A recent report covered by MSN reveals a growing phenomenon: millions of teenagers in the United States say they never plan to have children—and one of the leading reasons is climate change. This sobering shift in personal and generational priorities is not just a cultural footnote. It is a profound indictment of the systems that failed to offer hope for the future. And among those systems, higher education plays an overlooked but complicit role.
The article, originally reported by USA Today, quotes students across the country who describe the prospect of parenting as irresponsible, even cruel, given the current climate trajectory. Some reference collapsing ecosystems, rising sea levels, extreme weather, and political inaction. Others cite the emotional toll of living in a world where they believe things will only get worse.
For those of us at the Higher Education Inquirer, these testimonies hit with more than just empathy. They reflect the culmination of decades of institutional neglect—where universities have profited off fossil fuel investments, watered down sustainability programs, partnered with carbon-intensive corporations, and taught apolitical STEM curricula as if climate denial wasn’t a social phenomenon to be understood and confronted.
Beyond “Climate Anxiety”: A Rational Response
The term climate anxiety is often used to pathologize young people’s fears. But what if their decision not to reproduce isn’t just emotional—it’s rational? These teens are seeing the long view. They’re watching coral reefs bleach, forests burn, heat records break monthly, and global elites gather for climate summits with little but platitudes to show.
Their refusal to have children is not apathy. It’s resistance. A form of protest. What used to be a personal decision has become a political one.
The Higher Ed Connection
Higher education has long claimed to be a leader in sustainability, climate science, and public discourse. And yet, when it comes to confronting the deeper roots of ecological destruction—capitalism, colonialism, the military-industrial complex, and yes, the higher education system itself—most institutions have either gone silent or opted for greenwashing.
Universities continue to:
Accept massive donations from fossil fuel billionaires.
House think tanks and business schools that promote endless economic growth.
Invest endowments in carbon-heavy portfolios.
Sell students the myth that a degree will solve their personal future, even as the collective future deteriorates.
Meanwhile, young people in middle school and high school are already making life-altering decisions based on what they see—and what they don’t see: real accountability or meaningful change from their elders’ institutions.
A Warning Higher Ed Can’t Ignore
If colleges and universities are serious about their claims to be incubators of the future, they can’t ignore the fact that a significant portion of that future now feels it has no reason to exist. Young people are not only opting out of parenthood—they are increasingly questioning the value of traditional life scripts: college, career, mortgage, family. The entire package is unraveling.
This is not just a demographic trend. It’s a moral judgment.
The institutions that educated yesterday’s leaders now face a credibility crisis. Students are watching closely. And they are making decisions—about reproduction, education, consumption, and activism—based on what they see and what they refuse to inherit.
Higher education must reckon with the reality that its credibility, like the climate, is heating toward a breaking point.
Can US higher education do much to reduce climate change, either as a leader or as a teacher? The answer so far is no. That's not to say that there aren't universities (like Rutgers) doing outstanding climate change research or students concerned about the planet's future. There are. But that research and resistance is outweighed by those who control higher education, trustees and endowment managers, and their financial interests.
While devastating occurrences like Hurricane Helene (and possibly Hurricane Milton) serve as high-rated entertainment, news coverage also makes the stakes seemingly more visible to those who are not directly affected.
For many, hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes, and heat waves are quickly forgotten or remembered merely as single acts of god or seasonal anomalies, not as ongoing acts of greedy rich men. And melting icebergs and disappearing islands are something most Americans don't see, at least firsthand. Generations of data and information are ignored by those who are poorly educated and those who claim to be educated, but uneducated morally.
I am both humbled and ecstatic to learn of this. As someone who has worked in liberal education for decades, this is a signal honor, a career highlight. This award also feels like a validation of years of work on climate change. It’s especially delightful coming from a group I’ve followed and worked with for decades.
More important than my own self and career, by choosing to give the Ness award to Universities on Fire the AAC&U indicates that climate change should be a major concern for colleges and universities. It connects global warming to liberal education by virtue of the award’s emphasis “on liberal education as an evolving tradition,” as well as by signaling climate as “an issue or topic in postsecondary education that is discussed substantially in relation to liberal education.”
This is how they describe climate change as the very point of this year’s award:
“Among an exceptionally strong pool of nominees, Universities on Fire stood out because of how effectively and constructively it speaks to the urgency of the moment—its subject matter, interdisciplinarity, creativity, continual grounding in learning, and focus on the future,” said [Lynn] Pasquerella [president of AAC&U].
I’m so glad they recognized the interdisciplinary nature of the topic. I raised the idea that responding to climate change might be the new liberal arts.
AAC&U has long been a leader in encouraging higher education to address a series of key topics. The organization created the high impact learning practices (HIP) model, which helped institutions implement those teaching and student support ideas. Similarly, AAC&U advanced the concept of liberal education preparing students for active civic life, as well as supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion . They also introduced eportfolios to campus assessment and curricular strategies. My hope is that the group now adds climate thought and action to that list of major, good ideas… and that colleges and universities are inspired to think and act accordingly.
I’m deeply grateful to AAC&U for this award and excited about what comes next.
2025 promises to be a disruptive year in higher education and society, not just in DC but across the US. While some now can see two demographic downturns, worsening climate conditions, and a Department of Education in transition, there are other less predictable and lesser-known trends and developments that we hope to cover at the Higher Education Inquirer.
The Trump Economy
Folks are expecting a booming economy in 2025. Crypto and AI mania, along with tax cuts and deregulation, mean that corporate profits should be enormous. The Roaring 2020s will be historic for the US, just as the 1920s were, with little time and thought spent on long-range issues such as climate change and environmental destruction, economic inequality, or the potential for an economic crash.
A Pyramid, Two Cliffs, a Wall and a Door
HEI has been reporting about enrollment declines since 2016. Smaller numbers of younger people and large numbers of elderly Baby Boomers and their health and disability concerns spell troubleahead for states who may not consider higher education a priority. We'll have to see how Republican promises for mass deportations turn out, but just the threats to do so could be chaotic. There will also be controversies over the Trump/Musk plan to increase the number of H1B visas.
Student loan debt is expected to rise again in 2025. After a brief respite from 2020 to late 2024,and some receiving debt forgiveness, untold millions of borrowers will be expected to make payments that they may not be able to afford. How this problem affects an otherwise booming economy has not been receiving much media attention.
Protests may be limited out of fear of persecution, even if there are a number of legitimate issues to protest, to include human induced climate change, genocide in Palestine, mass deportations, and the resurgence of white supremacy. Things could change if conditions are so extreme that a critical mass is willing to sacrifice. Other issues, such as the growing class war, could bubble up. But mass surveillance and stricter campus policies have been emplaced at elite and name brand schools to reduce the odds of conflict and disruption.
The Legitimization of Robocollege Credentials
Online higher education has become mainstream despite questions of its efficacy. Billions of dollars will be spent on ads for robocolleges. Religious robocolleges like Liberty University and Grand Canyon University should continue to grow and more traditional religious schools continue to shrink. University of Southern Hampshire, Purdue Global and Arizona Global will continue to enroll folks with limited federal oversight. Adult students at this point are still willing to take on debt, especially if it leads to job promotions where an advanced credential is needed.
AI will continue to affect society, promising to add more jobs and threatening to take others. One less visible way AI affects society is in academic cheating. As long as there have been grades and competition, students have cheated. But now it's become an industry. Even the concept of academic dishonesty has changed over the years. One could argue that cheating has been normalized, as Derek Newton of the Cheat Sheet has chronicled. Academic research can also be mass produced with AI.
How is the working-class Depression of 2020 similar to the other 47 financial downturns in US history?
Downturns are frequently precipitated by poor economic and cultural practices and preceded by lots of signals: over-speculation, overuse of resources, oversupplies of goods, and exploitation of labor. What I see are many poor practices brought on by corruption--with overconsumption, climate change, growing inequality, and moral degeneration at the root.
The "disrupters" (21st century robber barons) have enabled an alienating and anomic system that is highly dysfunctional for most of the planet, using "algorithms of oppression." And this cannot be solved with data alchemy, marketing, and other forms of sophistry.
Put down your iPhone for a minute and ponder these rhetorical questions:
Wasn't it only a dozen years ago that we faced a similar crisis?
Warm Koolaid (2016) signified corporate America's use of myths and distractions to sedate the masses.
How long have we known about all of this dysfunction? Academics have known about the effects of global climate change and growing US inequality since at least the 1980s. The Panic of 2020 should be a lesson so that we don't have a larger economic, social and environmental collapse in the future.
Who will hear the warnings and do something constructive for our future? Or is this Covid crisis another opportunity for the rich to cash in on the tragedy?
The answer lies, in part, to an ignorance of history and science, and oversupply of low-grade information, poor critical thinking skills, and lots of distractions. That's in addition to the massive greed and ill will by the rich and powerful.
US downturns are baked into this oppressive system. And crises are used to further exploit working families. With climate change and a half century of increasing inequality, these situations are likely to worsen.
Workers will resist and fight oppression; they always do, but will they have a voice as the US faces another self-induced crisis, as trillions are doled out to those who already have trillions?
1918–1921 (World War I, Spanish Flu, Panic of 1920-21)
1929–1933 (Stock Market Crash, Great Depression)
1937–1938 (Great Depression)
Feb-Oct 1945
Nov 1948–Oct 1949
July 1953–May 1954
Aug 1957–April 1958
April 1960–Feb 1961
Dec 1969–Nov 1970
Nov. 1973– March 1975
Jan-July 1980
July 1981–Nov 1982
July 1990–March 1991
Mar-Nov 2001
December 2007 – June 2009 (The Great Recession)
March 2020-
We live in an economic system that is unsustainable, unjust, and exploitative. While many of us in academia and the thought industry have known this for decades, those with greater wisdom have known for centuries. Techies and disrupters think it can all be solved with technology, not with profound wisdom. The ultimate in hubris and reductionism. We have to change the system politically, socially, and culturally. We have to be wiser.
How do we do that, radically change society, when our economic system has driven us in the wrong direction for so long? Some of these lessons can be learned from working class history, but they have to be applied with wisdom.
"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)
There is a persistent narrative that technology will save humanity from the mounting environmental crises—climate change, resource depletion, and pollution—that threaten the planet. From clean energy breakthroughs to smart agriculture, the promise is that innovation will outpace destruction. But this optimism overlooks a harsh reality: many of today’s most advanced technologies, especially those that consume vast amounts of energy like cryptocurrencies, exacerbate environmental harm instead of reducing it. The earth’s ecological limits are too strict and immediate for technology alone to fix.
A key factor missing from many discussions is the concept of externalities—costs or damages that are not reflected in the market price of goods or services. Both economic and environmental externalities mean that the true price of technologies is often hidden from consumers, producers, and policymakers alike. When a technology harms the environment but doesn’t pay for that damage, the costs are effectively “externalized” to society and future generations.
Cryptocurrency Mining: An Externality Nightmare
Take cryptocurrency mining, especially Bitcoin, as a striking example. Bitcoin’s “proof of work” system demands enormous computing power, consuming electricity on the scale of entire countries such as Argentina or the Netherlands. However, the market price of Bitcoin does not include the environmental cost of that energy use—carbon emissions, air pollution, and water resource depletion are externalities borne by the planet, not the miners or investors.
Many crypto mining operations cluster in regions with cheap, carbon-intensive electricity. The associated greenhouse gas emissions accelerate climate change, but these environmental costs remain unaccounted for in economic transactions. Similarly, the rapid turnover of specialized mining hardware produces vast amounts of electronic waste that is seldom recycled properly, leaking toxins into ecosystems. These negative externalities are seldom reflected in the price of cryptocurrencies or factored into regulatory frameworks.
Other Technologies and Their Hidden Costs
It’s not only crypto. Artificial intelligence training requires massive computational resources that consume significant electricity, often generated by fossil fuels. Streaming services, cloud data centers, and the explosion of connected devices—collectively the “Internet of Things”—demand continuous power, driving emissions that are not typically included in consumer bills or corporate balance sheets.
The production of smartphones, laptops, and other electronics relies on mining scarce and environmentally damaging materials like lithium, cobalt, and rare earth elements. The social and ecological externalities here include habitat destruction, water pollution, and labor exploitation in vulnerable communities.
Even as companies promote efficiency gains, the rebound effect—where increased efficiency lowers costs and leads to increased consumption—means that total resource use continues to grow, magnifying external environmental harm.
Why Externalities Matter
Externalities are a core reason why technological innovation alone cannot save the environment. Without mechanisms to internalize these costs—through regulations, taxes, or market reforms—businesses and consumers have little incentive to change behavior. Technologies that appear profitable on paper may, in reality, impose devastating costs on ecosystems, human health, and climate stability.
Economic externalities can also distort investment priorities, leading to overinvestment in high-energy, resource-intensive technologies while underfunding sustainable alternatives that carry less hidden damage.
Toward a Holistic Solution
Addressing environmental destruction demands recognizing and correcting these externalities. Policies that tax carbon emissions, regulate electronic waste, and require transparency in supply chains can help internalize the true costs of technologies. Public awareness and ethical consumer choices also play a role in pressuring companies and governments.
Higher education institutions must contribute by researching externalities associated with emerging technologies and educating future leaders about sustainability challenges. Only by confronting the real costs behind innovation can society make wiser choices.
The Tech Future
Technology is neither a guaranteed savior nor an inherent villain. It reflects the values and systems that shape its creation and deployment. Without reckoning with economic and environmental externalities, technological advances risk deepening rather than alleviating ecological crises. A sustainable future requires systemic change that prioritizes ecological limits and social justice—not just faster chips and smarter algorithms.
Sources:
University of Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (2025)
Strubell, Emma, et al. “Energy and Policy Considerations for Deep Learning in NLP.” ACL 2019
Carlson, Shawn. “Bitcoin’s Energy Consumption Is a Problem—But It’s Not the Whole Problem.” Scientific American, 2022
International Energy Agency (IEA). “Data Centres and Data Transmission Networks,” 2023
Ghisellini, Patrizia, et al. “Environmental Sustainability of Rare Earth Elements: A Review.” Journal of Cleaner Production, 2024
The Shift Project. “Lean ICT: Towards Digital Sobriety,” 2019
Pigou, Arthur C. The Economics of Welfare (1920) — foundational theory on externalities
Social philosopher Herbert Spencer
was wrong in many respects when he coined the term survival of the fittest to discuss human behavior and Victorian social policies. But
social scientists would not be wrong today in comparing humans to other organisms, or to understanding (but not necessarily agreeing with) Spencer's application of survival of the fittest, especially as the guardrails of government and religion are weakened.
Humans may appear sophisticated in some ways, but we are animals, nevertheless. Many of the laws of human behavior are consistent with the laws of nature, despite commonly held beliefs about human civilization that seemingly make us different. Yet like other animals, humans are prone to disease and vulnerable to the environment. We can adapt to change, and survive using a variety of means which may comport to our values or cause cognitive dissonance. Humans imitate, innovate, manipulate, connive, and steal. Non-human organisms, including viruses, bacteria, fungi, and more complex beings, like insects and rodents, can also adapt, and have so for millions of years, much longer than we have. We live in an ecosystem, and in communities. When other organisms thrive or die, it affects us.
This new social reality (or a return to older social realities) should become more apparent in the coming years as humans across the globe deal with a number of existential issues, including war, famine, and disease--and the human-induced climate change that will pour fuel on these issues. Not only must we reexamine Herbert Spencer, we must also reexamine Thomas Malthus and determine what aspects of his theories on population may be coming back to life, and what aspects may not be as relevant.
Alaska’s higher-ed story is a preview of the national “College Meltdown,” only starker. The University of Alaska (UA) system—Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Southeast—has endured a decade of enrollment erosion and austerity politics, punctuated by a 2019 budget crisis that forced regents to declare financial exigency and consider consolidations. The immediate trigger was a proposed $130+ million state cut, later converted into a three-year reduction compact; the long tail is a weakened public research engine in the very state where climate change is moving fastest.
In 2025 the vise tightened again from Washington. UA’s president told regents that more than $50 million in grants had been frozen or canceled under the Trump administration, warning of staff cuts and program impacts if funds failed to materialize. Those freezes were part of a broader chill: federal agencies stepping back from research that even references climate change, just as the Arctic’s transformation accelerates.
This is not an abstract loss. Alaska is the frontline laboratory of global warming: thawing permafrost, vanishing sea ice, collapsing coastal bluffs. UA’s scientists have documented these trends in successive “Alaska’s Changing Environment” assessments; the 2024 update underscores rapid, measurable shifts across temperature, sea ice, wildfire, hydrology, and ecosystems. When the main public research institution loses people and projects, the United States loses the data and know-how it needs to respond.
Climate denial collides with national security
The contradiction at the heart of federal policy is glaring. On one hand, the Trump administration has proposed opening vast swaths of Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve to drilling and reversing environmental protections—signaling a bet on fossil expansion in a region already warming at double the global rate. On the other hand, the same administration is curtailing climate and Arctic science, even as military planners warn that the Arctic is becoming a contested theater. You can’t secure what you refuse to measure.
The security stakes are real. Russia has spent the past decade refurbishing Soviet-era bases, deploying ice-capable vessels, and leveraging energy projects along the Northern Sea Route (NSR). China has declared itself a “near-Arctic” power and partnered with Moscow on patrols and infrastructure. Meanwhile, the U.S. remains short on icebreakers and Arctic domain awareness—even as traffic through high-latitude passages grows more plausible in low-ice summers. Analysts project that a meaningful share of global shipping could shift north by mid-century, and recent reporting shows the region is already a strategic flashpoint.
That makes UA’s expertise more than a local asset; it’s a pillar of U.S. national security. The University of Alaska Fairbanks hosts the Center for Arctic Security and Resilience (CASR) and degree pathways that fuse climate, emergency management, and security studies—exactly the interdisciplinary skill set defense, Coast Guard, and civil authorities will need as sea lanes open and storms, fires, and thaw-related failures multiply. Undercut these programs, and you undercut America’s ability to see, interpret, and act in the Arctic.
The costs of disinvestment
The 2019 state-level cuts did immediate damage—hiring freezes, program reviews, and fears of accreditation changes—but their larger effect was to signal instability to students, faculty, and funders. Austerity invites a spiral: as programs and personnel disappear, grant competitiveness slips; as labs lose continuity, agencies look elsewhere; as uncertainty grows, students choose out-of-state options. UA leadership has tried to reverse course—prioritizing enrollment, retention, and workforce alignment in recent budgets—but it’s difficult to rebuild a research reputation once the pipeline of projects and people is disrupted.
The 2025 federal freezes amplify that spiral by hitting precisely the projects that matter most: those with “climate” in the title. Researchers report program cancellations and re-scoped solicitations across agencies. That kind of ideological filter doesn’t just reduce funding—it distorts the evidence base that communities, tribal governments, and emergency planners depend on for everything from permafrost-safe housing to coastal relocation plans. It also weakens U.S. credibility in Arctic diplomacy at a time when the Arctic Council is strained and cooperation with Russia is largely stalled.
Why this matters beyond Alaska
Think of UA as America’s northern early-warning system. Its glaciologists, sea-ice modelers, fire scientists, and social scientists collect the longitudinal datasets that turn anecdotes into policy-relevant knowledge. Lose continuity, and you lose the ability to detect regime shifts—abrupt ecosystem changes, cascading infrastructure failures from thaw, new navigation windows that alter shipping economics and risk. Those changes feed directly into maritime safety, domain awareness, and the rules-of-the-road that will govern the NSR and other passages.
Meanwhile, federal moves to expand Arctic drilling create additional operational burdens for emergency response and environmental monitoring—burdens that fall on the same universities being told to do more with less. Opening the door to long-lived oil projects while throttling climate and environmental research is a recipe for higher spill risk, poorer oversight, and costlier disasters.
A pragmatic way forward
Three steps could stabilize UA and, by extension, America’s Arctic posture:
Firewall climate science from political interference. Agencies should fund Arctic research on merit, not language policing. Reinstating paused grants and re-issuing climate-related solicitations would immediately restore capacity in labs and field stations.
Treat UA as critical national infrastructure. Just as the U.S. is racing to modernize radar and add icebreakers, it should invest in Arctic science and workforce pipelines at UA—scholarships tied to Coast Guard and NOAA service, ship time for sea-ice and fisheries research, and support for Indigenous knowledge partnerships that improve on-the-ground resilience.
Align energy decisions with security reality. Every new Arctic extraction project increases environmental and emergency-response exposure in a region where capacity is thin. If policymakers proceed, they owe UA and Alaska communities the monitoring, baseline studies, and response investments that only a healthy public research university can sustain.
The paradox of the College Meltdown is that it hits hardest where public knowledge is most needed. In the Lower 48, that might mean fewer nurses or teachers. In Alaska, it means flying blind in a rapidly changing theater where Russia and China are already maneuvering and where coastlines, sea ice, and permafrost are literally moving under our feet. The University of Alaska is not a nice-to-have. It is how the United States knows what is happening in the Arctic—and how it prepares for what’s next. Weakening it in the name of budget discipline or culture-war messaging is not just shortsighted. It’s a security risk.
Sources
University of Alaska Office of the President, FY2020 budget overview (state veto and reductions).
University of Alaska Public Affairs timeline (2019 exigency and consolidation actions).
Alaska Department of Administration, Dunleavy–UA three-year compact (2019).
Anchorage Daily News, “$50M in grants frozen under Trump administration” (May 28, 2025).
The Guardian, “Outcry as Trump withdraws support for research that mentions ‘climate’” (Feb. 21, 2025).
[In 2017, we collaborated with Crush the Street on a video describing the College Meltdown.]
“Education is not merely a credentialing system; it is a humanizing act that fosters connection, purpose, and community.”
Origins
The College Meltdown began in the mid-2010s as a blog chronicling the slow collapse of U.S. higher education. Rising tuition, mounting student debt, and corporatization were visible signs, but the deeper crisis was structural: the erosion of public accountability and mission.
By 2015, the warning signs were unmistakable to us. On some campuses, student spaces were closed to host corporate “best practices” conferences. At many schools, adjunct instructors carried the bulk of teaching responsibilities, often without benefits, while administrators celebrated innovation. Higher education was quietly being reshaped to benefit corporations over students and communities — a true meltdown.
Patterns of the Meltdown
Enrollment in U.S. colleges began declining as early as 2011, reflecting broader demographic shifts: fewer children entering the system and a growing population of older adults. Small colleges, community colleges, and regional public universities were hardest hit, while flagship institutions consolidated wealth and prestige.
Corporate intermediaries known as Online Program Managers (OPMs) managed recruitment, marketing, and course design, taking large portions of tuition while universities retained risk. Fully automated robocolleges emerged, relying on AI-driven templates, predictive analytics, and outsourced grading. While efficient, these systems dehumanized education: students became data points, faculty became monitors, and mentorship disappeared.
“Robocolleges and AI-driven systems reduce humans to data points — an education stripped of connection is no education at all.”
Feeding the AI Beast
As part of our effort to reclaim knowledge and influence public discourse, we actively contributed to Wikipedia. Over the years, we made more than 12,000 edits on higher education topics, ensuring accurate documentation of predatory practices, adjunct labor, OPMs, and corporatization. These edits both informed the public and, inadvertently, fed the AI beast — large language models and AI systems that scrape Wikipedia for training data now reflect our work, amplifying it in ways we could never have predicted.
“By documenting higher education rigorously, we shaped both public knowledge and the datasets powering AI systems — turning transparency into a tool of influence.”
Anxiety, Anomie, and Alienation
The College Meltdown documented the mental health toll of these transformations. Rising anxiety, feelings of anomie, and widespread alienation were linked to AI reliance, dehumanized classrooms, insecure faculty labor, and societal pressures. Students felt like credential seekers; faculty suffered burnout.
“Addressing the psychological and social effects of dehumanized education is essential for ethical recovery.”
Trump, Anti-Intellectualism, and Fear in the Era of Neoliberalism
The project also addressed the broader political and social climate. The Trump era brought rising anti-intellectualism, skepticism toward expertise, and a celebration of market logic over civic and moral education. For many, it was an era of fear: fear of surveillance, fear of litigation, fear of being marginalized in a rapidly corporatized, AI-driven educational system. Neoliberal policies exacerbated these pressures, emphasizing privatization, metrics, and competition over community and care.
“Living under Trump-era neoliberalism, with AI monitoring, corporate oversight, and mass surveillance, education became a space of anxiety as much as learning.”
Quality of Life and the Call for Rehumanization
Education should serve human well-being, not just revenue. The blog emphasized Quality of Life and advocated for Rehumanization — restoring mentorship, personal connection, and ethical engagement.
“Rehumanization is not a luxury; it is the foundation of meaningful learning.”
FOIA Requests and Whistleblowers
From the start, The College Meltdown relied on evidence-based reporting. FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests were used to obtain internal communications, budgets, and regulatory filings, shining light on opaque practices. Whistleblowers, including adjunct faculty and staff at universities and OPMs, provided firsthand testimony of misconduct, financial malfeasance, and educational dehumanization. Their courage was central to the project’s mission of transparency and accountability.
“Insider testimony and public records revealed the hidden forces reshaping higher education, from corporate influence to predatory practices.”
Historical Sociology: Understanding the Systemic Collapse
The importance of historical sociology cannot be overstated in analyzing the decline of higher education. By examining the evolution of educational systems, we can identify patterns of inequality, the concentration of power, and the commodification of knowledge. Historical sociology provides the tools to understand how past decisions and structures have led to the current crisis.
“Historical sociology reveals, defines, and formulates patterns of social development, helping us understand the systemic forces at play in education.”
Naming Bad Actors: Accountability and Reform
A critical aspect of The College Meltdown was the emphasis on naming bad actors — identifying and holding accountable those responsible for the exploitation and degradation of higher education. This included:
University Administrators: Prioritizing profit over pedagogy.
Corporate Entities: Robocolleges and OPMs profiting at the expense of educational quality.
Political Figures and Ultraconservatives: Promoting policies that undermined public education and anti-intellectualism.
“Holding bad actors accountable is essential for meaningful reform and the restoration of education's ethical purpose.”
[In 2016, we called out several bad actors in for-profit higher education, including CEOs Jack Massimino, Kevin Modany, and Todd Nelson.]
Existential Aspects of Climate Change
The blog also examined the existential dimensions of climate change. Students and faculty face a dual challenge: preparing for uncertain futures while witnessing environmental degradation accelerate. Higher education itself is implicated, both as a contributor through consumption and as a forum for solutions. The looming climate crisis intensifies anxiety, alienation, and the urgency for ethical, human-centered education.
“Climate change makes the stakes of education existential: our survival, our knowledge, and our moral responsibility are intertwined.”
Mass Speculation and Financialization
Another critical theme explored was mass speculation and financialization. The expansion of student debt markets, tuition-backed bonds, and corporate investments in higher education transformed students into financial instruments. These speculative dynamics mirrored broader economic instability, creating both a moral and systemic crisis for the educational sector.
“When education becomes a commodity for speculation, learning, mentorship, and ethical development are subordinated to profit and risk metrics.”
Coverage of Protests and Nonviolent Resistance
The College Meltdown documented student and faculty resistance: tuition protests, adjunct labor actions, and campaigns against predatory OPM arrangements. Nonviolent action was central: teach-ins, sit-ins, and organized campaigns demonstrated moral authority and communal solidarity in the face of systemic pressures, litigation, and corporate intimidation.
Collaboration and Resistance
Glen McGhee provided exceptional guidance, connecting insights on systemic collapse, inequality, and credential inflation. Guest authors contributed across disciplines and movements, making the blog a living archive of accountability and solidarity:
Guest Contributors:
Bryan Alexander, Ann Bowers, James Michael Brodie, Randall Collins, Garrett Fitzgerald, Erica Gallagher, Henry Giroux, David Halperin, Bill Harrington, Phil Hill, Robert Jensen, Hank Kalet, Neil Kraus, the LACCD Whistleblower, Wendy Lynne Lee, Annelise Orleck, Robert Kelchen, Debbi Potts, Jack Metzger, Derek Newton, Gary Roth, Mark Salisbury, Gary Stocker, Harry Targ, Heidi Weber, Richard Wolff, and Helena Worthen.
Lessons from the Meltdown
The crisis was systemic. Technology amplified inequality. Corporate higher education rebranded rather than reformed. Adjunctification and labor precarity became normalized. Communities of color and working-class students suffered disproportionately.
Dehumanization emerged as a central theme. AI, automation, and robocolleges prioritized efficiency over mentorship, data over dialogue, and systems over human relationships. Rising anxiety, anomie, and alienation reflected the human toll.
“Rehumanization, mentorship, community, transparency, ethical accountability, and ecological awareness are essential to restore meaningful higher education.”
Looking Forward
As higher education entered the Trump era, its future remained uncertain. Students, faculty, and communities faced fear under neoliberal policies, AI-driven monitoring, mass surveillance, litigation pressures, ultraconservative influence, climate crises, and financial speculation. Will universities reclaim their role as public goods, or continue as commodified services? The College Meltdown stands as a testament to those who resisted dehumanization and anti-intellectualism. It also calls for Quality of Life, ethical practice, mental well-being, environmental responsibility, and Rehumanization, ensuring education serves the whole person, not just the bottom line.
Sources and References
Washington, Harriet A. Medical Apartheid. Doubleday, 2006.
Rosenthal, Elisabeth. An American Sickness. Penguin, 2017.
Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Crown, 2010.
Nelson, Alondra. Body and Soul. University of Minnesota Press, 2011.
Paucek, Chip. “2U and the Growth of OPMs.” EdSurge, 2021. link
Ravitch, Diane. The Death and Life of the Great American School System. Basic Books, 2010.
Alexander, Bryan. Academia Next. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020.
U.S. Department of Education. “Closed School Information.” 2016–2020. link
Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Student Debt Statistics, 2024. link
Wayback Machine Archive of College Meltdown Blog: link
In 1929, when the stock market crashed, millions of Americans were plunged into unemployment, hunger, and despair. Yet the elites of Wall Street—whose reckless speculation fueled the disaster—often landed softly. By 1933, as the Great Depression deepened, nearly a quarter of the U.S. workforce was unemployed, thousands of banks had failed, and working families bore the brunt of the collapse. Ordinary people endured soup lines, Dust Bowl migration, and generational poverty. The government of Franklin D. Roosevelt eventually stepped in with reforms and safeguards like the FDIC and Glass-Steagall, but not before working-class Americans had paid the heaviest price.
Fast forward to 2008, when the global financial system once again teetered on collapse. This time, instead of letting the failures run their course, the U.S. government rushed to bail out Wall Street banks, auto manufacturers, and other corporate giants deemed “too big to fail.” Banks survived, CEOs kept their bonuses, and investors were shielded. Meanwhile, millions of working-class families lost their homes, jobs, and savings. Student loan borrowers, particularly those from working-class and minority backgrounds, never got a bailout. Adjunct faculty, contract workers, and gig laborers were left to navigate economic insecurity without systemic relief.
The pandemic brought the same story in a new form. Corporate bailouts, Federal Reserve interventions, and stimulus packages stabilized markets far more effectively than they stabilized households. Wall Street bounced back faster than Main Street. By 2021, the wealth of America’s billionaires had surged by more than $1.8 trillion, while ordinary workers struggled with eviction threats, childcare crises, and medical debt.
But the stakes are even higher today. U.S. elites are not only repeating past mistakes—they are doubling down on mass speculation across Artificial Intelligence, crypto, real estate, and equity markets. The rise and collapse of speculative cryptocurrencies revealed how wealth can be created and destroyed almost overnight, with everyday investors bearing the losses while venture capitalists and insiders cashed out early. Real estate speculation has driven housing prices beyond the reach of millions of working families, fueling homelessness and displacement. Equity markets, inflated by cheap debt and stock buybacks, have become disconnected from the real economy, rewarding executives while leaving workers behind.
This speculative frenzy is not just an economic issue—it is an environmental one. Artificial Intelligence requires enormous data farms that use lots of energy. Fossil fuel corporations and their financiers continue to reap profits from industries that accelerate climate change, deforestation, and resource depletion. The destruction of ecosystems, the intensification of climate disasters, and the burden of environmental cleanup all fall disproportionately on working-class and marginalized communities. Yet when markets wobble, it is these same polluting elites who position themselves first in line for government protection.
The Federal Reserve has played a decisive role in this cycle. By keeping interest rates artificially low for years, it fueled debt-driven speculation in housing, equities, and corporate borrowing. When inflation spiked, the Fed shifted gears, raising rates at the fastest pace in decades. This brought pain to households through higher mortgage costs, rising credit card balances, and job insecurity—but banks and investment firms continued to receive lifelines through emergency lending facilities. The Fed’s interventions have too often prioritized elite stability over working-class survival.
Political leadership has compounded the problem. Under Donald Trump's first term, deregulation accelerated, with key provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act rolled back in 2018. Banks gained greater leeway to take risks, and oversight of mid-sized institutions weakened—a decision that later contributed to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in 2023. Trump’s tax cuts overwhelmingly favored corporations and the wealthy, further concentrating wealth at the top while leaving the federal government less able to respond to future crises. In his second term, Trump and his allies signal that they would pressure the Fed to prioritize markets over workers and strip down remaining regulatory guardrails.
The logic of endless bailouts assumes that the survival of elites ensures the survival of the economy. But history proves otherwise. Whether in 1929, 2008, or 2020, the repeated subsidization of corporations and financial elites entrenches inequality, fuels reckless risk-taking, and leaves working families with the bill. The banks, crypto funds, and private equity firms that profit most during boom times rarely share their gains, yet they demand protection in busts.
And the problem is no longer just domestic—it is geopolitical. While U.S. elites depend on bailouts, rival powers are recalibrating. China is building alternative banking systems through the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Belt and Road Initiative. Russia, sanctioned by the West, is tightening its economic ties with China and other non-Western states. India and Brazil, key players in the BRICS bloc, are exploring alternatives to U.S. dollar dominance. If the U.S. continues to subsidize private failure with public money, it risks undermining its own global credibility and ceding economic leadership to rivals.
National security is directly tied to economic and environmental stability. A U.S. that repeatedly bails out elites while leaving ordinary citizens vulnerable erodes trust not only at home but abroad. Allies may question American leadership, while adversaries see opportunity in its fragility. If the U.S. financial system is perceived as permanently rigged—propping up elites while disempowering its workforce—it will accelerate the shift of global influence toward China, Russia, India, and Brazil.
Perhaps it’s time to let the system fail—not in the sense of mass suffering for ordinary people, but in the sense of refusing to cushion elites from the consequences of their own decisions. If banks gamble recklessly, let them face bankruptcy. If private equity firms strip-mine industries, let them collapse under their own weight. If universities chase speculative growth with predatory lending and overpriced credentials, let them answer for it in the courts of law and public opinion.
Failure, though painful, can also be cleansing. Without bailouts, institutions would be forced to reckon with structural flaws instead of papering them over. Alternatives could emerge: community-based credit unions, worker-owned cooperatives, public higher education funded for the public good rather than private profit, and serious investment in green energy and sustainable development.
The real question is not whether elites deserve another bailout. The real question is whether the United States can afford to keep subsidizing them while undermining its working class, its environment, and its national security. For too long, workers, students, and families have shouldered the costs of elite failure. The survival of the U.S. economy—and its place in the world—may depend not on saving elites, but on building something stronger and fairer in their place.
Sources:
Congressional Budget Office, The 2008 Financial Crisis and Federal Response
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Bank Failures During the Great Depression
Institute for Policy Studies, Billionaire Wealth Surge During COVID-19
Federal Reserve, Monetary Policy and Emergency Lending Facilities
Brookings Institution, Bailouts and Moral Hazard
BRICS Policy Center, Alternative Financial Governance Structures
