July 4th in the Face of Fascism: Moral resources for Americans who know we’ve been betrayed (William Barber & Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove)

Civil Rights Movement and Wayside Theatre photographs, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

On America’s 249^th anniversary of declaring freedom from tyranny, a would-be king will celebrate Independence Day by signing a budget bill that Americans oppose 2 to 1.

This Big Ugly Bill that was passed by Republicans in Congress this week will make the largest cuts to healthcare and nutrition assistance in our nation’s history to pay for tax cuts for people who do not need them and an assault on our communities by masked men who are disappearing our neighbors to concentration camps. The dystopian scene is enough to make any true believer in liberty and equality question whether they can celebrate Independence Day at all. But it would be a betrayal of our moral inheritance to not remember the true champions of American freedom on this day. Indeed, to forget them would mean losing the moral resources we need to revive American democracy.

As bad as things are, we cannot forget that others faced worse with less resources than we have. We are not the first Americans to face a power-drunk minority in public office, determined to hold onto power at any cost. This was the everyday reality of Black Americans in the Mississippi Delta for nearly a century after the Klan and white conservatives carried out the Mississippi Plan in the 1870s, erasing the gains of Reconstruction and enshrining white supremacy in law.

When Ms. Fannie Lou Hamer decided to join the freedom movement in Sunflower County, Mississippi, she knew two things: the majority of people in Sunflower County despised the policies of Senator James O. Eastland and Eastland’s party had the votes to get whatever they wanted written into law. The day she dared attempt to register to vote, Ms. Hamer lost her home. When she attended a training to learn how to build a movement that could vote, she was thrown into the Winona Jail and nearly beaten to death. Still, Ms. Hamer did not bow.

Instead, she leaned into the gospel blues tradition that had grown out of the Delta, spreading the good news that God is on the side of those who do not look away from this world’s troubles but trust that a force more powerful than tyrants is on the side of the oppressed and can make a way out of no way to redeem the soul of America. “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine,” she sang, and a generation of college student volunteers came to sing with her during Freedom Summer. Their mission was to register voters and teach the promises of democracy to Mississippi’s Black children in Freedom Schools.

On July 4, 1964, Ms. Hamer hosted a picnic for Black and white volunteers who’d dedicated their summer to nonviolently facing down fascism on American soil. They celebrated the promise that all are created equal even as they faced death for living as if it were true. Those same young people who were at Hamer’s July 4th picnic went on to launch the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and take their challenge all the way to the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City that August. “I question America,” Ms. Hamer said in her testimony that aired on the national news during coverage of the convention. “Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave where we have to sleep with our telephones off of the hooks because our lives be threatened daily because we want to live as decent human beings, in America?”

Hamer and the MFDP didn’t win the seats they demanded at the 1964 convention, but Atlantic City would be the last convention to seat an all-white delegation from Mississippi. Just a year later, as part of the War on Poverty, Congress passed the Medicare and Medicaid Act, expanding access to healthcare to elderly and low-income Americans – an expansion that Trump is rolling back half a century later in an immoral betrayal of the very people he promised to champion in his fake populist appeal to poor and working people.

There’s nothing un-American about questioning a fascism that defies the will of the people to terrorize American communities and assert total control. It has been the moral responsibility of moral leaders from Frederick Douglass, who asked, “what to the slave is the 4^th of July?” to those who are asking today how Americans are supposed to celebrate when their elected leaders sell them out to billionaires and send masked men to assault their communities. Ms. Hamer is a vivid reminder of the moral wisdom that grows out of the Mississippi Delta. It teaches us that those who question America when we allow fascists to rule are not un-American. They are, in fact, the people who have helped America become more of what she claims to be.

So this 4^th of July, may we all gather with Fannie Lou Hamer and the moral fusion family closest to us – both the living and the dead – to recommit ourselves to a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Yes, America’s fascists have the power today. They will throw a party at our House and desecrate the memory of so many who’ve worked to push us toward a more perfect union. But they will not own our Independence Day. As long as we remember the moral tradition that allowed Fannie Lou Hamer to host a July 4^th picnic while she battled the fascism of Jim Crow, we have access to the moral resources we need to reconstruct American democracy today.

This is why today, as all American’s celebrate our nation’s declaration of liberty and equality, we are announcing that the Moral Monday campaign we’ve been organizing in Washington, DC, to challenge the policy violence of this Big Ugly Bill is going to the Delta July 14^th for Moral Monday in Memphis. As we rally moral witnesses in the city of Graceland and the Delta blues – the place where Dr. King insisted in 1968 that the movement “begins and ends” – delegations of moral leaders and directly impacted people will visit Congressional offices across the South to tell the stories of the people who will be harmed by the Big, Ugly, and Deadly bill that Donald Trump is signing today.

Yes, this bill will kill. But we are determined to organize a resurrection of people from every race, religion, and region of this country who know that, when we come together in the power of our best moral traditions, we can reconstruct American democracy and become the nation we’ve never yet been.

Today’s neo-fascists have passed their Big Ugly Bill, but they have also sparked a new Freedom Summer. We will organize those this bill harms. We will mobilize a new coalition of Americans who see beyond the narrow divisions of left and right. We will lean into the wisdom of Ms. Hamer and Delta’s freedom struggle, and we will build a moral fusion movement to save America from this madness.

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Blue Falcons: Politicians, Government Agencies, and Nonprofits Serve Themselves, Not Those Who Have Served

“Blue Falcon”—military slang for a “Buddy F****r”—refers to someone who betrays their comrades to get ahead. It’s a fitting label for disgraced U.S. Congressman Duncan Hunter, a Marine Corps veteran convicted of misusing campaign funds while cloaking himself in patriotic rhetoric. But Hunter isn’t alone. He’s emblematic of a broader betrayal—one that involves politicians, bureaucrats, predatory schools, and veteran-serving nonprofits. Together, they form an ecosystem where self-interest thrives, and veterans are left behind.

Despite endless platitudes about “supporting our troops,” the systems designed to serve veterans—especially in education—are failing. Two of the most generous and ambitious benefits ever created for veterans, the Post-9/11 GI Bill (PGIB) and Department of Defense Tuition Assistance (TA), are now riddled with waste, abuse, and profiteering. The real beneficiaries aren’t veterans, but an extensive network of for-profit colleges, lobbying firms, and institutions that exploit them.

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The GI Bill and DOD Tuition Assistance: A Pipeline for Predators

The Post-9/11 GI Bill was supposed to be a transformative benefit—a way to reward veterans with the chance to reintegrate, retrain, and succeed in the civilian world. At more than $13 billion annually, it is the single most generous higher education grant program in the country. According to a report highlighted by Derek Newton in Forbes, the GI Bill now costs more than all state scholarships and grants combined and represents half of all Pell Grant spending.

And yet, it isn’t working.

A groundbreaking study from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)—conducted by researchers from Texas A&M, the University of Michigan, Dartmouth, William & Mary, and even the U.S. Department of the Treasury—delivers a scathing indictment of the program’s effectiveness. According to the report, veterans who used PGIB benefits actually earned less nine years after separating from the military than peers who didn’t attend college at all. The researchers found:

“The PGIB reduced average annual earnings nine years after separation from the Army by $900 (on a base of $32,000). Under a variety of conservative assumptions, veterans are unlikely to recoup these reduced earnings during their working careers.”

The reason? Too many veterans are enrolling in heavily marketed, low-value schools—institutions that offer little return and often leave students without degrees or meaningful credentials. Veterans from lower-skilled military occupations and those with lower test scores were particularly likely to fall into this trap. These “less advantaged” veterans not only saw worse labor market outcomes but were more likely to spend their GI Bill benefits at for-profit schools with dismal outcomes.

Even worse, the report estimated that the cost to taxpayers for every additional marginal bachelor’s degree produced by PGIB is between $486,000 and $590,000. That’s beyond inefficient—it’s exploitative.

In the Forbes article we put it bluntly:

“This is sad to say, that the GI Bill does not work for many servicemembers, veterans and their families. What's even sadder is that if you drill into the data, to the institutional and program level, it will likely be worse. There are many programs, for-profit and non-profit, that do not work out for servicemembers, veterans, and their families.”

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Tuition Assistance and the DOD’s Open Wallet

The Department of Defense’s Tuition Assistance program also faces exploitation. With few controls, it serves as an open faucet for bad actors who aggressively recruit active-duty service members through deceptive advertising, partnerships with base education offices, and endorsements from shady nonprofits. Just as with the GI Bill, predatory institutions see DOD TA not as an education resource, but as a predictable stream of federal cash.

Military leadership has done little to intervene. The same institutions flagged for fraud and poor outcomes continue to operate freely, bolstered by industry lobbyists and revolving-door influence in Washington.

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Nonprofits and Politicians: Wolves in Patriotic Clothing

The betrayal doesn’t stop with colleges. Many large veteran-serving nonprofits and “military-friendly” initiatives exist more for image than impact. Instead of helping veterans, they prop up harmful systems and launder legitimacy for the very institutions exploiting the military community.

Meanwhile, Congress talks a big game but routinely fails to act. Lawmakers from both parties show up for ribbon cuttings and Veterans Day speeches, but many take campaign donations from subprime colleges and education conglomerates that prey on veterans. They refuse to close known loopholes—like the infamous 90/10 rule—that incentivize for-profit schools to chase GI Bill funds with deceptive tactics.

And all the while, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)—underfunded, overburdened, and politically manipulated—struggles to provide the basic services veterans were promised.

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A Sad Reality, and a Call to Action

It’s a bitter irony that programs designed to lift up veterans often lead them into deeper debt, poorer job prospects, and wasted years. The data from NBER, the findings from watchdogs like Derek Newton, and the lived experience of thousands of veterans all point to one conclusion: the Post-9/11 GI Bill, as currently administered, is failing. And so is the broader system around it.

Veterans deserve better. They deserve:

• Strict oversight of predatory colleges and training programs

• Transparency in outcomes for veteran-serving nonprofits

• Accountability from lawmakers and government agencies

• Equitable investment in public and community college options

• A fundamental shift from patriotic lip service to real systemic reform

Until then, the Blue Falcons will continue to circle—posing as allies while feasting on the very benefits veterans fought to earn.

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The Higher Education Inquirer will continue exposing the policies, institutions, and individuals who exploit veterans under the guise of service. If you have insider information or want to share your story, contact us confidentially at gmcghee@aya.yale.edu.

What the Pentagon Doesn’t Want You to See: For-Profit Colleges in the Military-Industrial-Education Complex

[Editor's note: The Higher Education Inquirer has emailed these FOIA documents to ProPublica and the Republic Report.  We will send these documents to any additional media and any individuals who request for the information. We are also seeking experts who can help us review and decipher the information that has been released.]   

On July 3, 2025, the Higher Education Inquirer received the latest response from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) regarding FOIA request 22-F-1203—our most recent effort in a nearly eight-year campaign to uncover how subprime and for-profit colleges have preyed on military servicemembers, veterans, and their families. 

The response included confirmation that 1,420 pages of documents were located. But of those, 306 pages were withheld in full, and 1,114 were released only with heavy redactions.  A few for-profit colleges—Trident University International, Grand Canyon University, DeVry University, and American Public University System (which includes American Military University and American Public University)—were specifically mentioned in the partially visible content.

 

And yet the larger truth remains hidden. The names of other institutions known to have exploited military-connected students—University of Phoenix, Colorado Technical University, American InterContinental University, Purdue University Global, and Liberty University Online, among others—were nowhere to be found in the documents we received. Their absence is conspicuous.

We have been pursuing the truth since December 2017, demanding records that would reveal how the DoD enabled these schools to thrive. We sought the list of the 50 worst-performing colleges receiving Tuition Assistance (TA) funds, based on data compiled under Executive Order 13607 during the Obama Administration. That list was never released. When the Trump Administration took power in 2017, they quietly abandoned the protective measures meant to hold these colleges accountable. Our FOIA request DOD OIG-2019-000702 was denied, with the Pentagon claiming that no such list existed. A second request in 2021 (21-F-0411) was also rejected. And now, more than three years after we filed our 2022 request, the DoD continues to deny the public full access to the truth.

The records we did receive are riddled with legal exemptions: internal deliberations, privacy claims, and most notably, references to 10 U.S.C. § 4021, a law that allows the DoD to withhold details of research transactions outside of traditional grants and contracts. In other words, the Pentagon has built legal firewalls around its relationships with for-profit education providers—and continues to shield bad actors from scrutiny.

But the complicity doesn’t end there. It extends deep into the institutional fabric of how the military interfaces with higher education.

Decades of Systemic Corruption

Since the 1980s, the U.S. Department of Defense has worked hand-in-glove with for-profit colleges through a nonprofit called the Council of College and Military Educators (CCME). What began in the 1970s as a noble initiative to expand access to education for military personnel was hijacked by predatory colleges—including the University of Phoenix—that used the organization as a lobbying front.

These schools infiltrated CCME events, using them to curry favor with military officials, often by hiring veterans as on-base sales agents and even providing alcohol to loosen up potential gatekeepers. While CCME publicly maintained the appearance of academic integrity and service, behind the scenes it served as a conduit for lobbying, influence, and enrollment schemes. Military education officers were schmoozed, manipulated, and in some cases, quietly co-opted. This is something you won’t find in CCME’s official history.

We have been told by multiple insiders that the partnership between DoD and these schools was not just tolerated but actively nurtured. Attempts at reform came and went. Investigations were buried. Promises to "do better" evaporated. No one was held accountable. No one went to jail. But the damage has been lasting—measured in ruined credit, wasted benefits, and lives derailed by fraudulent degrees and broken promises.

The Trump-Hegseth Department of Defense

And still, new scandals—except those uncovered by us—go largely unreported. The media has moved on. Congressional attention has shifted. And the same schools, or their rebranded successors, continue to operate freely, often under the protective shadow of military partnerships.

Today, the DoD continues to deny that the DODOIG-2019-000702 list of the 50 worst schools even exists. But we know otherwise. Based on VA data, whistleblower accounts, and independent reporting, we are confident that this list was compiled—and buried. The question is why. And the answer may very well lie in the unredacted names of institutions too politically connected or too legally protected to be exposed.

The Higher Education Inquirer will not stop pushing for those names, those communications, and that accountability. Because behind every redaction is a servicemember who trusted the system—and got scammed. Behind every delay is a taxpayer footing the bill for worthless credentials. Behind every refusal to act is a government too intertwined with profit to protect its own people.

This is not just a story of bureaucratic inertia. It is a story of complicity at the highest levels. And it is ongoing.

Related links:
DoD review: 0% of schools following TA rules (Military Times, 2018)
Schools are struggling to meet TA rules, but DoD isn’t punishing them. Here’s why. (Military Times, 2019)

Selling Armageddon

In an age defined by manufactured crises, weaponized ignorance, and the commodification of fear, a disturbing coalition has emerged—one that profits not from progress, but from collapse. This coalition spans billionaires and bomb makers, Ivy League technocrats and evangelical foot soldiers, data miners and doomsday preachers. They aren't just predicting the end of the world. They're selling it.

The title Selling Armageddon captures a disturbing trend within American society—and particularly within the intersection of higher education, technology, and political ideology—where fear, fatalism, and anti-intellectualism have become not just cultural phenomena but profit centers.

The Profiteers of the Apocalypse

Billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel, a vocal critic of democracy and champion of techno-libertarianism, is emblematic of this ethos. Thiel's investments in surveillance, biotech, and defense contractors like Palantir are not just financial bets—they are ideological declarations. He has publicly said that he no longer believes freedom and democracy are compatible. Instead, Thiel supports strongmen, deregulated markets, and technological sovereignty for elites.

Thiel has also funneled money into right-wing institutions and figures that sow distrust in public institutions, especially higher education. Simultaneously, he and other members of the "techno-elite" invest in private learning incubators, surveillance infrastructure, and seasteading projects that imagine life after democracy—or after the planet.

These billionaires are preparing for Armageddon not by preventing it, but by monetizing it: funding bunkers in New Zealand, buying private islands, or investing in orbital real estate. As The Guardian once asked, “What happens when the people who make our futures no longer believe in the future?”

Enter Elon Musk, who brings to the Armageddon marketplace a particularly seductive brand of techno-messianism. Musk has built an empire not just on electric cars and space rockets, but on a narrative that humanity is doomed unless it follows his vision: Mars colonization, AI supremacy, and deregulated everything. His companies depend on government contracts, foreign labor, non-unionized workplaces, and public subsidies—all while he rails against the very institutions that enabled his rise.

Musk’s appeal lies in his ability to market collapse as innovation. Colonizing Mars is framed not as escapism for the rich, but as salvation for the species. Neuralink’s experiments on animals and humans are marketed as “progress.” Buying and gutting Twitter—now X—is portrayed as “free speech absolutism,” even as it becomes a haven for far-right propaganda and anti-intellectual conspiracy theories. Musk does not offer solutions for Earth. He sells a lifeboat for elites—and a live stream of the ship sinking for the rest.

The War on Higher Education: Enter Charlie Kirk

Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, is one of the most visible faces of the new anti-intellectual populism. Kirk, who has no college degree himself, built a political empire by demonizing higher education and promoting a gospel of grievance. Funded in part by the same billionaire class that bankrolls tech libertarians like Thiel and lionizes Elon Musk, Kirk has launched aggressive campaigns to surveil, blacklist, and harass professors and students who challenge conservative orthodoxy.

His Turning Point “Professor Watchlist” is not just an attack on individuals—it is an assault on the very notion of critical inquiry. In Kirk’s universe, universities are not flawed institutions to be reformed but radical breeding grounds to be destroyed. He promotes a worldview in which faith is pure, facts are suspect, and feelings of persecution are monetized.

While Kirk claims to be fighting “Marxism” and “wokeness,” what he is actually selling is obedience—particularly to corporate power, Christian nationalism, and militarized borders. His audience is taught that the future is a war, and they must choose sides: us vs. them, believers vs. traitors, patriots vs. professors.

Naomi Klein and the Shock Doctrine of Now

Naomi Klein’s work, especially The Shock Doctrine, offers a crucial lens for understanding how crises—real or manufactured—are used to erode public institutions and consolidate wealth. The COVID-19 pandemic, mass shootings, climate catastrophes, and political chaos have each served as moments of opportunity for privatizers, war profiteers, and ideological extremists.

In her more recent writings, Klein explores how conspiracy culture and fascist-adjacent movements have merged with wellness grifts and anti-science ideologies to create a new reactionary consumer base. Higher education has been both target and tool in this ecosystem—either accused of being too “woke,” or silently complicit in the march toward corporate authoritarianism.

Musk, like Thiel and Kirk, has leveraged this blend of libertarianism and grievance politics—tapping into populist rage while making his wealth on the back of public resources. Together, they represent a new ruling class that doesn’t just tolerate ignorance—they capitalize on it.

“Freedom Cities”: Privatized Utopia, Public Disaster

A key component of the Armageddon economy is the “Freedom City” project—a concept championed by Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and now embraced by Trump Republicans. On the surface, these cities promise deregulation, innovation, and technological advancement. But beneath the buzzwords is a vision of society in which public governance is replaced by corporate fiefdoms.

In Freedom Cities, there are no public universities—only credential mills optimized for employer branding. There are no town halls—only shareholder meetings. Laws are written by venture capitalists, not legislatures. These cities are not democratic experiments—they are controlled environments designed to ensure elite survival and labor discipline. Education is not about knowledge; it’s about code bootcamps, ideological training, and loyalty to corporate overlords.

Some Freedom City backers go so far as to frame these cities as escapes from the “decay” of American democracy. In this vision, the United States itself becomes disposable—its lands and labor extracted, its public institutions hollowed out, its higher education system replaced with behavioral conditioning and biometric surveillance.

Freedom Cities are the spatial manifestation of fatalistic capitalism—a place to survive the collapse that capitalism itself caused.

The Israel Factor

Nowhere is this more visible than in the militarization of university discourse around Israel and Palestine. Pro-Israel lobbying groups, sometimes in collaboration with groups like Turning Point USA and tech influencers on X, have used massive funding and public pressure to silence academic dissent, criminalize protest, and reshape curricula. Many elite universities have openly collaborated with defense contractors, some of whom profit from technologies tested on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

This is not merely about Israel—it is about the normalization of permanent war as a condition of life. It is about desensitizing the public to state violence, turning morality into a partisan debate, and monetizing surveillance and repression. These policies, developed in the name of “security,” are later imported back into the United States—on campuses, in classrooms, and across the border.

Selling the End of Knowledge

The university was once imagined as a refuge from the chaos of the world—a place to build better futures. But in this dystopian moment, education is being stripped for parts. Faculty are adjunctified and silenced. Student debt is an albatross. Basic humanities departments are being gutted, while programs in cybersecurity, defense studies, and corporate law are growing.

We are educating people to manage collapse, not prevent it.

Instead of cultivating critical thinkers, institutions churn out bureaucrats for empire and engineers for oligarchs. The architects of Armageddon do not fear higher education—they co-opt it, fund it, rebrand it, and turn it against its original purpose.

Preventing Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

To resist the forces selling Armageddon, we must reclaim higher education as a public good—one grounded in ethics, truth-seeking, and planetary survival. We must refuse the logic of fatalism and reject the grifters who profit from despair. And we must name the forces—Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Charlie Kirk, the boosters of Freedom Cities, defense contractors, and neoliberal university presidents—that see crisis not as a call for solidarity, but as a sales pitch.

Because if we don’t, the end of the world won’t come with fire or flood.
It will come with a branded dome, a loyalty app, biometric gates—and a tuition bill.

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The Higher Education Inquirer is committed to investigative journalism that challenges elite narratives and exposes structural injustices in academia and beyond.

Volcano Rumbles: Higher Education and the Unfolding Crisis of American Democracy

“When Fascism came into power, most people were unprepared, both theoretically and practically. They were unable to believe that man could exhibit such propensities for evil, such lust for power, such disregard for the rights of the weak, or such yearning for submission. Only a few had been aware of the rumbling of the volcano preceding the outbreak.”

—Erich Fromm, Escape From Freedom

On this Independence Day in 2025, the air is heavy with foreboding. Across the United States, fireworks burst into the sky as if nothing has changed. But below the spectacle lies a country teetering between democracy and authoritarian rule. The institutions tasked with preserving truth, freedom, and critical thought—most notably higher education—are caught in the crossfire of what Erich Fromm warned of nearly a century ago: the rise of modern fascism, not as a dramatic coup, but as a creeping normalization of authoritarian values under the guise of "freedom."

The Rumbles Before the Eruption

In hindsight, the signs were glaring. Corporate capture of the public good. The erosion of academic freedom. The transformation of universities from spaces of inquiry to credential factories and financial instruments. A growing surveillance infrastructure built not only by Big Tech but in concert with university IT departments, data brokers, and online program managers. The rise of so-called “free speech zones” and legislative gag orders that redefined political speech while silencing dissent.

What we are witnessing is not merely political turbulence—it is a full-scale epistemic breakdown, a national forgetting of what education is supposed to be.

The Trump Spending Bill and Project 2025

The reemergence of Donald Trump on the national stage—and his allies' vision through the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025—has laid bare the authoritarian designs of a political movement bent on reshaping the federal government into a weapon against its own people. Under the new Trump Spending Bill, long-standing environmental protections, civil rights enforcement, and funding for critical education and research have been gutted. Student aid programs like Pell Grants are under siege, while massive giveaways to corporate polluters and military contractors accelerate.

The Department of Education itself is on life support, with Executive Order 14242 outlining a road map for its dissolution. Academic accreditation is being refashioned into a tool of ideological enforcement. DEI initiatives are being replaced with patriotic education mandates, while campuses are encouraged to police faculty and curricula for "anti-Americanism."

Higher Education: Complicit, Crippled, and Co-opted

Higher education did not arrive at this moment innocently. Elite institutions embraced neoliberalism decades ago, relying increasingly on corporate donations, defense contracts, and hedge fund returns. Many public universities, once proud bastions of working-class mobility, became tuition-dependent and debt-financed enterprises.

For years, scholars warned of growing authoritarian trends in American politics. But those voices—often contingent faculty, graduate students, and independent researchers—were sidelined, their jobs precarious, their influence limited. Meanwhile, college presidents and boards of trustees courted billionaires and politicians, hoping to remain above the fray.

The result is a sector fractured and weakened, unable to mount a coherent defense of democracy. In many places, it has become part of the problem—administered by opportunists, managed by AI-powered surveillance, and staffed by an underclass of overworked adjuncts who barely make a living.

The Yearning for Submission

Fromm’s insight—his warning that many people want to submit—rings especially true today. The cult of personality, the vilification of expertise, and the rise of conspiracy over fact have flourished in a vacuum of meaning and solidarity. Higher education once promised both, but its commodification has left millions alienated, indebted, and skeptical.

The myth of meritocracy—long propped up by institutions like Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Phoenix—has collapsed under the weight of its contradictions. People now look elsewhere for answers: to strongmen, to influencers, to AI chatbots, and to nostalgic visions of a past that never truly existed.

What Comes Next?

This is not a call for despair, but for resistance. If there is hope for American democracy, it lies in reclaiming the public mission of education—not just in words, but in practice.

That means supporting independent and investigative journalism. It means dismantling the corporate stranglehold on curriculum, research, and governance. It means honoring the work of teachers, librarians, and adjuncts who continue to hold the line in the face of overwhelming odds. And it means building alliances with those outside the academy—working families, community organizers, students—who understand that education is not a luxury, but a battleground.

On this Fourth of July, let us not retreat into comfortable myths or cynical fatalism. The volcano is still rumbling. But so too is the conscience of those who refuse to be silenced.

Let us remember: freedom is not inherited—it is practiced, defended, and reimagined in every generation.

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Sources

• Erich Fromm, Escape From Freedom (1941)

• Heritage Foundation, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise (Project 2025)

• U.S. House of Representatives, 2025 Appropriations Bill

• The Century Foundation, “The Future of Higher Ed in an Age of Authoritarianism” (2024)

• Chronicle of Higher Education, “Colleges Under Siege” (2025)

• Higher Education Inquirer archives

Project 1775, Project 2025, and the Promise of Project 2026: A Call for Revolutionary Hope in American Higher Education

In a fiery and prophetic address, the House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries invoked the memory of America’s original struggle for freedom, branding the tyranny of King George III in the years before the American Revolution as “Project 1775.” With bold clarity, he drew a straight line from that era of oppression to today’s rising authoritarianism—what he identified as “Donald Trump’s Project 2025” and the accompanying Trump Spending Bill. But rather than ending in despair, his speech was a call to courage and hope: just as Project 1775 gave birth to the Revolution of 1776, we are called to give birth to a new movement—Project 2026, a revolutionary vision of democracy, justice, and renewal.

His message resonates beyond politics—it speaks deeply to the state of American higher education, which now stands at a crossroads. Under siege from authoritarian impulses, stripped of funding, and commodified by corporate greed, our colleges and universities reflect a nation in spiritual crisis. But as the Minority Leader reminded us, this moment is also one of great opportunity.

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7)

Project 2026 is not merely a reaction to tyranny—it is a faith-driven declaration of agency. It is a call to restore education as a public good, not a private racket. It is a rejection of robocolleges, shadowy online program managers, and predatory lenders that have turned learning into a means of lifelong debt. And it is a stand against those who weaponize ignorance and rewrite history for their own gain.

We are reminded in the New Testament that resistance is righteous, and that reform must be rooted in love, justice, and truth.

“And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32)

This truth must guide the next phase of the American experiment—a truth that recognizes students not as consumers but as citizens; that sees teachers not as disposable labor but as bearers of light; and that understands education as liberation, not subjugation.

Project 2026 can become our modern Sermon on the Mount, a blueprint for building a nation where colleges nurture both critical thinking and spiritual compassion, where public funding is a covenant—not a weapon—and where we "do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God" (Micah 6:8).

For decades, institutions of higher learning have drifted toward elitism, exclusion, and exploitation. Many have served as tools of empire, not vessels of enlightenment. Project 2026 offers a rebirth—a Great Awakening that opens the doors of education wide to the poor, the marginalized, and the weary. It speaks to the tired adjunct, the indebted graduate, the first-generation student, and the worker seeking dignity.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” (Matthew 5:6)

This is the moment to stand together. Project 2026 must not be left to chance or left in the hands of the powerful alone. It is a grassroots revolution of the mind and spirit—a multiracial, multigenerational, moral movement that calls upon students, faculty, parents, and communities to say: No more.

No more austerity cloaked as fiscal responsibility.
No more censorship masquerading as patriotism.
No more debt for a degree that leads to precarious work and empty promises.

Instead, let us build an education system worthy of democracy—a system animated by the values that once inspired a ragtag group of rebels in 1776. Let us be the generation that reclaims education as the soul of the Republic.

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” (Romans 12:2)

The struggle ahead will not be easy. But neither was 1776. And yet from that fire emerged a new nation. With faith and fierce love, Project 2026 can become a new declaration—not just of independence, but of interdependence. A declaration of solidarity with the forgotten, the silenced, and the struggling.

Let the tyrants tremble. Let the profiteers beware.
A revolution is stirring in our hearts.

And as Scripture reminds us:

“If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31)

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Sources:

• The Holy Bible, New Testament

• House Minority Leader remarks, July 3, 2025

• Trump-aligned Project 2025 blueprint (Heritage Foundation)

• Trump Budget and Spending Bill (2025)

• The Higher Education Inquirer archives on privatization, debt peonage, and adjunct labor in U.S. higher education

WATCH LIVE: House Minority Leader Jeffries giving marathon speech criticizing GOP tax cut bill (PBS News Hour)

US House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) gives a marathon speech, calling out the destructive path that House Republicans are going down. This is a Bill that undermines the United States of America and its national security.  It is also a threat to democracy.  Folks should listen to every minute of this historical speech. 

A House Divided...

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Abraham Lincoln’s immortal words—delivered at a time of profound crisis—speak volumes to the United States of 2025. We are again a nation splintering at its foundations. Not only is the Trump administration’s 2025 spending bill a cruel redistribution of wealth and opportunity, but it is also a calculated assault on national cohesion. By pitting group against group, and widening already-existing chasms, this legislation weakens the country from within.

It worsens every major divide in American life:

Young and Old
This bill undermines the future of young people by defunding public education, freezing Pell Grant expansion, and dismantling student loan protections. Meanwhile, it offers little to nothing to the aging population—cutting health and housing programs while privatizing services they depend on. Instead of investing in generational cooperation, the bill fuels resentment: older voters blamed for electing regressive leaders, younger generations accused of entitlement. Both groups suffer—but separately.

Rich and Poor
At its core, the bill is a brutal act of class warfare. It strips federal protections and benefits from working-class families while expanding tax loopholes for the wealthy and funding corporate subsidies. The working poor lose access to healthcare, clean air and water, education, and social safety nets. The rich get richer—and more powerful. The wealth gap, already obscene, becomes insurmountable. Billionaires buy colleges, elections, and media narratives while everyday Americans lose homes, degrees, and dignity.

Men and Women
By slashing childcare funding, defunding reproductive healthcare, and threatening Title IX protections, the spending bill deepens the economic and social vulnerabilities of women, especially single mothers and women of color. Meanwhile, men, too, are left in precarious labor markets with fewer public supports and more pressure to conform to toxic models of masculinity peddled by reactionary forces. The bill ignores gender inequality while encouraging cultural backlashes, deepening mistrust between the sexes.

White, Black, and Brown
The racial fault lines of American life are carved even deeper by this legislation. Black and Brown communities, long targets of systemic disinvestment, will face cuts in education, public health, housing, and environmental protections. Latinx families lose protections for immigrant students and face heightened surveillance. Native American communities see treaty responsibilities ignored yet again. White working-class families, while nominally courted by nationalist rhetoric, are left materially worse off—offered culture war instead of clean water and decent jobs.

The Trump budget does not unite Americans; it divides them more efficiently. It weaponizes identity and scarcity—turning natural allies into enemies and stoking civil conflict not with guns but with spreadsheets.

This is not accidental. In a 2022 interview, we warned about the growing possibility of colleges being drawn into “both sides of a Second U.S. Civil War between Christian Fundamentalists and neoliberals.” In such a conflict, we said, “working families will take the largest hit.” That warning now feels prophetic. Colleges are already caught in the ideological crossfire, serving either the nationalist right or the neoliberal consulting class—while student debt and academic labor exploitation grow on both sides.

This bill isn't just a financial document. It's a manifesto for a new Gilded Age, where working people are left to fight one another over crumbs while billionaires hoard the pie.

Higher education, which once promised upward mobility and civic understanding, has been transformed into a marketplace of credentials, surveillance, and extraction. The 2025 Trump bill accelerates this, cutting off pathways to opportunity while protecting the interests of robocolleges, shady lenders, and digital monopolies.

The house is burning. And if we do not find a way to build solidarity across these divisions—young and old, rich and poor, Black and white, men and women—we will fall, not as tribes, but as a nation.

Sources:

• Interview with Dahn Shaulis, College Viability (2022)

• Congressional Budget Office, Trump 2025 Budget Analysis

• National Student Legal Defense Network

• American Council on Education, Pell Grant and Loan Data

• U.S. Department of Education: Title IX and regulatory changes

• Clean Energy for America Coalition

• U.S. Commission on Civil Rights: Education and Tribal Funding Reports

• Higher Education Inquirer investigations on robocolleges, edtech profiteering, and student debt

The Law of Least Effort: Why Billionaires—and Elite Universities—Prefer Stale Ideas Over Bold Thinking

In the modern mythology of Silicon Valley and the Ivy League, billionaires and elite universities are imagined as bold visionaries, pushing humanity forward with daring innovation and world-changing ideas. But scratch the surface of this mythology and what you’ll often find instead is a kind of intellectual laziness—a preference for warmed-over ideas from mid-century science fiction, recycled neoliberal dogma, and technological determinism masquerading as insight.

This is the Law of Least Effort, not in physical labor, but in thought: a cognitive shortcut that prioritizes ideological safety over intellectual risk. Rather than genuinely exploring new paradigms or investing in critical inquiry, the ultra-rich and the institutions that train them tend to return to narrow, well-worn frameworks that preserve their worldview and their power.

Billionaire Boredom Disguised as Innovation

When Elon Musk buys into the fantasy of colonizing Mars, or Peter Thiel pines for libertarian seasteads and eternal life, these are not bold, new ideas—they’re pale echoes of Golden Age science fiction from the 1950s and 60s, regurgitated without reflection. These concepts were radical when Asimov or Heinlein explored them in fiction, but today they are escapist crutches for wealthy men who can’t (or won’t) confront the terrestrial problems their own wealth exacerbates.

The same goes for the obsession with AI, blockchain, or “effective altruism.” These are often less about solving real social issues and more about technocratic avoidance: sidestepping messy problems like poverty, racism, and labor exploitation by fantasizing that code or capital will save us. Billionaires don’t fund utopian social science—they fund Singularity University.

Elite Universities: Safe Havens for Tired Ideas

Elite universities, supposedly the engines of radical thought, are frequently the opposite. These institutions, particularly those with massive endowments like Harvard, Yale, and Stanford, are often intellectually risk-averse. Their financial security has made them more conservative, not less.

Rather than promoting critical or emergent perspectives—particularly those from marginalized communities or interdisciplinary thought—these schools cling to narrow forms of prestige knowledge: economics departments that treat market forces as natural law, international relations programs built around Cold War paradigms, or law schools that churn out corporate lawyers while ignoring structural injustice.

Even when elite universities gesture toward innovation, it's often market-driven or Silicon Valley-aligned. Interdisciplinary centers or “impact hubs” are structured to attract corporate partnerships, not challenge the foundations of economic and social power. Faculty who question capitalism, settler colonialism, or the ideology of meritocracy may find themselves pushed to the margins—if not altogether silenced by “donor sensitivities.”

An Educated Class That’s Intellectually Sedated

The elite graduates of these universities—many of whom become the consultants, bankers, tech executives, and policy shapers of tomorrow—are often not trained to be critical thinkers but intellectually domesticated agents of the status quo. Their version of education is a credentialing process, not a transformative one.

They read the canon, cite the correct theorists, nod to diversity in DEI statements, and pursue change only when it doesn't disrupt existing structures. This is intellectual effort only in the performative sense. The goal is fluency in the language of power, not the courage to question it.

The Cost of Cognitive Complacency

What’s lost in this system is incalculable: bold ideas, radical futures, deep ethical inquiry. Instead of investing in indigenous knowledge systems, speculative Black futurisms, transformative pedagogy, or critiques of extractive capitalism, we get another think tank report on “human capital optimization.”

This isn't just boring—it's dangerous. The world is facing intersecting crises: ecological collapse, rising authoritarianism, mass inequality. These cannot be solved with recycled ideas from libertarian science fiction or econometrics models from the Reagan era. They require intellectual courage, democratic imagination, and a willingness to fundamentally reimagine our institutions.

But that kind of thinking doesn’t come from those clinging to the Law of Least Effort. It comes from those excluded from the halls of elite power, working at the margins, asking the uncomfortable questions.

New Worlds Require New Thinking

The problem with the billionaires and the elite universities that shape them isn’t just that they hoard wealth. It’s that they hoard thought. They preserve a narrow intellectual landscape where old ideas are recycled, and challenging paradigms are dismissed as utopian or impractical.

If society wants to move forward, we need to stop mistaking wealth for wisdom, and prestige for insight. It’s time to break the mental monopoly of the elites and invest in thinkers, communities, and institutions that aren’t afraid to do the hard intellectual work—the kind that doesn’t just repeat the past but dares to invent the future. 

Layoffs at Stanford, University of Oregon, Michigan State, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Harvard Kennedy School

In recent weeks, several prominent institutions of higher education—including Stanford University, the University of Oregon, Michigan State University, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and Harvard Kennedy School—have enacted rounds of layoffs, signaling broader structural challenges in the U.S. academic and healthcare sectors. Despite their elite reputations, substantial endowments, and billions in annual revenue, these institutions are shedding jobs, restructuring departments, and quietly retreating from long-standing commitments to faculty, staff, and students.

The reasons cited vary: declining enrollments in some programs, budget shortfalls, revenue realignment, digital transitions, and post-pandemic financial recalibrations. But the broader narrative is one of institutional austerity and technocratic realignment—driven not by scarcity but by strategic choices that often prioritize financial optimization over community stability.

Stanford University: "Voluntary" Departures and "Organizational Review"

In May 2024, Stanford University initiated what it called a "voluntary separation program" for staff across its libraries and various administrative departments. The move came amid a sweeping “organizational review” led by consultants and senior management. While Stanford did not initially label the departures as layoffs, internal communications revealed pressure on departments to cut personnel costs amid shifting budget priorities. Meanwhile, construction of new capital projects continued, and executive pay remained untouched. Critics see this as part of a Silicon Valley-inspired push toward leaner, more corporate university models.

University of Oregon: Retrenchment and Program Consolidation

The University of Oregon’s recent layoffs hit multiple academic and support units, including information technology, library services, and even academic advising. Faculty members in the College of Arts and Sciences have expressed concern about being asked to do more with fewer resources, especially as administrative spending has not faced equivalent cuts. The administration defended the move as necessary due to a structural deficit, though critics argue it reflects misplaced priorities, particularly as Oregon increases its investments in athletics and public-private development ventures.

Michigan State University: Fallout from Scandal and Financial Strain

Michigan State University, still grappling with reputational damage and legal costs from high-profile scandals, has trimmed staff in several support areas while quietly shelving plans for new academic initiatives. Some layoffs have come in student affairs and auxiliary services, disproportionately affecting non-tenured staff and hourly workers. Union leaders have pushed back against the lack of transparency and what they view as an erosion of the university’s mission in the name of risk mitigation and corporate-style management.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center: Layoffs in a Profitable Sector

Perhaps the most controversial layoffs have occurred at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), a health system that reported strong financials in previous years. In June 2025, VUMC laid off more than 100 employees, including nurses, administrative personnel, and technicians. The center cited the need to reduce costs amid “changing patient volumes” and “shifts in healthcare delivery.” Yet critics point to a broader trend among elite medical centers: aggressive expansion, high executive compensation, and an overreliance on precarious labor—even as core medical services are under strain. The layoffs at VUMC come amid growing public scrutiny of hospital labor practices and the commodification of healthcare within nonprofit medical institutions.

Harvard Kennedy School: Cutting Diversity and Public Policy Staff

At Harvard Kennedy School, layoffs have disproportionately affected staff involved in diversity initiatives and student services, raising questions about the university’s commitment to equity and public interest education. In May 2025, at least 20 staff positions were eliminated, including roles related to community engagement, public service programming, and DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) work. The cuts occurred just as Harvard faced external criticism over its tepid response to national and international crises. While the school defended the layoffs as part of a broader “strategic restructuring,” students and faculty protested what they saw as a retreat from the school’s mission of fostering ethical and inclusive leadership.

A Symptom of Deeper Malaise

These layoffs are not isolated incidents. They are part of a larger transformation within higher education and affiliated medical centers—one shaped by managerialism, austerity policies, declining public investment, and a technocratic ethos that often sidelines human costs. Even as tuition rises and research funding grows in some areas, universities and academic health centers increasingly rely on contingent labor while outsourcing vital functions and reducing core services.

What’s being lost is not just jobs, but trust—between institutions and their workers, students, and the broader public. As layoffs mount in places once considered recession-proof and mission-driven, a pressing question remains: what kind of future are these institutions building, and for whom?

Sources

• Stanford Daily, May 2024

• Oregon Public Broadcasting, June 2024

• Lansing State Journal, April 2024

• Nashville Scene, June 2025

• Harvard Crimson, May 2025

• The Chronicle of Higher Education

• Internal communications and faculty council statements

• National Nurses United reports on hospital layoffs

• Interviews with laid-off staff and faculty union representatives

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For more investigative reporting on U.S. higher education and academic labor, follow the Higher Education Inquirer.

“The Payback”: Kashana Cauley’s Fictional Rebellion Echoes a Real-Life Debt Hero

 

Kashana Cauley’s second novel, The Payback (out July 15, 2025), might read like a brilliantly absurd heist movie—but its critique of debt peonage, surveillance capitalism, and broken educational promises is dead serious. With its hilarious yet harrowing depiction of three underemployed retail workers taking on the student loan-industrial complex, The Payback arrives not just as a much-anticipated literary event, but as a cultural reckoning.

The protagonist, Jada Williams, is relentlessly hounded by the “Debt Police”—a dystopian twist that, while fictional, feels terrifyingly close to home for America’s 44 million student debtors. But instead of accepting a life of financial bondage, Jada and her mall coworkers hatch a plan to erase their student debt and strike back against the system that sold them a future in exchange for permanent servitude.

This wild caper—praised by Publishers Weekly, Bustle, The Boston Globe, and others for its intelligence and audacity—may be fiction, but it echoes the real-life story of one bold man who did exactly what Jada dreams of doing.

The Legend of Papas Fritas

In the mid-2000s, a Chilean man known only by his pseudonym, Papas Fritas (French Fries), pulled off one of the most radical and symbolic acts of debt resistance in modern history. A former art student at Chile’s prestigious Universidad del Mar—a private for-profit institution later shut down for corruption and fraud—Papas Fritas discovered that the university had falsified financial documents to secure millions in profits while leaving students in mountains of debt.

His response? He infiltrated the school’s administrative offices, extracted records documenting approximately $500 million in student loans, and burned them. Literally. With no backup copies.

He then turned the ashes into an art installation called “La Morada del Diablo” (The Devil’s Dwelling), displayed it publicly, and became an instant folk hero. For many Chileans, who had taken to the streets in the early 2010s protesting an exploitative and privatized higher education system, Papas Fritas was more than a trickster—he was a vigilante philosopher, an artist of revolt.

His act raised questions that still haunt us: What is the moral value of debt acquired through deception? Should the victims of predatory institutions be forced to pay for their own exploitation?

Fiction Meets Resistance

In The Payback, Cauley’s characters don’t just want debt relief—they want retribution. And like Papas Fritas, they understand that justice in an unjust system may require transgression, even sabotage. Cauley, a former Daily Show writer and incisive New York Times columnist, doesn’t shy away from this. Her prose is electric with rage, joy, absurdity, and clarity.

She also knows exactly what she’s doing. Jada’s plan to eliminate debt isn’t merely about numbers—it’s about dignity, possibility, and reclaiming a future that was sold for interest. Cauley’s fiction, like Papas Fritas’s fire, is not just a spectacle—it’s a warning, and a dare.

In an America where student debt totals over $1.7 trillion, where debt servicers act like bounty hunters, and where the promise of higher education has become a trapdoor, The Payback delivers catharsis—and inspiration.

Hollywood, take note: this story demands a screen adaptation. But more importantly, policymakers, debt collectors, and university administrators should take heed. The people are reading. And they’re getting ideas.

Preorder The Payback
Signed editions are available through Black-owned LA bookstores Reparations Club, Malik Books, and Octavia’s Bookshelf. National preorder links are now live. Read it before the Debt Police knock on your door.

Because as both Cauley and Papas Fritas remind us: sometimes, the only moral debt is the one you refuse to pay.

How the Trump Spending Bill Undermines U.S. National Security—and Strengthens China and Russia

The Trump-backed spending bill, now back in the U.S. House after passing the Senate, is a masterclass in short-term thinking and long-term self-destruction. Framed as a “Big, Beautiful” plan to restore fiscal discipline and American greatness, the legislation guts the very pillars of U.S. national power: public education, scientific research, clean energy innovation, and social stability. While it throws billions at the Pentagon and fossil fuel subsidies, it slashes the public investments that actually determine whether a country can compete in the 21st century.

By hollowing out education, defunding clean energy programs, and dismantling the civilian R&D infrastructure, the bill hands strategic advantages to authoritarian competitors like China and Russia. It weakens America not through direct confrontation—but through willful neglect of the systems that make a nation resilient, adaptable, and globally influential.

Gutted: America's Brainpower and Knowledge Economy

The spending bill imposes major cuts to federal funding for public colleges, student aid programs, and agencies like the National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and Department of Energy’s Office of Science. These institutions are not bureaucratic waste—they are engines of innovation that fuel entire sectors of the U.S. economy and form the intellectual backbone of national security.

China knows this. Its government has expanded investment in top-tier universities, AI, green tech, biotech, and quantum computing. In contrast, the U.S.—once the global leader in research and discovery—is now flirting with intellectual disarmament. Russia, though economically weaker, has also retained strong state control over critical research in energy and defense.

Clean Energy Sidelined—A Strategic Blunder

Perhaps the most dangerous provision in the bill is its rollback of clean energy investments. In a global race to dominate the energy systems of the future, this bill puts the U.S. in reverse. Key provisions from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)—including tax incentives for solar, wind, battery manufacturing, and electric vehicle production—are defunded or delayed. Climate-related research and Department of Energy grants are also on the chopping block.

This isn’t just bad environmental policy—it’s a geopolitical gift to Beijing and Moscow. China is already the world leader in solar panel manufacturing, electric vehicle production, and battery supply chains. Russia, meanwhile, depends on continued fossil fuel dominance. By kneecapping its own clean tech industry, the U.S. effectively cedes both economic and strategic terrain to its rivals.

Social Fragmentation: A National Security Threat

National security isn’t only about military power—it’s also about internal cohesion. By making college less accessible, eliminating student loan forgiveness, and worsening inequality, the Trump spending bill undermines the social contract. Millions of Americans, particularly young people, will see fewer paths to stability, upward mobility, or meaningful civic participation. That growing sense of abandonment is exactly the kind of vulnerability that foreign disinformation campaigns exploit.

Adversaries don't need to defeat the U.S. militarily if it’s already imploding internally. The seeds of unrest, division, and despair are sown by domestic policy—especially when it prioritizes tax cuts for the rich and weapons systems over education, climate resilience, and economic fairness.

Civilian Tech and Cybersecurity Left Exposed

The bill fails to support civilian cybersecurity, privacy infrastructure, and next-generation technologies outside of military procurement. Yet most cyber vulnerabilities and technological innovations originate in the civilian sector, much of it publicly funded. Cutting university research, technology transfer programs, and broadband expansion weakens America's ability to counter cyberattacks and AI-driven threats from China and Russia.

Meanwhile, China’s “Military-Civil Fusion” ensures that academic research, industrial policy, and military planning operate in lockstep. The U.S. is doing the opposite—undermining the very institutions that can build democratic resilience in the face of hybrid warfare.

A Blueprint for Decline

This legislation is not just a spending plan. It’s a strategic realignment—one that favors corporate profits, fossil fuels, and elite donors while undercutting the nation’s human and technological foundations. In the long run, no number of tanks or tax cuts can make up for a collapsed education system, a dead-end economy, and a planet on fire.

If passed in the House and signed into law, the Trump-backed spending bill will accelerate America's decline and embolden its adversaries. It is a self-inflicted wound dressed up as patriotism—and China and Russia are watching, patiently and profitably.

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Sources:

• The Hill: “Student Loans Become Flashpoint in Trump-Backed Senate Spending Bill” (July 1, 2025)

• Politico: “Inside the GOP's 'Big, Beautiful' Spending Reconciliation Plan” (June 30, 2025)

• DOE FY2025 Budget Summary (retrieved from House Committee on Appropriations)

• National Science Board: The State of U.S. Science and Engineering 2024

• Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS): “China’s Tech Rise and Civil-Military Fusion”

• Rhodium Group: Clean Energy Investment Trends, 2025

• BloombergNEF: Global Race for Clean Tech: U.S. vs China

For more investigative journalism on education, inequality, and public power, visit Higher Education Inquirer.

“The Big Beautiful Bill”: A Catastrophic Blow to College Affordability

The so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” pushed through the Senate as part of a massive reconciliation package, represents one of the most aggressive federal overhauls to higher education funding in modern history. Masked behind rhetoric of “budget responsibility” and “efficiency,” the legislation systematically guts key pillars of college affordability—Pell Grants and federal student loans—placing the greatest burden on working-class families, part-time students, and graduate borrowers.

The bill slashes the foundation of federal student aid by redefining Pell Grant eligibility in ways that dramatically reduce access. Students who receive full-ride scholarships or other substantial grants would no longer qualify for Pell, regardless of their economic need. Part-time students—who make up a substantial portion of today’s college population, particularly in community colleges—are completely excluded. The credit threshold for receiving a full Pell award jumps from 24 to 30 credit hours per year. This effectively penalizes students who work while studying or attend school at night, demanding a pace that many cannot maintain.

Even for those who still qualify, Pell awards may shrink or disappear. According to the Congressional Budget Office, more than 10 percent of current Pell recipients would lose their grants entirely, and over half would see reductions. The bill’s language also includes a provision to count foreign income in determining eligibility, starting in the 2026–2027 academic year—a move that disproportionately affects immigrant and dual-national families.

In a superficial nod to stabilization, the bill allocates $10.5 billion to prevent near-term Pell shortfalls. But this does nothing to address the deep structural harm inflicted by these new restrictions. The House and Senate remain divided over the specific credit-hour thresholds, but both versions aim to cut costs at the expense of the most vulnerable students.

On the student loan front, the legislation is equally ruthless. Subsidized federal loans are eliminated entirely, forcing interest to accrue while students are still in school. This shift alone will increase student debt burdens by thousands of dollars per borrower. Graduate PLUS loans, a vital resource for those pursuing advanced degrees in education, health care, and social work, are eliminated. Parent PLUS loans, used heavily by middle-income families, are capped at $65,000—regardless of tuition inflation or program costs.

Income-driven repayment plans, including the Biden administration’s SAVE plan, are scheduled for termination in 2026. In their place, borrowers will be offered a limited menu: a standard 10- to 25-year fixed repayment plan or a newly created “Repayment Assistance Plan” tied to adjusted gross income. Gone are provisions for economic hardship deferments. Time spent in medical, legal, or other professional residencies will no longer count toward loan forgiveness. For future professionals in high-demand fields, this is not just a technical change—it is a direct economic assault.

The bill’s architects claim these cuts are necessary to “streamline” federal spending and fund tax reductions. But the effect is clear: stripping away the scaffolding that allows millions of Americans to pursue higher education. Private lenders stand to gain the most, as students increasingly turn to high-interest loans to fill the financial vacuum.

This is not a plan to reform education—it’s a plan to ration it.

For years, policymakers have debated whether the federal government should play a leading role in making college accessible and affordable. This bill answers that question with chilling clarity: the market will decide who gets educated, and debt will decide who succeeds. Low-income and first-generation students, single parents, and adult learners will be the first casualties in this new regime. Graduate education, once seen as a ladder to mobility, becomes a privilege for the already wealthy.

The higher education sector is already under enormous strain from declining enrollments, rising costs, and growing skepticism about the value of a degree. This legislation pours gasoline on that fire. Institutions serving working-class students, especially public regional colleges and community colleges, will be hit hardest. We are witnessing not just a rollback of financial aid but the strategic dismantling of public higher education as a gateway to opportunity.

The “Big Beautiful Bill” is not beautiful. It is brutal.

It deserves not only scrutiny but resistance—from students, educators, and every citizen who believes that education should be a public good, not a private luxury. The damage this bill will do cannot be overstated. But it must be understood—and it must be challenged.