Higher Education Inquirer

Friday, May 17, 2024

Debtors’ Protest in DC May 22 calling President Biden to "Fund Education, Not Genocide" (Debt Collective)

Now, more than ever, we need to stand up for a reparative, debt-free education that liberates our collective possibilities – not pushes us further into a violent war machine. That’s why on May 22, we are going to Washington D.C. to call on the President to use his executive powers to fund education and liberate student debtors, not to accelerate war. We need the President to FUND EDUCATION, NOT GENOCIDE.

If you are planning to come to D.C., please sign up on the THIS LINK so we can keep you looped into the plans.

WHAT: A Debtors’ Assembly and March to Capitol Grounds to call on Pres. Biden to FUND EDUCATION, NOT GENOCIDE.

WHEN: Wednesday May 22, 2024 at 12pm EST. We will have lunch and brief in-person training.

WHERE: We will meet outside the Department of Education at the Eisenhower Memorial (540 Independence Ave SW, Washington, D.C. 20202) at NOON!

WHO: Debtors from across the country – including you! We will also be joined by

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (MI)
Rep. Cori Bush (MO)
Layla Elabed (Uncommitted)
Tariq Habash (former Department of Ed appointee who resigned in protest)

Lily Greenberg Call (Jewish-American political appointee to resign from the Biden-Harris administration over its policies in Gaza)
Maddy Clifford (Debt Collective)
Tiffany Loftin (Debt Collective)
Harriet’s Wildest Dreams
Students organizers from Georgetown and NYU

HOW: Get to D.C.! Are you joining us from NYC? Sign up here to get your *free spot on the bus! Details: We are meeting at 7am at Atlantic Barclays. There will be coffee and donuts. Masks encouraged. We will head back to NYC at 7:30pm. Email Victoria@debtcollective.org with any questions.
Are you joining from Philly or Boston? We’re sending folks by train. Reach out to nick@debtcollective.org to get support for getting train tickets.We have a bunch of folks from Philly and folks from Boston you can join with on the train ride down!

HOW: Get Trained for Action !

Those interested in engaging in civil disobedience or supporting folks during the action, please join our upcoming training on Monday May 20th at 7pm ET on zoom)

SEE YA ON THE STREETS!

The Debt Collective
https://debtcollective.org

Tuesday, May 14, 2024

College Meltdown 3.0 Could Start Earlier (And End Worse) Than Planned

Chronicling the College Meltdown

Since 2016, the Higher Education Inquirer has documented the College Meltdown as a series of demographic and business trends leading to lower enrollments and making higher education of decreasing value to working-class and middle-class folks. This despite the commonly-held belief that college is the only way to improve social mobility.

For more than a dozen years, the College Meltdown has been most visible at for-profit colleges and community colleges, but other non-elite schools and for-profit edtech businesses have also been affected. Some regions, states, and counties have been harder hit than others. Non-elite state universities are becoming increasingly vulnerable.

Elite schools, on the other hand, do not need students for revenues, at least in the short run. They depend more on endowments, donations, real estate, government grants, corporate grants, and other sources of income. Elite schools also have more than enough demand for their product even after receiving bad press.

The perceived value and highly variable real value of higher education has made college less attractive to many working-class consumers and to an increasing number of middle-class consumers--who see it as a risky proposition. Degrees in the humanities and social sciences are becoming a tough sell. Even some STEM degrees may not be valuable for too long. Public opinion about higher education and the value of higher education has been waning and many degrees, especially graduate degrees, have a negative return on investment.

Tuition and room and board costs have skyrocketed. Online learning has become more prominent, despite persistent questions about its educational value.

While college degrees have worked for millions of graduates, student loans have mired millions of other former students, and their families, in long-term debt, doing work in fields they aren't happy with.

Elite degrees for people in the upper class still make sense though, as status symbols and social sorters. And there are some professions that require degrees for inclusion. But those degrees and the lucrative jobs accompanying them disproportionately go to foreigners and immigrants, and their children--a demographic wave that may draw the ire of folks who have lived in the US for generations and who may have not enjoyed the same opportunities.

Starting Sooner and Ending Worse

The latest phase of the College Meltdown was supposed to result from a declining number of high school graduates in 2025, something Nathan Grawe projected from lower birth rates following the 2008-2009 recession.

But problems with the federal government's financial aid system may mean that a significant decline in enrollment at non-elite schools starts this fall instead of 2025.

The College Meltdown may become even worse than planned, in terms of lower enrollment and declining revenues to non-elite schools. Enrollment numbers most assuredly will be worse than Department of Education projections of slow growth until 2030.

In 2023, we wrote about something few others reported on: that community colleges and state universities would feel more financial pressure from by the flip-side of the Baby Boom: the enormous costs of taking care of the elderly which could drain public coffers that subsidize higher education. This was a phenomenon that should also have been anticipated by higher education policy makers, but is still rarely discussed. Suzanne Mettler graphed this out in Degrees of Inequality a decade ago--and the Government Accountability Office noted the huge projected costs in 2002.

Monday, May 6, 2024

Wikipedia Community Documents Pro-Palestinian Protests on University and College Campuses

On April 22, 2024, the Wikipedia community began building an article titled 2024 pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses. The article includes a timeline on an estimated 120 campus protests and occupations that first started at Brown University in November 2023. On May 3, 2024, the list of pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses in 2024 was created.

As of May 6, more than 120 writers and editors have been involved in the Wikipedia project making more than 1100 edits. Editors are restricted to those who have shown a record of following with community rules. The article has received about 33,000 views so far. On May 3, the original article received a peak number of views, more than 10,000 for the day. The number of views of the second article, the list, continues to grow.

Events Preceding the Student Protests

Demonstrations which began in Europe and the US in October 2023 moved onto college campuses and expanded internationally.

The protests are in response to tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians being killed and a half million facing famine. The US media has generally avoided discussing the larger picture: of US, European, and Arab nations over the last seven decades, and their role in the forced migration and containment of Palestinians in what has been termed an "open air prison" in Gaza. US history includes similar elements of inhumanity and oppression.

In January 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) said it is "plausible" that Tel Aviv was committing genocide in Gaza, ordering Israel to stop such acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians. An order that Israel has rejected.

In March 2024, United Nations Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese said of the Israeli actions that “There are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the crime of genocide…has been met.”

Outcomes During and After the Demonstrations

In an attempt to quell the university and college protests in the US, more than 2,700 people have been arrested, to include students and university professors. An unknown number of students have also been expelled with limited due process. Media have been restricted access to protest sites.

Despite the documented horrors in Gaza, the US public has generally not supported the protests. And the US government continues to send arms, and money for arms, to Israel. Pro-Palestinian protesters have been labeled as radicals and antisemitic, even though many of them are Jewish.

Student demands for divestment from Israel and from US arms makers have been discussed, but no material changes have occurred. Israel is planning to invade the city Rafah, which is likely to end in more deaths and suffering, but the US has mentioned no consequences if civilian body counts are high. Internationally, Israel is facing greater isolation, and its leaders are being accused of war crimes.

Time will tell whether these articles will be reflective of a short-lived situation or part a larger social movement. The 76-year genocide in Palestine, the unintended consequences of the Jewish genocide during the 1930s and 1940s, will not be going away.

For more than a century, student protests have been a part of US history and social consciousness, sometimes forgotten, but often reflecting progressive thinking (civil rights, peace, divestment from apartheid, fighting climate change).

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