Art Laffer at YAF: Still Relevant, Still Wrong

Arthur Laffer, the Reagan-era economist best known for the “Laffer Curve,” appeared recently at a Young America's Foundation (YAF) event, still making the same tired claims that have shaped decades of economic inequality, deregulation, and magical thinking. The event, broadcast on C-SPAN, was marketed as a fresh take on conservative economics. What it delivered instead was a rerun of discredited supply-side talking points—punctuated by jokes that fell embarrassingly flat.

Laffer claimed that Donald Trump's tariffs were a strategy to bring about more free trade in the future—a baffling contradiction to anyone who understands trade policy or the basics of coercive economic diplomacy. The idea that protectionism is a roundabout route to free markets would be laughable if it weren't so destructive. But Laffer, like many libertarians, thrives on contradiction. The audience—young, mostly white, mostly male—nodded along as if it all made sense.

He also defended increased U.S. military spending, invoking Ronald Reagan’s 1980s arms buildup. What he didn’t mention: Reagan was in the early stages of dementia during his presidency, and his military strategy deepened the national debt, even as Laffer’s beloved tax cuts starved the government of revenue. That context never surfaced, of course.

Laffer’s appearance was followed by Linda McMahon, former WWE executive and Small Business Administration head under Trump. The tag team pairing reinforced the spectacle of right-wing economic theater disguised as intellectual discourse.

YAF, a competitor to Turning Point USA, presents itself as the more polished brand of conservative youth organizing. It's backed by deep pockets and institutional support, but its message remains the same: glorify the market, demonize government, and elevate charisma over critical thinking. Its speakers are well-coached in rhetorical sparring, skilled in sophistry, and eager to exploit the inexperience of their college-aged audience.

Laffer fits that mold perfectly. He’s less a thought leader than a relic of failed policy, propped up by a movement that rewards ideological loyalty over intellectual honesty. His ideas can't really be called “theories” anymore—empirical evidence has repeatedly debunked them. But among libertarians and the far right, evidence is optional, and repetition is persuasive.

Young America’s Foundation is adept at drawing youth into a worldview of individualism that rarely benefits individuals. It relies on the passion and ignorance of its followers, asking them to embrace contradictions: that tariffs bring freedom, that debt from war is freedom, that cutting taxes magically increases revenue. It's a faith-based economics, and Laffer remains its high priest.

In the end, the only thing more stale than the Laffer Curve is the attempt to keep it alive.

Sources:

• C-SPAN: Art Laffer speech at YAF

• Reagan's Alzheimer's revelations: The New York Times

• Critiques of supply-side economics: Brookings, Economic Policy Institute

• YAF background: Media Matters, The Nation

Stanford's student newspaper sues President Trump

The Stanford Daily has filed a federal lawsuit against former President Donald Trump, marking a bold legal move from one of the country’s most prominent student newspapers. Editors at the Daily argue that Trump-era immigration policies targeting international students for political speech violated constitutional protections and created a climate of fear on campus.

This legal action arrives during a moment of institutional turmoil at Stanford. Just days before the lawsuit was filed, university officials announced layoffs of more than 360 staff members, following $140 million in budget cuts. Administrators cited federal funding reductions and a steep endowment tax—legacies of Trump’s policies—as major factors behind the financial strain.

Student journalists now find themselves confronting the same administration that reshaped higher education financing, gutted transparency, and targeted dissent. Their lawsuit challenges the chilling effect of visa threats against noncitizen students, particularly those who criticize U.S. or Israeli policy. Two international students joined the case anonymously, citing fear of deportation for expressing political views.

Stanford holds one of the largest university endowments in the world, valued between $37 and $40 billion. Despite this immense wealth, hundreds of staff—including research support, technical workers, and student service roles—face termination. The disconnect between administrative austerity and executive influence speaks to a larger crisis in higher education governance.

The Daily’s lawsuit cuts to the core of that crisis. Student reporters are asking not only for legal accountability, but also for transparency around how universities respond to political pressure—and who gets silenced in the process.

HEI’s Commitment to Student-Led Accountability

The Higher Education Inquirer is elevating this story as part of an ongoing effort to highlight courageous journalism from student-run newsrooms. Editorial boards like The Stanford Daily’s are producing investigative work that professional media often overlook. These journalists aren’t waiting for permission. They’re filing FOIA requests, confronting billion-dollar institutions, and—when necessary—taking their cases to court.

HEI will continue amplifying these efforts. Student reporters are already reshaping the media conversation around academic freedom, labor justice, and the political economy of higher education. Their work deserves broader attention and support.

Sources:

• Stanford Daily: “Stanford to lay off over 360 staff following $140 million budget cuts”

• TIME: “Stanford Daily Sues Trump Over Threats to Free Speech for International Students”

• SF Chronicle: “Stanford’s Student Paper Sues Trump Amid Budget Crisis”

UF’s Climate Commitment Cancelled—Student Journalists Pick Up the Slack

At the Higher Education Inquirer, we’ve long tracked the creeping politicization, corporatization, and hollowing-out of American higher education. But we also know that some of the most important journalism in this space isn’t coming from cable news or legacy media—it’s being done by student reporters working late nights in underfunded college newsrooms.

That’s why we’re launching a new initiative: to amplify and highlight outstanding student journalism that exposes institutional failures, lifts up marginalized voices, and brings transparency to power.

We begin by spotlighting vital reporting from The Independent Florida Alligator, the student-run newspaper at the University of Florida.

In an August 7th article, "UF shuts down Office of Sustainability," student journalists revealed that UF has abruptly dismantled its Office of Sustainability. The decision was made quietly, with no input from students or faculty. The office had led the university’s efforts on climate action, environmental education, waste reduction, and green infrastructure.

The story goes far beyond campus housekeeping—it reflects a larger pattern of political interference under Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Programs tied to environmentalism, racial equity, and academic freedom have come under fire as part of a sweeping campaign to reshape public education into a vehicle for conservative ideology.

Staff from the sustainability office have reportedly been reassigned to facilities management, signaling a shift in priorities from systemic environmental change to mere operational efficiency. The message is clear: climate action is no longer a public commitment, but a liability.

This is happening in a state already suffering the consequences of climate change—rising sea levels, stronger hurricanes, dangerous heat waves. Universities, especially public ones, should be at the forefront of scientific and civic leadership. Instead, they’re retreating. And student journalists are left to do the work that administrators won’t.

HEI’s New Commitment to Student Journalism

The Higher Education Inquirer is proud to support and amplify the work of student journalists who are holding institutions accountable. With shrinking professional newsrooms and growing institutional secrecy, student-run papers remain a critical watchdog in American higher education.

We encourage our readers to follow, share, and support publications like The Alligator. Their work is a public service—and they’re doing it with fewer resources and greater risks than many professionals.

We’ll be featuring more stories like this in the months ahead. If you’re a student journalist breaking news, blowing whistles, or investigating injustice in higher education, we want to hear from you.

Source:

• The Independent Florida Alligator, August 7, 2025: “UF shuts down Office of Sustainability”

A Modest Proposal: Revisiting The Goose-Step for 2026

 “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

—Upton Sinclair

Purpose

This proposal seeks modest support to research and write a new book in the spirit of Upton Sinclair’s 1923 exposé The Goose-Step: A Study of American Education, a biting critique of higher education’s corruption and corporate control. The revised and updated work—tentatively titled The Goose-Step Revisited: The College Meltdown and the Future of American Higher Ed—will document the present crisis of U.S. higher education from the ground up: on campuses, in classrooms, in communities, and in conversations with students, workers, adjuncts, administrators, and those left behind.

This is not a detached academic exercise. It is a journalistic and moral investigation into a failing system. Like Sinclair, we will name names. But we will also listen carefully to those who are rarely heard—especially debtors, dropouts, whistleblowers, and exploited faculty.

Scope

The project will include:

Travel across the U.S. to visit a diverse array of colleges: from collapsing for-profits and underfunded regional publics to elite private institutions and community colleges on the brink.

Field interviews with stakeholders in higher education, including:

Adjuncts and contingent faculty

Debt-burdened students and recent grads

College workers and unions

Policy experts and whistleblowers

Administrators, where access is permitted

Archival research and use of public data (IPEDS, College Scorecard, OPE, etc.)

Photographs and dispatches for the Higher Education Inquirer along the way

A final book manuscript, synthesizing travel writing, investigative reporting, data analysis, and historical reflection.

Questions the Book Will Explore

How does the current College Meltdown resemble or diverge from the problems Sinclair exposed in 1923?

What does higher education actually provide today—for whom, and at what cost?

How have corporatization, finance capital, and political ideology reshaped American colleges?

Is reform still possible—or are we watching the managed decline of an unsustainable system?

Budget and Support Needed

This is a modest request, commensurate with the ethos of the Higher Education Inquirer. A stripped-down, independent operation. Key needs:

Travel and lodging across the U.S. (preferably via Amtrak, bus, or car)

Minimal tech support (phone, laptop, data storage)

Small editorial stipend for fact-checking, manuscript preparation

Crowdfunding, foundation support, or collaboration with independent media outlets may supplement this request.

Why Now?

The signs are everywhere.

Colleges closing.

Debt rising.

Adjuncts starving.

Truth distorted.

Labor crushed.

Meanwhile, the gatekeepers of knowledge—like those in Sinclair’s time—are too often complicit, compromised, or silent.

This book is not intended to speak for anyone. It aims to amplify those whose stories have been buried beneath bureaucracy and branding.  It's A Modest Proposal for a not-so-modest truth: American higher education is in a manufactured crisis. But from this so-called collapse, a more just and democratic vision might emerge—if we’re willing to listen, document, and act.

This is a proposal to walk the ruins, record the voices, and revive the fierce spirit of Upton Sinclair.

Why Educators and Students Should Read Disillusioned by Benjamin Herold

Benjamin Herold’s Disillusioned: Five Families and the Unraveling of America’s Suburbs offers a rare and urgent account of how postwar suburbia—often seen as the apex of the American Dream—has become a fractured and unstable landscape, especially when it comes to public education. Through the personal stories of five families across the US, Herold builds a layered portrait of promise and betrayal.

This is a book educators and students should read—not for comfort, but for clarity.

Rutgers professor Kevin Clay (L) interviews Benjamin Herold (R), July 2025

Suburbia as an Engine of Inequality

Herold’s central thesis is as unsettling as it is undeniable: the post-WWII suburban boom was not a neutral act of growth, but a racialized, exclusionary economic project that served some families at the expense of others. Communities that were once predominantly white and upwardly mobile—like Compton and Penn Hills—are now struggling with declining school enrollment, shrinking tax bases, and rising segregation by income and race. In places like Evanston and Atlanta, attempts to reckon with inequality are often met with community resistance, bureaucratic inertia, and political backlash. Meanwhile, rapidly diversifying suburbs around Dallas reflect the shifting demographics of the country—and the urgency of crafting a new educational and civic infrastructure that doesn't fall into the same traps.

Herold doesn’t flatten these places into statistics. Instead, he follows five families trying to raise their children in what were once considered "good" school districts. Some are Black families confronting the limits of inclusion. Others are white families grappling with their own privilege and discomfort. Through them, we see how suburban schools continue to promise opportunity while too often delivering disappointment—especially for children of color, immigrant families, and those living paycheck to paycheck.

A Curriculum for Truth

Educators reading Disillusioned will recognize the impossible pressures placed on schools: to close racial achievement gaps, maintain property values, please demanding parents, and adapt to political mandates—often without adequate funding or community cohesion. Herold shows how schools, even with the best intentions, are asked to solve problems they did not create and are not empowered to fix on their own.

This book is especially useful for those who teach about inequality, education policy, or American history. It connects housing policy, school funding, and institutional trust in ways that are personal and accessible. For students, it opens up a broader view of how structural forces—redlining, white flight, suburban sprawl, and tax policy—shape their daily lives and futures, often invisibly.

Beyond the Classroom

Disillusioned also serves as a sobering reflection for anyone involved in reform efforts. School choice, desegregation programs, testing regimes, anti-racism initiatives—all have had mixed results, in part because they fail to challenge the core structures of suburban exclusion. Without deeper shifts in housing, taxation, and civic engagement, educational equity remains aspirational.

Herold’s reporting does not offer easy solutions. But it does offer something more valuable: context, empathy, and a sense of urgency. He shows us that while the suburbs may look different than they did in 1950, many of the underlying rules remain the same—and the consequences are growing more severe.

A Necessary Reckoning

The five towns Herold explores are not outliers. They are bellwethers. The racial and economic tensions playing out in Compton, Evanston, Penn Hills, Atlanta, and Dallas are already shaping the future of America’s suburbs—and its public education system. These are not just stories about local politics or school board fights. They are about the future of democracy, the erosion of public goods, and whether the next generation will inherit anything better.

For anyone serious about education, equity, or the American future, Disillusioned is essential reading. It demands not just understanding, but action.

Sources
Herold, Benjamin. Disillusioned: Five Families and the Unraveling of America's Suburbs. The New Press, 2024.
Rothstein, Richard. The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. Liveright, 2017.
Jackson, Kenneth T. Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States. Oxford University Press, 1985.
Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta. Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership. University of North Carolina Press, 2019.

The Hidden Crisis: Debt and Inequality Among Ph.D. Graduates

For decades, a Ph.D. has been viewed as the pinnacle of academic achievement. Yet behind the prestige lies a growing financial burden that disproportionately affects students in the humanities, education, social sciences, and health-related fields. As the cost of higher education continues to rise and funding disparities persist across disciplines, many doctoral graduates are finding themselves saddled with unsustainable levels of debt—and limited job prospects to match.

Data from the Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED), administered by the National Science Foundation, shows that new Ph.D. recipients in the humanities and arts are among the most likely to graduate with high levels of education-related debt. In 2020, 18% of these graduates reported more than $50,000 in debt, compared to under 5% of engineering and physical sciences Ph.D.’s. Nearly 90% of engineering, math, and physical sciences graduates completed their programs with less than $10,000 in debt. This level of disparity reflects long-standing inequities in how doctoral education is funded.

Yet the humanities are not alone. Several other doctoral fields show similar or worse financial patterns, often with little public attention.

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Education Ph.D.’s: High Ideals, Heavier Debt

One of the most indebted groups in graduate education is those earning Ph.D.’s in education. In 2020, just 47% of education doctoral graduates left without any graduate education debt—down from 62% in 2004. Despite being among the lowest-paid doctoral degree holders, education Ph.D.’s are expected to take on leadership roles in schools, districts, or universities—many of which are increasingly reliant on part-time labor or austerity budgets. The mismatch between debt incurred and income potential is among the worst in higher education.

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Psychology and Behavioral Sciences: A Pipeline to Precarity

Students pursuing doctorates in psychology and related behavioral sciences also face rising debt, especially in clinical and counseling specializations that require unpaid or underpaid internships and practicum hours. While 63% of new graduates in this area reported less than $10,000 in debt in 2020, a significant minority fell into the $30,000 to $90,000+ range. The financial burden is compounded by licensing requirements and low reimbursement rates in mental health professions. Many psychologists work in strained public systems, often serving low-income and vulnerable populations.

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Health-Related Doctorates: Not All Medical Degrees Pay Off

Professional doctorates in healthcare—such as the Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT), Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP), and Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD)—are often marketed as high-demand credentials. Yet they carry massive tuition bills and limited institutional funding, especially compared to MD or Ph.D. programs. Graduates in these areas routinely report $100,000 to $150,000 in debt, with some exceeding $200,000. And as new programs proliferate—especially at private and for-profit institutions—the job market has become increasingly saturated, particularly for pharmacists and physical therapists.

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Social Work and Public Service: Debt-Fueled Altruism

Doctoral degrees in social work and public administration are frequently pursued by those seeking to lead in nonprofits, public agencies, or higher education. But the returns are modest. Many social work Ph.D.’s and DSWs leave school with $50,000 to $100,000 or more in debt. Jobs are often emotionally demanding, poorly compensated, and subject to burnout. Despite the “practical” nature of these degrees, financial insecurity remains a constant for many graduates.

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Race, Debt, and Structural Inequity

Debt burdens also mirror longstanding racial and economic inequalities in higher education. Between 2015 and 2020, 55% of American Indian/Alaska Native and Black/African American humanities and arts Ph.D.’s graduated with more than $30,000 in debt—far higher than the average for other racial and ethnic groups. Indigenous students in particular face disproportionate debt levels relative to their representation and institutional support. These figures reflect a broader pattern of exclusion, where marginalized communities pay more to gain access to degrees that offer fewer economic returns.

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The Polarization of Graduate Debt

Across nearly all disciplines, the period from 2015 to 2020 saw a shift in the distribution of graduate debt toward the extremes: more students finished either with no debt or with very high debt. For humanities and arts Ph.D.’s, the share of debt-free graduates rose by 8 percentage points. But at the same time, the share with over $90,000 in debt also increased, pointing to a bifurcated system where some students are fully funded while others are left financially exposed.

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An Unequal System of Doctoral Education

The disparities in debt and job prospects among Ph.D. fields reveal deep problems in the political economy of U.S. graduate education:

• STEM fields benefit from federal research funding and industry partnerships that help subsidize tuition and provide stipends.

• Humanities, education, and social work programs rely heavily on student loans and tuition revenue, often at under-resourced public institutions.

• Women and students of color are disproportionately represented in fields with high debt and low pay, reinforcing broader patterns of inequality.

Despite these challenges, universities continue to market Ph.D. programs as tickets to professional success and personal fulfillment—ignoring the growing body of evidence that for many, the costs may outweigh the benefits.

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A Call for Structural Reform

The growing debt crisis among Ph.D. graduates in non-STEM fields reflects more than just poor financial planning—it reveals a system in which certain kinds of knowledge and service are undervalued. As policymakers and institutions consider the future of graduate education, they must confront the realities of underfunding, labor precarity, and racial inequality that have become embedded in the Ph.D. pipeline.

Without meaningful reform—including equitable funding, debt relief, and transparent job placement data—the doctorate risks becoming a credential for the privileged and a trap for the rest.

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Sources

• Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED), National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics

• Humanities Indicators, American Academy of Arts & Sciences

• American Psychological Association (APA)

• American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN)

• American Physical Therapy Association (APTA)

• National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)

• Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

• National Endowment for the Humanities

ShadowStats Gone Silent: A Loss for Independent Economic Accountability

The sudden disappearance of updated economic series from ShadowStats.com in late 2023 represents a significant loss for those seeking alternative metrics on inflation, unemployment, GDP, and money supply. For nearly two decades, John Williams offered alternative calculations using older methodologies—like pre-1997 CPI and the pre-1993 U-6 unemployment series—that pushed back against official narratives from Washington.

As of mid-2023, Williams had announced server transitions and communication delays. But since then, there have been no new numbers. The ShadowStats homepage now feels like a ghost town—quiet in a moment when alternative data is arguably more vital than ever.

A Counterpoint to Politicized Official Data

In early August 2025, President Donald Trump fired Erika McEntarfer, the Biden-appointed Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, following a disappointing July jobs report and significant downward revisions to previous months. McEntarfer was accused, without evidence, of manipulating the numbers. The move alarmed economists across the political spectrum and cast new doubts on the independence of federal data reporting.

ShadowStats long operated in this shadowy realm—challenging official statistics not just for technical flaws but for what Williams saw as systemic obfuscation. Critics often scoffed at his high inflation numbers and methodology, but many respected the necessity of an outsider audit, especially as trust in federal institutions wanes.

Now, with McEntarfer gone and the BLS under renewed political pressure, the absence of ShadowStats leaves a void for watchdogs, skeptics, and independent researchers. Whatever one thought of Williams’ conclusions, his presence forced a more honest conversation.

Independent Scrutiny, Silenced

ShadowStats wasn’t perfect. Economists questioned its internal consistency, and some warned that it exaggerated inflation by double-counting or overestimating price pressures. But Williams’ work was never meant to replace the BLS—it existed to question it. Without that challenge, what’s left?

The timing of the silence is especially troubling. As jobs reports become politicized, as inflation is gamed to manage perception and investor sentiment, as federal agencies come under threat of dissolution or reorganization, the independent mirrors held up to power are fading.

And make no mistake: even flawed mirrors can reflect uncomfortable truths.

Where Do We Go from Here?

The disappearance of ShadowStats doesn’t just affect monetary theorists or Austrian school economists. It matters to ordinary Americans who sense that the numbers don’t match their lived experiences—at the pump, in the grocery store, in their paychecks. It matters to working-class families whose struggles are minimized by rosy job reports. And it matters to journalists, educators, and activists who rely on independent data to inform the public honestly.

If ShadowStats doesn’t return, its legacy will still endure as a case study in resistance—however imperfect—against technocratic opacity. But the need for independent, adversarial data has not gone away. It’s only grown louder.

We shouldn’t have to wait for another fired statistician—or another economic crisis—to demand better numbers and more transparency. The silence of ShadowStats should be a warning. Independent oversight must be rebuilt, or we’ll be flying blind into the next storm.

Sources:

• Shadow Government Statistics, John Williams. www.shadowstats.com

• Washington Post, August 1, 2025. “Trump fires BLS chief after weak jobs report.”

• New York Magazine, August 2, 2025. “Trump’s Firing of the BLS Commissioner Is Bound to Backfire.”

• Business Insider, August 2, 2025. “Why the market is shrugging off Trump's firing of the BLS chief.”

• Wikipedia: Shadowstats.com. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowstats.com

• Moneyness blog by JP Koning. “Cross-checking ShadowStats.”

• MarketWatch, August 3, 2025. “There’s no sure cure for what ails the U.S. jobs report.”

• AP News, August 1, 2025. “Economists warn BLS independence at risk after Trump ousts chief.”

From the New Deal to Narcissism: How Individualism, Libertarianism, and Trumpism Gutted the Public University

The New Deal rested on a foundational belief: that the federal government could be a force for collective uplift. In the shadow of economic collapse and mass unemployment, the Roosevelt administration mobilized state resources to create jobs, reform capitalism, and restore public confidence. Public education—including the university—was part of that vision.

The Higher Education Act of 1965, influenced by the New Deal ethos, vastly expanded federal support for public colleges and student aid. By the early 1970s, nearly 75 percent of college students attended public institutions, with tuition at flagship universities often below $1,000 per year (roughly $7,000 in today’s dollars). Pell Grants could cover most, if not all, of a low-income student’s tuition, room, and board. The GI Bill had already lifted millions into the middle class. State legislatures invested heavily in public universities, seeing them as engines of democratic growth and regional development.

But this consensus began to unravel with the rise of neoliberalism and libertarian ideology in the 1970s and 1980s. Thinkers like Milton Friedman and organizations like the Cato Institute and Heritage Foundation argued that the state was inherently inefficient, that markets should govern most aspects of life, and that individuals—not governments—were responsible for their outcomes. Reagan declared that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem,” and higher education funding soon became a target.

State appropriations for public colleges as a share of university revenue declined dramatically. In 1980, public funding made up about 75 percent of the operating costs of state universities. By 2020, it had fallen below 25 percent. Students and their families made up the difference, mostly through debt. Between 1995 and 2023, average tuition at public four-year colleges tripled, even after adjusting for inflation. Total student loan debt exploded, surpassing $1.7 trillion by 2024, burdening more than 45 million Americans. The average debt per borrower was more than $38,000.

This wasn’t merely an economic shift—it was an ideological one. Higher education was no longer understood as a public good but as a private investment. Students were told to “shop” for degrees like they would consumer goods, choosing programs based not on curiosity or civic purpose but on return on investment. The university was transformed from a site of public inquiry to a marketplace. Faculty governance was weakened. Shared governance gave way to corporate-style management. Instruction was outsourced to contingent faculty, 70 percent of whom now teach off the tenure track. Adjunct professors, often paid less than $3,500 per course, frequently live below the poverty line and qualify for public assistance.

Trumpism emerged from this late-capitalist malaise but redirected its anger. Instead of questioning the privatization of education, it turned public resentment against institutions of learning themselves. Universities were portrayed as hostile, elitist, and corrupt—agents of indoctrination rather than enlightenment. The Trump administration’s policies followed this rhetoric. Betsy DeVos, a billionaire with no experience in public education, oversaw aggressive deregulation of for-profit colleges, attempted to eliminate gainful employment rules, and delayed or blocked borrower defense claims from defrauded students.

Even after Trump left office, his political movement sustained an aggressive campaign against public education. Under Project 2025, a policy blueprint promoted by the Heritage Foundation and embraced by Trump’s allies, universities are targeted for ideological control. The plan calls for defunding departments deemed “woke,” ending diversity and inclusion programs, and purging federal agencies—including the Department of Education—of those who challenge the political orthodoxy.

In Florida, under Governor Ron DeSantis, this agenda was made real. The New College of Florida, once a respected liberal arts institution, was taken over by political appointees who dismantled its academic programs, removed professors, and imposed a conservative curriculum. Across red states, tenure is under attack, academic freedom is shrinking, and LGBTQ+ students and faculty are being driven out or silenced.

The ideology driving this assault is not consistent libertarianism—it’s an incoherent blend of market fundamentalism, Christian nationalism, and authoritarian populism. It pretends to value freedom but enforces conformity. It invokes personal responsibility while shielding the powerful from consequence. It lauds meritocracy even as it strips away the conditions for anyone outside the elite to succeed.

Underlying all of this is a distorted form of individualism. The student is no longer part of a learning community—they are a solitary debtor. Faculty are no longer public servants—they are expendable contractors. The public university is no longer a site of shared knowledge or democratic imagination—it is a hollowed-out brand, increasingly indistinguishable from the for-profit sector.

Even the language of crisis has lost its power. We no longer speak of austerity or retrenchment—we have normalized decline. College closures are expected. Student defaults are routine. A generation of graduates has never known a university that wasn’t precarious, transactional, and shaped by fear.

To move forward, we must confront not just the political project of Trumpism but the longer neoliberal arc that made it possible. That means rejecting the lie that education is only valuable when it is profitable. It means refusing the narrative that students in debt deserve their suffering. And it means restoring the idea that knowledge—and the institutions that sustain it—are worth defending not just for individuals, but for the society we want to live in.

The public university was never perfect, but it was once animated by a different moral vision. Reclaiming that vision is not nostalgic—it is necessary. If we fail, we consign ourselves to a future of narcissistic consumerism, epistemic decay, and civic disintegration.

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Sources and Data

• U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (NCES): College Tuition Trends

• Congressional Budget Office (CBO): Student Loan Debt Projections, 2024

• The Century Foundation: “The State of Adjunct Faculty,” 2022

• National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO): “State Funding vs. Tuition Revenue, 1980–2020”

• Project on Predatory Student Lending: Legal challenges to Trump-era ED policies

• Heritage Foundation, “Mandate for Leadership: Project 2025”

• Florida Department of Education and New College public records, 2023–2024

• Inside Higher Ed, “Contingent Faculty and the Collapse of Tenure,” March 2024

• The New Deal and Higher Education, John R. Thelin, A History of American Higher Education

• Barkan, Joanne. Merchants of Debt: How the Student Loan Industry Became a Power Broker

The Data We Can Still Trust: Holding Colleges Accountable When Transparency Declines

In an age where facts are contested and data manipulated, the question "Can we trust the numbers?" has become not just philosophical but political—and deeply consequential. Nowhere is this more evident than in higher education policy, where recent moves by the federal government have drastically undermined transparency, oversight, and public trust.

The dismantling of truth has reached new heights in 2025. Under the second Trump administration, the U.S. Department of Education has seen unprecedented budget cuts, including the near-evisceration of offices responsible for data collection and analysis. Key functions of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) have been gutted or quietly privatized, leaving researchers, journalists, and the public in the dark about the state of America's colleges and universities.

While much of the media has focused on the culture wars roiling campuses, the real war—against accountability—has played out more quietly through bureaucratic defunding and the removal of inconvenient truth-tellers.

In a stunning move this summer, President Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), reportedly over the refusal to manipulate job figures and educational attainment data to suit administration talking points. The firing came just days after the BLS declined to revise downward the number of unemployed college graduates—a number that contradicted public claims of an “education-fueled economic boom.”

The Department of Labor's statistical integrity had been under increasing pressure in recent months. Sources within the agency described an atmosphere of intimidation and growing self-censorship. Internal memos revealed efforts to suppress long-term wage stagnation data and the underemployment rates among recent college grads.

Meanwhile, the Department of Education—once tasked with producing detailed reports on student outcomes, loan default rates, and institutional effectiveness—has abandoned major longitudinal studies. The College Scorecard website, once a marginal tool for transparency, now offers cherry-picked metrics and lacks any independent oversight. Public datasets are incomplete or years out of date. Critical tools like the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) are being quietly dismantled under the guise of "streamlining."

These changes don’t just affect policy wonks and higher ed insiders. They directly impact students, families, and communities trying to navigate a rapidly shifting and often predatory education marketplace. Without reliable data on debt loads, job placement, or graduation rates, how can anyone make informed decisions about college?

The answer, increasingly, is: they can’t. And perhaps that’s the point.

For an administration and its allies pushing voucher-style education reforms, expanded online programs, and reduced regulatory scrutiny, ignorance is a strategic asset. In a data vacuum, ideology prevails. Numbers become whatever those in power say they are.

This erosion of statistical integrity is part of a broader trend of de-democratizing knowledge. When facts become partisan tools and empirical research is defunded or delegitimized, the public loses its capacity to make informed decisions—not just about higher education, but about the future of the country itself.

The Higher Education Inquirer has long reported on the College Meltdown—the slow-motion unraveling of a bloated, debt-fueled, and increasingly corporatized higher ed system. But what happens when the meltdown is obscured by manipulated metrics and silenced dissent?

We are entering a phase where the collapse is not just structural or economic, but epistemological. Without reliable data, accountability vanishes. And when accountability dies, so does democracy.

The Numbers We Can Still Trust

Despite the chaos at the federal level, not all is lost. Gary Stocker, founder of College Viability and a long-time analyst of college financial health, emphasizes that historical data from IPEDS, audited financial statements, and IRS 990s remain largely intact—and still extremely valuable.

“There might be some risk for future numbers,” Stocker explains, “but I contend there is little risk for historical numbers from IPEDS, financial statements, and IRS 990s. Those numbers are baked in and would be very difficult to alter.”

This long-view perspective is critical in a time when many colleges and universities are trying to spin short-term narratives of recovery.

“If the enrollment trend is down over the past 8–10 years, that is the indicator of a college in trouble,” Stocker says. “Any college that tries to spin a 1-year, full enrollment recovery story will face extensive doubt and disbelief—especially from me.”

These longitudinal patterns—whether in enrollment, tuition discounting, administrative bloat, or student outcomes—are more important than ever. And while IPEDS may be on the chopping block, Stocker reminds us that nonprofit institutions are still legally obligated to submit audited financials and IRS 990 forms.

“Those two resources alone will be a tool with which to identify and expose those colleges willing to risk taking poetic license with their data.”

At The Higher Education Inquirer, we agree—and we thank Gary Stocker for his clarity and persistence. Transparency doesn’t depend solely on the federal government. It depends on those willing to dig, analyze, and expose the truth—even when that truth is buried in spreadsheets and footnotes.

We urge journalists, researchers, students, and faculty to continue examining the data that remains. The numbers don’t lie. But silence, distortion, and disappearance are forms of policy. And right now, those policies are accelerating.

Sources:

– U.S. Department of Education Budget Summary, FY2025
– Internal whistleblower reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics
– “Bureau Head Fired Over Data Dispute,” Washington Post, June 2025
– American Council on Education analysis of NCES defunding, July 2025
– U.S. Department of Education, Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS): https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/
– IRS Form 990 Search: https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/
– Gary Stocker, College Viability – https://collegeviability.com/
– Gary Stocker, Personal communication with The Higher Education Inquirer, August 2025
– Chronicle of Higher Education, “Enrollment Trends and Institutional Closures,” accessed 2025
– National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO), “Tuition Discounting Study,” various years
– Higher Education Inquirer archives on data transparency and College Scorecard manipulation

The Chicago School of Economics: A Political Takeover Masquerading as Science

For decades, the Chicago School of Economics has been held up by its adherents as the intellectual engine behind “free market” policies—its faculty lionized, its ideology exported, its disciples placed in positions of power across the globe. But beneath the polished veneer of economic modeling and Nobel prizes lies something far more insidious: not a neutral scientific project, but a political takeover cloaked in the language of rationality.

The Chicago School—rooted in the University of Chicago’s Department of Economics and typified by figures like Milton Friedman, George Stigler, and Gary Becker—has long promoted the idea that markets are efficient, individuals are rational actors, and government interference should be minimal. Its tools are equations; its products are policies. But the effects of those policies—deregulation, privatization, austerity, and corporate tax cuts—reveal a consistent political orientation: upward wealth redistribution and consolidation of power among the elite.

This isn’t science. It’s sophistry.

A “Science” That Can’t Predict

Unlike the physical sciences, economics—particularly the Chicago School strain—has failed spectacularly at prediction. It didn’t anticipate the global financial crash of 2008. It didn’t predict the collapse of neoliberal development models in Latin America, Russia, or post-invasion Iraq. What it has done, instead, is offer intellectual cover for policies that have made the global economy less stable and more unequal.

If this were biology or engineering, the repeated failures would warrant rethinking the entire theoretical framework. But Chicago-style economics survives because it is not held accountable by the standards of real science. It is propped up by billionaire-funded think tanks, right-wing political operatives, and a compliant media machine that prizes certainty over complexity.

Crisis as a Feature, Not a Bug

The most telling feature of the Chicago School is its acceptance—even embrace—of financial collapse. To these economists, crises are inevitable market “corrections,” moments of creative destruction that supposedly cleanse inefficiencies. But these corrections always seem to fall hardest on workers, the poor, and the public sector.

When the crashes come, the Chicago School has a solution: public bailouts for private failure. In 2008, the banks that tanked the economy were rescued with taxpayer money. Airlines, oil companies, and private equity firms have enjoyed the same perks during subsequent downturns. Risk is privatized during booms and socialized during busts. This is not market discipline. It’s a revolving door between state and capital, justified by the rhetorical sleight-of-hand of “market efficiency.”

Disciples Without Scrutiny

Graduates of the Chicago School populate central banks, finance ministries, and international institutions like the IMF and World Bank. In countries from Chile under Pinochet to post-Soviet Russia, these “experts” imposed shock therapy on fragile societies—cutting public services, smashing unions, and opening markets to foreign capital. The human cost has been immense: hunger, homelessness, reduced life expectancy, and lost sovereignty.

And yet, because the ideology is couched in the technocratic language of “growth” and “efficiency,” it is rarely scrutinized in mainstream discourse. As the sociologist Philip Mirowski has argued, neoliberal economists effectively launder ideology through the language of science. They wear lab coats, but they serve oligarchs.

Higher Education as a Host

Higher education didn’t just incubate this ideology; it exported it. Endowed chairs, corporate-funded centers, and prestigious lecture circuits have made Chicago School economists wealthy and powerful. Institutions like the Hoover Institution, the Cato Institute, and the American Enterprise Institute have amplified their ideas while silencing dissent. Critical perspectives—Marxist, feminist, ecological—have been marginalized or defunded in economics departments across the U.S. and much of the Global North.

Meanwhile, public universities struggling for funding have adopted Chicago-style managerial logic: metrics over mission, ROI over learning, adjuncts over tenure. The logic of the market has colonized the classroom.

The Ideology of the Empire

Chicago School economics has become the lingua franca of empire. It rationalizes austerity, justifies tax havens, normalizes poverty, and sanctifies inequality. It tells working people that if they’re poor, they must be irrational. It tells governments to balance budgets, not lives. It tells universities to behave like hedge funds.

The project is not just intellectual—it is political. And its time is up.

In a world facing climate collapse, runaway inequality, and democratic backsliding, we must recognize Chicago economics for what it is: not a neutral science but a strategic takeover. A theology of markets with no god but capital, no law but competition, and no justice but profit.

It cannot predict. It does not prevent. And it refuses to be held accountable.

Let us end the charade.

---

Sources:

• Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste (2013)

• Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine (2007)

• Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism (2018)

• Robert Kuttner, Debtors’ Prison (2013)

• David Graeber, Debt: The First 5000 Years (2011)

For more critical investigations into political economy and higher education, visit Higher Education Inquirer.

The Serenity Prayer, Climate Collapse, and Genocide: A Deal with the Devil

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference."

The Serenity Prayer has comforted millions. In times of personal struggle, it can be a powerful call to surrender what lies beyond one’s control. But in moments of global crisis, when powerful institutions profit from destruction, the prayer can function less as a path to peace and more as a pact of passivity—a deal with the devil.

This danger becomes stark in the face of two intertwined realities: planetary climate collapse and the mass suffering of human populations through war and genocide. While glaciers melt and firestorms raze entire regions, and while families in Gaza are buried beneath rubble from precision airstrikes, too many well-meaning individuals offer only whispered prayers for acceptance. The language of “serenity” has become a spiritual sedative, numbing people to action in the face of unprecedented violence.

The horror in Gaza is not isolated. It is the latest chapter in a long history of calculated brutality. For more than nine months, Israeli forces have carried out one of the most intensive bombing campaigns of the century, reducing schools, hospitals, and apartment blocks to ash. Palestinians—already confined, stateless, and starving—are told to disappear quietly. And in the United States, many of the most powerful evangelical Christian institutions offer not protest, but prayer. They do not condemn the bombs. They bless them.

This theology of inaction extends to the climate crisis as well. Fires in Canada have darkened skies from New York to Kentucky. Rising seas threaten to erase Pacific island nations and entire Gulf communities. Extreme heat has shattered records from Delhi to Phoenix. The science is clear, and has been for decades. The cause is clear: the burning of fossil fuels for profit. And yet, rather than confront the systems responsible, many Americans—especially in religious communities—retreat into familiar verses, trusting in divine will while oil executives thank them for their silence.

This pattern is old. During the genocide of Native Americans, Christian settlers invoked scripture to justify massacres. Indigenous nations were labeled “heathens” standing in the way of Manifest Destiny. Boarding schools were built to “kill the Indian, save the man.” Entire civilizations were wiped out in the name of order, law, and even God. Churches, rather than stand with the oppressed, often operated hand-in-hand with empire. They prayed not for justice, but for tranquility—after the land had been stolen and the people erased.

In the twentieth century, many Christian leaders remained silent during the Holocaust. In the Rwandan genocide, clergy sometimes aided the killers. Again and again, the lesson is clear: serenity without resistance is complicity.

And today, we see this same quiet complicity in American Christian higher education. At Liberty University—a billion-dollar religious empire—the Serenity Prayer might just as well hang above the boardroom. The institution thrives on a mixture of fundamentalist certainty, political power, and economic ambition. Its law school has become a breeding ground for conservative legal warriors who reinterpret justice through dominionist theology. Its Jesse Helms School of Government honors a segregationist legacy while preparing students for ideological battle. Climate science is downplayed. Militarism is sanctified. And genocide—whether in the name of security or salvation—is never named.

In such an environment, prayer becomes performance. It soothes the conscience while injustice metastasizes. It gives believers a moral loophole: if change is deemed impossible, no action is required. But change is not impossible. Resistance is not futile. And silence is not neutral.

We must reclaim the Serenity Prayer from the institutions that have weaponized it. Serenity cannot be the first response to atrocity. Courage must lead, especially when the victims are silenced. Wisdom must include historical memory—of the land theft that built America, of the smoke rising from Gaza, of the forests burning in Siberia and the Sahel. And acceptance must come only after struggle, not before it.

The future will not judge us for how often we prayed, but for what we did while praying. In an age of climate catastrophe and global injustice, serenity without struggle is not peace—it is surrender.

Sources:
Reinhold Niebuhr, The Serenity Prayer and its Contexts, Library of Congress
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), “Gaza Emergency Reports” (2023–2025)
UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Sixth Assessment Report (2023)
Human Rights Watch, “Israel: Apparent War Crimes in Gaza” (2024)
Samantha Power, "A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide
Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything
Naomi Oreskes & Erik Conway, Merchants of Doubt
Democracy Now!, “Witnessing the Gaza Bombardment”
Center for Environmental Justice, “Climate Apartheid” Report
Higher Education Inquirer, “Liberty University: A Billion-Dollar Edu-Religious Powerhouse Under the Lens” (2025)

"Crooks, Pigs, and Cockroaches": A Raw Exchange on the Resurgence of the For-Profit Grift

It started with a grim but familiar warning from a longtime borrower—someone who’s watched the student loan system implode in slow motion and seen the worst actors escape accountability:

“Well this isn't good.
New accrediting agency for colleges run and operated by for-profit college goons....
I’m sure we will see scammy colleges take off again!”

The warning was in response to recent developments in higher ed accreditation: the rise of a new accreditor with leadership tied to the same for-profit institutions that helped build a trillion-dollar debt crisis. The borrower’s tone was weary, but not surprised.

I responded, because this wasn’t news to me either:

“Thanks. That’s how neoliberalism works. It never ends. So we have to continue fighting until we can’t fight anymore.”

But I didn’t stop there. I wrote what I’ve long felt—what I’ve heard from whistleblowers, from insiders, and from people still bound by NDAs that keep the truth buried:

“Yes, crooks and pigs and cockroaches have been around forever, and they all smell money.
Even people who claim to be on our side are not really on our side. That’s why so little good happens.
I have an NDA so I can't tell you everything.

Like so many others who’ve tried to expose the rot, I’ve spoken with whistleblowers across multiple campuses. I’ve seen clear cases of fraud swept under the rug.

“Should have buried the University of Phoenix with this one,” I wrote, referencing an investigation into schools using fake enrollment paperwork to defraud taxpayers.
“And someone should have taken this story,” I added, pointing to our own work at The Higher Education Inquirer:
What the Pentagon Doesn’t Want You to See: For-Profit Colleges in the Military-Industrial-Education Complex.
“More than 30 years of grift and eight years of coverups.”

That article, like so many others exposing corruption in higher ed, was met mostly with silence. Whistleblowers risk everything, and still the stories too often disappear into the noise.

I used to have a trusted contact inside the U.S. Department of Education. But that channel dried up when the Trump administration came in and the revolving door between industry and government started spinning even faster.

So where does that leave us?

“What I’d like to see,” I wrote, “is for us to send a mole to work at AidVantage or one of the other student loan servicers.”

It’s not fantasy—it’s necessity. When the system protects grifters, when accreditors are captured, and when servicers lose records, miscalculate forgiveness, and dodge accountability, we need more than hope. We need infiltration. We need whistleblowers. We need truth.

The scam isn’t over. It’s reloading.

And we at The Higher Education Inquirer will keep exposing the crooks, pigs, and cockroaches—until we can’t fight anymore.

Sources:

• The Daily Caller: “Massive College Scams Taxpayers Out Of Student Loans With Fake Enrollment Paperwork, Whistleblowers Say”

• The Higher Education Inquirer: “What the Pentagon Doesn’t Want You to See: For-Profit Colleges in the Military-Industrial-Education Complex”

• Private correspondence with a longtime borrower, July 2025

From Hackathon to Higher Ed: BlackRock’s Quiet Capture of the University

BlackRock’s recent promotional piece, “From Hackathon to Higher Ed: The BlackRock for Universities Story,” presents the financial giant as an innovative, student-focused partner in education. On the surface, it’s a compelling narrative: a creative idea born at a company hackathon grows into a program that gives college students access to powerful investment tools and mentorship from professionals. But beneath this polished story lies a deeper concern—one that speaks to the creeping corporatization of higher education and the normalization of Wall Street ideologies on campus.

BlackRock for Universities (BLK4U) isn’t just an educational outreach initiative. It’s a branding vehicle. It exposes students—especially those in student-managed investment funds (SMIFs)—to BlackRock’s proprietary Aladdin platform, a cornerstone of the company’s vast influence in the global asset management industry. The program’s reach into university classrooms and finance labs presents itself as educational, but it’s fundamentally about cultivating loyalty and familiarity with BlackRock’s tools and worldview.

BLK4U’s narrative of empowerment masks a deeper structural reality: it privileges institutions that already have access to well-funded investment programs. While the article notes some outreach to HBCUs and diverse student groups, the core of the initiative targets elite universities with robust finance programs. The result is a form of digital gatekeeping, where certain students are primed to succeed in finance while others are left out of the pipeline entirely. Rather than democratizing opportunity, BLK4U reinforces existing hierarchies—between institutions, students, and regions.

What’s missing from BlackRock’s story is any serious reflection on the ethical dimensions of its work or the broader implications of its presence in academia. Students aren’t being asked to examine the role that BlackRock plays in climate finance, corporate governance, housing markets, or public pensions. They’re not learning about the critiques of financialization or the democratic consequences of concentrated economic power. They’re learning how to use Aladdin.

In this way, BLK4U exemplifies the shift from education as a public good to education as workforce training. Students are taught to speak the language of portfolio optimization, but not to question why wealth is so unequally distributed or how the financial sector has shaped those outcomes. They’re trained in storytelling, but not in accountability.

The story’s hackathon origin is meant to emphasize grassroots innovation, but hackathons themselves are often used within corporations to generate ideas that serve institutional goals—not the public interest. It’s unlikely that a program like BLK4U would have moved forward if it didn’t align with BlackRock’s long-term strategy of influence-building, talent acquisition, and brand saturation. Calling this initiative a “win for students” is disingenuous without acknowledging the asymmetries of power it reinforces.

Even BlackRock’s claim to promote “financial well-being” deserves scrutiny. Whose financial well-being? For whom is this education truly built? The firm manages trillions in assets for governments, pension funds, and corporations, but its influence has drawn bipartisan criticism—from the left for its role in exacerbating inequality and climate risk, and from the right for its ESG positions and market dominance. Embedding BlackRock’s ideology into college finance programs risks training the next generation of financial professionals not to challenge that power, but to replicate it.

What we see in BLK4U is not an isolated case, but part of a broader trend in which corporate actors shape higher education behind the scenes. Whether through tech platforms, consulting partnerships, or curriculum design, companies like BlackRock are quietly steering the future of education toward their own ends. These programs may look like public service, but they function as strategic investments in control and compliance.

As the Higher Education Inquirer has long documented, the privatization of knowledge and the encroachment of financial interests into academic life are not theoretical concerns—they are unfolding in real time. BlackRock’s venture into the classroom is not just a story about mentorship or innovation. It’s a story about soft power, captured institutions, and the narrowing of what education is allowed to be.

In a truly democratic education system, students would not only learn how to use tools like Aladdin—they would also learn how to critique them. Until that’s part of the curriculum, programs like BLK4U deserve far more skepticism than celebration.

Time to Shut Off the Tap: The Case for Ending DoD Tuition Assistance to Predatory Colleges

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 Evidence Is Overwhelming

The most damning proof of institutional complicity remains publicly available. In GAO Report GAO-14-855, published in 2014, the Government Accountability Office detailed the deep flaws in DoD’s oversight of its Tuition Assistance program. The report highlighted inconsistent evaluations, unqualified contractor reviewers, vague standards, and incomplete data collection. The DoD had spent hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on schools without ensuring quality or protecting students. In response, DoD temporarily halted its school evaluations—then quietly resumed business as usual.

PwC audits from 2015 and 2018 confirmed widespread noncompliance with DoD’s Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). Schools violated marketing guidelines, offered misleading transfer information, and failed to provide basic academic counseling. Few were sanctioned, and even fewer were removed from eligibility lists.

Gatehouse Strategies, in its 2022 report, reinforced these conclusions. It warned of “a lack of consistent enforcement mechanisms,” and found that even institutions under investigation continued to receive DoD TA funding. The system appeared designed not to punish misconduct, but to tolerate and obscure it.

The Cost of Inaction

Meanwhile, service members seeking education are left exposed. Many receive low-value credentials, accumulate debt, and waste their limited benefits at schools that offer little academic rigor and even less career mobility. When those credits don’t transfer—or worse, when degrees are rejected by employers—the burden falls squarely on the individual.

Institutions like American Public University System, University of Phoenix, Colorado Technical University, DeVry, and Purdue Global have collected tens of millions in DoD TA funding. Some are under state or federal investigation. Others have quietly changed ownership or rebranded. But the underlying model—targeting military students with high-volume, low-quality online programs—remains largely intact.

We Don’t Need Another Report

The time for reflection is over. The data from GAO, PwC, Gatehouse, and from our own FOIA investigations are clear. What remains is the political will to act.

The Department of Defense should immediately:

– Revoke TA eligibility for schools with documented abuse, federal scrutiny, or repeat MOU violations.
– Release the suppressed list of the worst-performing colleges, as identified under Executive Order 13607.
– Mandate transparent outcome reporting—including transferability, job placement, and default rates—for every school in the TA program.
– Sever ties with lobbyist conduits like CCME that have enabled predatory behavior for decades.

This is not just a matter of bureaucratic reform—it is about justice. For the servicemembers who were deceived. For the families who sacrificed. For the taxpayers who unknowingly foot the bill for failure.

The Higher Education Inquirer will not stop pushing for those names, those documents, and that accountability. Behind every redaction is a veteran who trusted the system—and got scammed. Behind every delay is another student targeted by the same exploitative machinery. Behind every refusal to act is a government more loyal to profit than to people.

Related Reading
GAO-14-855: DoD Education Benefits Oversight Lacking
Military Times (2018): DoD review finds 0% of schools following TA rules
Military Times (2019): Schools are struggling to meet TA rules, but DoD isn’t punishing them. Here’s why.

“We Can’t Make It Here Anymore” Still Rings True

More than twenty years after James McMurtry released We Can’t Make It Here Anymore, the song’s haunting verses continue to echo across the American landscape. Originally written during the early 2000s under the weight of offshoring, union busting, and post-9/11 disillusionment, McMurtry’s protest ballad has aged not with irrelevance but with renewed urgency.

McMurtry wrote about Vietnam veterans pushed aside by a society eager to forget its mistakes. Today, those veterans have been replaced by men and women who served in Iraq and Afghanistan—some with missing limbs, some with invisible wounds, many with few job prospects. The system still tells them “thanks for your service” while it sends their factories overseas, their benefits into the shredder, and their children into debt servitude at for-profit colleges or underfunded public universities.

The song’s refrain—“And the banks run the loan game, and the dollar jumps the track”—has only deepened in meaning in the era of trillion-dollar student loan burdens and the financialization of everything from housing to higher education. Entire zip codes have been gutted by opioid overdoses, job loss, and rising suicide rates. The technology is flashier now, but the despair McMurtry chronicled feels even more entrenched. The “big boys” still “don't like to lose,” and the factories are still “boarded up,” not just in Michigan and West Virginia, but now in the shadows of elite universities, where campuses flourish while surrounding communities falter.

Higher education, the supposed equalizer, has played its own part in this disillusionment. Where once it held the promise of upward mobility, it now too often offers low-wage adjunct jobs, debt without degrees, and institutions more concerned with branding and endowments than student welfare. McMurtry sings, “The doctor can't be reached, he has moved back to LA,” and in 2025, that’s still true—except now the doctor’s been replaced by a telehealth AI, and the local hospital has been bought out by a hedge fund.

We Can’t Make It Here Anymore is not nostalgia. It is indictment. It is reportage. It is prophecy. And like Woody Guthrie before him, McMurtry tells a story corporate media would rather ignore.

The song’s last verse ends not with hope, but with observation:
“Will work for food, will die for oil, will kill for power and to us the spoils.”
Two decades later, the empire has not changed course. It has just changed spokespeople.

The names may change—NAFTA to USMCA, Halliburton to BlackRock—but the machinery grinds on. And McMurtry’s anthem remains a soundtrack for those who never made it out of the wreckage, for the veterans of war and labor still trying to make it here.

Sources

• James McMurtry, We Can’t Make It Here Anymore, 2004

• U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics

• U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

• National Student Legal Defense Network

• Higher Education Inquirer archives