesn't Teach You
- Best Colleges for Social Mobility (CollegeNet)
- The Case Against Higher Education (Bryan Caplan)
- College May Not Pay Off For Everyone (Liberty Street Economics/NY FED)
- Online Education Has Questionable Outcomes (IHE)
- Colleges Where Most Students Borrow and Few Repay (TICAS)
- Broke, Busted, and Disgusted Trailer (Student Loan Debt)
- The Confusing Information Colleges Provide Students About Financial Aid (The Atlantic)
- College Affordability and Transparency Center (ED)
- Public College Dropout Factories (Third Way)
- Outcomes By Major (NY FED)
- Third Way
- GI Bill Comparison Tool (VA)
- 8 Tips to Help Vets Pick the Right College (Military Times)
- Warrior Scholar (For Veterans)
- Service to School (For Veterans)
- Peer Advisors for Veteran Education (PAVE)
- Faculty Focus
- Strategies for Improving Student Success (Inside Higher Education)
- CUNY ASAP
- Gap Year Basics (NYU)
- Union Plus Free College
- Maryland Student Loan Debt Relief Tax Credit
- Canceling Student Loan Debt Would Grow Economy and Add Jobs (Levy Institute)
- Beyond Tuition: Promises for Affordability, Quality, and Accountability in Higher Education (Center for American Progress)
- Georgia State Turnaround (CHE)
- Spelman Health Initiative (IHE)
- University of Kansas: BA In Three Years
- Shady Grove: Nine Campuses in One (WAPO)
Higher Education Policy
- Veterans’ Education Advocates Celebrate Closure of the 90/10 Loophole
- College Transparency Act (Senate Bill 800)
- Dropping Gainful Employment Rules Gives Billions to Subprime Colleges (Inside Higher Education)
- ED Announces Steps to Hold Institutions Accountable for Taxpayer Losses
- FTC Head Says Supreme Court Ruling Puts More Than $2 Billion for Cheated Consumers at Risk (Brent Kendall, WSJ)
- GAO Report Regarding Online Program Managers
- How to Stop Sudden College Closures (Century Foundation)
- Improving Outcomes Data for Online Programs (Robert Kelchen, Inside Higher Education)
- Spelman College Replaces NCAA Sports with Wellness Programs
- Strengthening Rural Anchor Institutions: Federal Policy Solutions for Rural Public Colleges and the Communities They Serve (Alliance for Research on Regional Colleges)
- The Distributional Effects of Student Loan Forgiveness (BFI Working Paper, Sylvain Catherine and Constantine Yannelis)
- The for-profit college system is broken and the Biden administration needs to fix it (Brookings)
- The Impact of a National Program of Free Tuition at Public Community Colleges and Free Tuition for Most Students at Public Four-Year Colleges and Universities on College Enrollments, Graduations, and the Economy (Robert Shapiro and Isaac Yoder)
- Three Things Policymakers Can Do to Protect Online Students (Century Foundation)
Data Sources
- American Association of Colleges and Universities
- American Association of State Colleges and Universities
- American Indian Higher Education Consortium
- Academic Labor Force Trends (AAUP)
- Century Foundation
- Closed Schools Report (US Department of Education)
- College Closing Projections (EY)
- College Costs Increasing Over Time (College Board)
- College Debt Inhibits Home Buying (CNBC)
- Complete College America
- Debt by Degrees (Pro Publica)
- Department of Defense
- Education Statistics by Institution
- Enrollment Numbers
- Excelencia in Education
- Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity
- Growing Inland Achievement
- Hechinger Report
- Heightened Cash Monitoring
- Long-term Student Loan Default Rates
- Lumina Foundation
- National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO)
- National Assessment of Educational Progress
- National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA)
- National Center for Education Statistics
- NCES Blog
- National Student Clearinghouse
- Predicting College Closures and Financial Distress (Philadelphia Federal Reserve)
- School Counselor Numbers (ASCA)
- Scientists Leaving Academia in Droves
- Starving the Beast: The Battle to Disrupt and Reform America’s Public Universities
- State by State College Debt (TICAS)
- Student Loan Debt By State (Urban Institute)
- Student Loan Debt Clock
- Student Loan Debt Inhibits Home Buying (CNBC)
- Student Loan Default Projections (Brookings)
- Subprime Colleges (David Halperin)
- The 74: America's Education News Source
- Third Way Reports
- Tracking College Closures (Hechinger Report)
- Transfer Credit Problems (GAO)
- United Negro College Fund
- University Business Officers Reports
- US Financial Aid (2024 Annual Report)
- Veterans Affairs (GI Bill)
- Chronicle of Higher Education
- Diverse Issues in Higher Education
- EdSurge
- Higher Ed Dive
- Inside Higher Ed
Wednesday, September 11, 2024
Higher Education Uncensored
The Higher Education Inquirer is a rare space for students (consumers), workers, debtors, and community members to speak the truth about higher education and its most important issues, including the truth related to climate change and environmental destruction, human rights, student rights and worker rights, mass surveillance and policing, sexual assault and rape culture, racism and bullying, mental illness and suicide prevention, hypercredentialism, student loan debt and underemployment, NCAA money sports, higher education scams, cheating, and AI, university endowments, land theft and gentrification by universities, and any issues that are too politically charged for other news outlets to consider.