Corinthian Colleges: A For-Profit Empire, Lifelong Debt, and No Justice for the Victims

In the pantheon of higher education scandals, few match the scale and damage caused by Corinthian Colleges Inc. (CCI). Once hailed by Wall Street as a model for the future of "career education," Corinthian collapsed in 2015 amid federal investigations, lawsuits, and public outrage. The company left behind a trail of financial ruin: more than half a million former students burdened with life-altering debt and degrees of little or no value.

And yet—no one went to jail.

 
A Machine Built on Deception

Founded in 1995, Corinthian Colleges grew rapidly by acquiring small vocational schools and rebranding them under the names Everest, Heald, and WyoTech. Backed by investors and pumped with federal financial aid dollars, the company aggressively marketed to low-income individuals, single mothers, veterans, and people of color—those often excluded from traditional higher education.

Its business model depended not on education outcomes, but on enrollment numbers and federal subsidies. Behind its TV commercials and high-pressure call centers, Corinthian was fabricating job placement rates, enrolling unqualified students, and saddling them with tens of thousands in debt for programs that were often substandard or unaccredited.

At its peak, Corinthian enrolled more than 100,000 students and took in over $1.4 billion annually in federal aid.

 
The Collapse and the Fallout

In 2014, under pressure from federal and state regulators—particularly California Attorney General Kamala Harris—the U.S. Department of Education began tightening scrutiny. When CCI failed to provide accurate job placement data, the government cut off access to Title IV funds. Corinthian tried to sell off its campuses piecemeal before declaring bankruptcy in 2015.

The closure stranded tens of thousands of students mid-degree and left hundreds of thousands with massive debt for worthless credentials.
Lifelong Damage

Many Corinthian students never recovered. Some lost years of work and study. Many saw their credit scores destroyed. Others defaulted and faced wage garnishment, loss of tax refunds, and psychological trauma.

Although the Biden administration in 2022 announced $5.8 billion in loan cancellation for more than 560,000 former Corinthian students—the largest discharge of federal student loans in U.S. history—many students were excluded. Others had taken out private loans or never received proper notification. Some died before receiving relief. Others continue to pay interest on fraudulent debts.

 
The Executives Who Walked Away

While students and their families were left in financial ruin, Corinthian’s executives escaped virtually untouched.

Jack D. Massimino, Corinthian’s longtime CEO and chairman, collected millions in compensation over the years—reportedly more than $3 million in a single year (2010). Despite leading the company through its most fraudulent period, Massimino was never criminally charged. He quietly disappeared from public view after the company’s collapse.

Patrick J. Carey, former Chief Operating Officer and later CEO after Massimino stepped down, also avoided prosecution. Carey was involved in the company’s operations during the period when job placement numbers were allegedly falsified.

William D. White, former Chief Financial Officer, signed off on SEC filings during years of misleading statements to investors and regulators, yet he too faced no criminal charges.

A handful of lawsuits and civil enforcement actions targeted the company, but not its top brass. The Obama-era Department of Education fined Corinthian $30 million for misrepresentations at its Heald campuses in California—but again, no individuals were held accountable.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a civil suit in 2016 against Massimino and two other executives—Robert Owen (former CEO of Everest) and David Moore (former Vice President of Career Services)—but the penalties were civil, not criminal. The matter was quietly resolved years later, with no admission of guilt and limited financial penalties.

 
A Legal and Regulatory Failure

The failure to prosecute Corinthian’s leadership reveals the broader dysfunction of federal oversight. The Department of Education continued to funnel billions to Corinthian even after whistleblowers and state attorneys general raised serious concerns. Accreditors rubber-stamped programs with low graduation and job placement rates. Congress held hearings but passed little reform.

And when the reckoning came, it was the students—not the executives or shareholders—who paid the price.

 
A Cautionary Tale Still Unfolding

The Corinthian Colleges scandal is not simply a story of corporate greed. It is a story of systemic complicity—of a regulatory system that rewards enrollment over outcomes, that protects corporate actors while ignoring the human cost.

Today, many former Corinthian students remain in financial limbo, excluded from relief due to paperwork errors, technicalities, or bureaucratic delays. Some have moved on, but with scars—financial, emotional, and psychological—that may never fully heal.

Meanwhile, the men who engineered this billion-dollar fraud have retired or moved on to new ventures. Their profits are intact. Their reputations barely scratched.

Borrower Defense to Repayment: A Broken Lifeline

In theory, Borrower Defense to Repayment (BDR) was supposed to be the lifeline for students defrauded by predatory institutions like Corinthian Colleges. Enshrined in federal law since the 1990s and expanded during the Obama administration, BDR allows borrowers to seek federal student loan cancellation if their school misled them or violated certain state laws. In practice, however, this “safety net” has been riddled with delay, denial, and political sabotage.

During the Trump administration, then-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos all but dismantled BDR, slow-walking or denying tens of thousands of claims and rewriting the rules to make relief nearly impossible to obtain. Her Department of Education sat on a mountain of applications, many of them from Corinthian students, and forced some defrauded borrowers to repay loans they never should have owed.

Legal battles ensued. A class action suit brought by student borrowers (Sweet v. Cardona) eventually compelled the Department of Education to process tens of thousands of long-delayed claims. But the damage from years of neglect and politicization left lasting scars.

The Biden administration, to its credit, sought to restore the original intent of Borrower Defense. In 2022, it wiped out $5.8 billion in federal loans for former Corinthian students—an unprecedented act of relief. And yet, it was not complete justice.

Thousands of borrowers still have pending BDR applications. Some were denied under DeVos-era policies and must reapply. Others have struggled to access relief due to confusing eligibility requirements or missing documentation. And those with private loans—outside the reach of BDR entirely—remain stuck with illegitimate debt and few legal options.

More troubling, the system remains vulnerable to future political manipulation. Without statutory protections, BDR can be gutted again by a future administration, leaving borrowers once more at the mercy of ideology and inertia.

Corinthian’s legacy, then, lives on—not just in the ruined finances of its former students but in the unsteady scaffolding of a student loan forgiveness system still prone to failure. If Borrower Defense to Repayment is to mean anything, it must become more than a postscript to scandals like Corinthian. It must become a durable right—shielded from politics, enforced with urgency, and backed by a real commitment to justice.

The Higher Education Inquirer will continue to investigate how many were excluded, why relief was delayed, and what deeper reforms are needed—not just to help the Corinthian generation, but to prevent the next generation from falling into the same trap.

Sources:

U.S. Department of Education press releases (2015–2024)
SEC v. Massimino, Owen, Moore (2016)
California v. Corinthian Colleges, Inc. (AG Kamala Harris)
The Atlantic, “The Lie That Got Half a Million People Into Debt”
The Chronicle of Higher Education archives
Debt Collective reports and legal filings
U.S. Senate HELP Committee (Harkin Report, 2012)
Inside Higher Ed, “Corinthian Execs Walk Away”
Sweet v. Cardona case documents and related rulings
Borrower Defense regulations: 34 CFR § 685.206 and subsequent amendments

Let us know if you have a Corinthian story to share. Justice demands it be told.

From Public Good to Target of Sabotage: The Long Decline of the U.S. Postal Service

The United States Postal Service (USPS), long a pillar of American public life and a gateway to middle-class stability, is under siege. While Donald Trump’s administration played a pivotal role in accelerating its recent dysfunction, the erosion of the USPS began decades earlier—through bipartisan policy decisions, creeping privatization, technological change, and ideological hostility toward public institutions. The destruction of the USPS is not a moment, but a process. And its consequences are being felt by workers, communities, and the democratic fabric of the country.

A People’s Institution

The USPS has deep roots in American democracy and labor history. Established in 1775 with Benjamin Franklin as its first postmaster general, the service has operated under a mandate of universal delivery, regardless of geography or profitability. It became a vehicle for social and economic mobility—especially for Black Americans, veterans, immigrants, and rural citizens.

For much of the 20th century, the Postal Service was a stable, unionized employer offering family-sustaining wages. Even as industrial jobs declined, USPS employment remained a critical bridge into the middle class, particularly for African Americans. By the early 1980s, the USPS employed nearly 800,000 people—offering pensions, job security, and federal health benefits.

The Turn Toward Privatization and Market Competition

The seeds of decline were planted in the late 20th century with the rise of neoliberal economics and a bipartisan push for government efficiency, austerity, and deregulation.

In 1970, the old Post Office Department was restructured into a semi-independent entity— the U.S. Postal Service—after a massive wildcat postal strike. While the Postal Reorganization Act modernized the institution, it also removed many public-service obligations from congressional oversight, laying the groundwork for future financial manipulation.

Beginning in the 1980s and accelerating in the 1990s, the growth of private carriers like FedEx and UPS—both supported by favorable legislation and lobbying power—ate into USPS’s most profitable markets: overnight and package delivery. Rather than being forced to compete on a level playing field, USPS was legally barred from underpricing private competitors or expanding into new revenue-generating areas like banking or logistics.

Then came the internet. Email, online bill pay, and digital communications began replacing First-Class mail, which historically covered much of the USPS's operating costs. USPS mail volume peaked in 2006 at 213 billion pieces and has declined nearly 40 percent since. In 2024, total mail volume stood at just over 127 billion pieces.

The 2006 PAEA: A Manufactured Crisis

Perhaps the most destructive blow came in 2006 with the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA), passed by a bipartisan Congress and signed by President George W. Bush. The law required USPS to pre-fund 75 years’ worth of retiree health benefits within a 10-year window—a $5.5 billion annual burden not imposed on any other federal agency or private company.

This manufactured debt crisis gave political cover to critics who claimed the Postal Service was financially unsustainable. It also starved the institution of capital needed for modernization, infrastructure, and workforce development. For over a decade, this artificial shortfall served as justification for hiring freezes, facility closures, and service cuts.

Enter Trump: Sabotage with a Smile

By the time Donald Trump took office in 2017, USPS had already been weakened. But Trump weaponized its vulnerabilities for political gain. In 2020, amid a global pandemic and a presidential election that relied heavily on mail-in voting, Trump launched a public attack on the USPS, falsely claiming mail-in ballots were a source of massive voter fraud.

He appointed Louis DeJoy—a logistics executive and Republican megadonor—as Postmaster General. DeJoy’s appointment was rubber-stamped by a Trump-controlled USPS Board of Governors. Under DeJoy, the USPS eliminated overtime, removed sorting machines, slashed delivery routes, and cut post office hours. Predictably, mail delivery slowed, especially in swing states and communities dependent on timely postal service.

The slowdowns weren’t just political—they were material. Seniors reported late medications. Veterans didn’t receive their VA checks. Ballots were delayed. And postal workers were pushed to the brink. In Detroit and Philadelphia, on-time First-Class mail delivery dropped to below 65 percent in the summer of 2020.

Workforce Impact and Labor Erosion

The USPS has lost tens of thousands of jobs since DeJoy’s tenure began. Over 30,000 positions were eliminated between 2021 and 2024. In early 2025, the agency announced plans to cut 10,000 more jobs, many through early retirement. For a workforce that had already endured years of hiring freezes, consolidation, and low morale, these were devastating blows.

Postal unions, including the American Postal Workers Union (APWU) and the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC), have denounced the cuts as part of a long-term strategy to hollow out the institution and pave the way for privatization.

Service Cuts and a Two-Tier America

As the USPS has weakened, its ability to provide universal service has eroded. In urban centers, lines at post offices have grown longer. In rural America, post offices have been closed or had their hours slashed. Mail delivery has become slower, less reliable, and less equitable. For millions of Americans, especially those in marginalized communities, the erosion of USPS services represents a withdrawal of the federal government from public life.

At the same time, private carriers have expanded their market share—but only where profits justify service. This has created a two-tier system: fast, expensive delivery for the wealthy and corporations; slow, underfunded service for the rest.

The Broader War on Public Infrastructure

What has happened to the U.S. Postal Service is not an isolated story. It is part of a broader neoliberal assault on public institutions and the working class. From public education to public housing, from transit systems to social security offices, the U.S. has seen a systematic hollowing out of civic infrastructure under the banner of "efficiency" and "market competition."

Trump’s actions—both deliberate and reckless—pushed the Postal Service further down a path of institutional decay. But the responsibility lies with decades of policymakers who devalued public service, dismantled regulatory protections, and enabled privatization without accountability.

A Line in the Sand

The USPS remains one of the few institutions that touches nearly every American. It has survived war, depression, technological revolution, and political sabotage. But its future is not guaranteed.

Saving the Postal Service will require not just reversing Trump-era policies, but confronting decades of bipartisan neglect. It will mean repealing harmful laws like the PAEA, investing in modernization, expanding services (like postal banking), and defending postal jobs and unions.

In a time of deep inequality and civic fragmentation, preserving the USPS is about more than mail. It’s about restoring the public good—and remembering that some things should not be for sale.

Sources:

• U.S. Postal Service 2024 Annual Report to Congress

• Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics

• Congressional Research Service: The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act

• The Guardian: “USPS mail slowdowns raise fears of election interference”

• AP News: “Trump says he may take control of USPS”

• Business Insider: “Privatization of USPS could harm rural areas”

• Teen Vogue: “The U.S. Postal Service and the Working Class”

• American Postal Workers Union (apwu.org)

Flirtin' with Disaster: American Higher Education and the Debt Trap

They call it a “path to opportunity,” but for millions of students and their families, American higher education is just Flirtin' with Disaster—a gamble with long odds and staggering costs. Borrowers bet their future on a credential, universities gamble with public trust and private equity, and the system as a whole plays chicken with economic and social collapse. Cue the screeching guitar of Molly Hatchet’s 1979 Southern rock anthem, and you’ve got a fitting soundtrack to the dangerous dance between institutions of higher ed and the consumers they so aggressively court.

The Student as Collateral

For the last three decades, higher education in the United States has increasingly behaved like a high-stakes poker table, only it’s the students who are holding a weak hand. Underfunded public colleges, predatory for-profits, and tuition-hiking private universities all promise upward mobility but deliver it only selectively. The rest? They leave the table with debt, no degree, or both.

Colleges market dreams, but they sell debt. Americans now owe more than $1.7 trillion in student loans. And while some elite schools can claim robust return-on-investment, most institutions below the top tiers produce increasingly shaky value propositions—especially for working-class, first-gen, and BIPOC students. For them, education is often less an elevator to the middle class than a trapdoor into a lifetime of wage garnishment and diminished credit.

Institutional Recklessness

Universities themselves are no saints in this drama. Fueled by financial aid dollars, college leaders have expanded campuses like land barons—building luxury dorms, bloated athletic programs, and administrative empires. Meanwhile, instruction is increasingly outsourced to underpaid adjuncts, and actual student support systems are skeletal at best.

The recklessness isn’t limited to for-profits like Corinthian Colleges, ITT Tech, and the Art Institutes, all of which collapsed under federal scrutiny. Even brand-name nonprofits—think USC, NYU, Columbia—have been exposed for enrolling students into costly, often ineffective online master’s programs in partnership with edtech firms. The real product wasn’t the degree—it was the debt.

A Nation at the Brink

From community colleges to research universities, institutions are now being pushed to their financial and ethical limits. The number of colleges closing or merging has skyrocketed, especially among small private colleges and rural campuses. Layoffs, like those at Southern New Hampshire University and across public systems in Pennsylvania, Oregon, and West Virginia, show that austerity is the new norm.

But the real disaster is systemic. The American college promise—that hard work and higher ed will lead to security—is unraveling in real time. With declining enrollments, aging infrastructure, and increasing political pressure to defund or control curriculum, many schools are shifting from public goods to privatized risk centers. Even state flagship universities now behave more like hedge funds than educational institutions.

Consumers or Victims?

One of the cruelest ironies is that students are still told they are "consumers" who should “shop wisely.” But education is not like buying a toaster. There’s no refund if your college closes. There’s no protection if your degree is devalued. And there's no bankruptcy for most student loan debt. Even federal forgiveness efforts—like Borrower Defense or Public Service Loan Forgiveness—are riddled with bureaucratic landmines and political sabotage.

In this asymmetric market, the house almost always wins. Institutions keep the revenue. Third-party contractors keep their profits. Politicians collect campaign checks. And the borrowers? They’re left flirtin’ with disaster, hoping the system doesn’t collapse before they’ve paid off the last dime.

No Exit Without Accountability

There’s still time to change course—but it will require radical rethinking. That means:

• Holding institutions and executives accountable for false advertising and financial harm.

• Reining in tuition hikes and decoupling higher ed from Wall Street’s expectations.

• Fully funding community colleges and public universities to serve as real social infrastructure.

• Expanding debt cancellation—not just piecemeal forgiveness—for those most harmed by a failed system.

• Ending the exploitation of adjunct labor and restoring the academic mission.

Otherwise, higher education in the U.S. will continue on its reckless path, a broken-down system blasting its anthem of denial as it speeds toward the edge.

As the song goes:
"I'm travelin' down the road and I'm flirtin' with disaster... I got the pedal to the floor, my life is runnin' faster."
So is the American student debt machine—and we’re all strapped in for the ride.

---

Sources:

• U.S. Department of Education, Federal Student Aid Portfolio

• “The Trillion Dollar Lie,” Student Borrower Protection Center

• The Century Foundation, “The High Cost of For-Profit Colleges”

• Inside Higher Ed, Chronicle of Higher Education, Higher Ed Dive

• National Center for Education Statistics

• Molly Hatchet, Flirtin’ with Disaster, Epic Records, 1979

The Accreditation Curtain: A 20-Year Reflection on Transparency and the Illusion of Access (Glen McGhee)

The cancellation of the latest NACIQI (National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity) meeting brought back bitter memories that refuse to fade. 

It’s been twenty years since I traveled to Washington, DC—dressed in my best lobbying attire and carrying a meticulous roster of Department of Education staff—to visit the Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE) on K Street. My goal was simple, even noble: to seek answers about the opaque workings of accreditation in American higher education. What I encountered instead was a wall of silence, surveillance, and authoritarianism.

I stepped off the elevator on the seventh floor of the Department building and signed in. Under "Purpose of Visit," I wrote: Reform. I was calm, professional, and respectful. I asked to see the NACIQI Chair, Bonnie, hoping that she would be willing to speak with me about a system that, even then, was falling into disrepair. But what happened next still infuriates me.

Within seconds, two armed, uniformed guards approached me. They didn’t ask questions. They gave an ultimatum: leave or be arrested.

I eventually complied, descending into the lobby, still stunned. From there I began dialing—one by one—through the directory of names I had so carefully assembled. I called staffers, analysts, assistants, anyone who might answer. Not a single person picked up. I could feel the eyes of the guards watching me, one of them posted on the mezzanine like a sniper keeping watch over a public enemy. I was not dangerous. I was not disruptive. I was, however, unwanted.

The next day, I turned to my Congressman, Allen Boyd, whose LA generously tried to intervene. His office contacted OPE, attempting to broker a meeting on my behalf. The Department didn’t even return his call. Apparently, a sitting member of Congress—who didn’t sit on a high-ranking committee—carried no weight at the fortress of federal education oversight.

This most recent overstepping by US ED—unilaterally postponing NACIQI’s Summer 2025 meeting—reminds observers of how limited the oversight provided by NACIQI really is. It is, apparently, nothing more than a performative shell that fulfills ceremonial functions, and not much more.

I would argue that this latest episode reveals that NACIQI is less an independent watchdog and more a ceremonial body with limited real power, and so my view differs somewhat from David Halperin, because he sees more substantive activity than I do.

The history of ACICS (Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools) and SACS (Southern Association of Colleges) appearing before NACIQI illustrates how regulatory capture can manifest not only through industry influence, but also through bureaucratic design and process control. The OPE’s central role, combined with NACIQI’s limited enforcement power, has allowed failing accreditors to retain recognition for years, even in the face of overwhelming evidence of noncompliance and harm to students.

The illusion of accountability has long been a feature of the accreditation system, not a flaw. NACIQI meetings, when they occur, are tightly scripted, with carefully managed testimony and limited public engagement. The real decisions are made elsewhere, behind closed doors, often under the influence of powerful lobbying groups and entrenched bureaucracies that resist transparency and reform at every turn.

Despite the increasing scrutiny on higher education and growing public awareness of student debt, poor educational outcomes, and sham institutions, the federal recognition of accreditors remains an elite-controlled process. It is a closed loop. Institutions, accreditors, and government officials all play their roles in a carefully choreographed performance that rarely leads to systemic change. The result is a system that protects institutions at the expense of students, particularly the most vulnerable—low-income, first-generation, and minority students who are often targeted by predatory schools hiding behind federal accreditation.

This is the reality of the U.S. Department of Education’s accreditation apparatus: inaccessible, unaccountable, and increasingly symbolic. NACIQI, far from being an independent advisory body, has always functioned as a ceremonial front for political appointees and entrenched interests. It is, as I see it, just another arm of Vishnu—multiplicitous, all-seeing, but ultimately indifferent to critique or reform. Whether it’s chaired by a bureaucrat or a former wrestling executive like Linda McMahon, the outcome is the same: the process is rigged to exclude dissent and suppress scrutiny.

And yet, pundits today still fail to grasp the implications. They speak of accreditation as if it were a technocratic process guided by evidence and integrity. They act as if NACIQI were a neutral arbiter. But I know otherwise, because I was there—thrown out, silenced, and treated like a trespasser in the very institution that claims to protect educational quality and student interest.

This is more than personal bitterness. It’s about structural rot. When critics are expelled, when staff are muzzled, and when public servants ignore elected representatives, we are not dealing with oversight—we are witnessing capture. Accreditation in this country serves the accreditors and the institutions, not students, not taxpayers, and certainly not reformers.

Two decades later, the anger remains. So does the silence.

---

Sources:
Department of Education building directory and procedures (2005)
Congressional Office of Rep. Allen Boyd (archival record, 2005)
Public notices regarding NACIQI meeting cancellations (2024–2025)
David Halperin, Republic Report

From Promise to Predicament: The Fed’s View of Higher Education Fifteen years of data, warnings, and contradictions about America’s student debt crisis.

Over the past fifteen years, the Federal Reserve System has quietly amassed one of the most extensive and consistent bodies of research on student loan debt in the United States. Across its twelve regional banks and the Board of Governors in Washington, the Fed has produced a series of studies that track not just the growth of borrowing, but its unequal burden across race, class, institution type, and geography. The findings confirm what many borrowers already know: the promise of higher education increasingly comes with financial risk, social inequality, and personal hardship.

The Fed's research consistently shows that student loan debt limits economic mobility. It lowers homeownership rates, delays marriage and family formation, and contributes to intergenerational poverty—especially among first-generation college students, borrowers of color, and those who attended for-profit or low-value institutions. While college graduates generally earn more over a lifetime than non-graduates, the costs of attendance—and the debt needed to finance it—often erode that advantage.

The New York Fed was among the first to quantify the scale of the crisis. A 2014 staff report revealed the steep growth in borrowing and the rising rates of delinquency. Follow-up research found that students who failed to complete degrees were the most likely to default. Even among those who did graduate, the risks varied widely depending on the school attended. For-profit college students, in particular, had disproportionately poor outcomes—higher debt levels, higher unemployment, and lower earnings.

In New England, the Boston Fed found that despite the region’s high tuition costs, default rates were relatively low. Researchers attributed this to a strong labor market and high levels of family support. But the same studies also showed that borrowers from disadvantaged backgrounds were still more likely to struggle with repayment, even in affluent states.

More recent work from the Federal Reserve Board's Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking (SHED) adds further evidence that the student loan crisis is uneven. Black and Latino borrowers were more likely to attend institutions with poor outcomes and were more likely to fall behind on payments after the federal pause ended in 2023. Older Americans, including many Parent PLUS borrowers and returning students, also experienced sharp declines in credit scores when payments resumed.

Other Fed branches have asked deeper structural questions. The Richmond Fed in 2022 examined whether increases in federal loan limits contributed to tuition inflation. Their findings were nuanced: while tuition sometimes rose in tandem with expanded loan access, the relationship was inconsistent and depended heavily on institutional behavior. Meanwhile, the Chicago Fed found that families who lost wealth during the Great Recession relied more heavily on student loans, underscoring that borrowing is often a symptom of broader economic vulnerability, not just tuition hikes.

There are tensions among these findings. Some studies emphasize the long-term value of a college degree, arguing that despite the debt, graduates still fare better than non-graduates. Others focus on the risks—especially for those who never finish or who attend predatory institutions. Some research supports targeted loan forgiveness for the most vulnerable; others point to the need for broader systemic reforms to financing, accountability, and access.

What is clear across all these studies is that the federal student loan system, once designed to expand opportunity, now plays a major role in reproducing inequality. Without deeper changes to how higher education is funded and delivered, student loan debt will continue to act as a drag on economic growth and a burden on the middle and working classes.

---

Chart: Median Student Loan Balances by Degree Status and Institution Type
(Based on data from the Federal Reserve Board’s SHED, 2024)

Degree Completed     | Institution Type     | Median Balance
---------------------|----------------------|-----------------
No Degree            | For-Profit College   | $15,700
Associate’s Degree   | Community College    | $12,400
Bachelor’s Degree    | Public University    | $20,200
Bachelor’s Degree    | Private Nonprofit    | $26,000
Graduate Degree      | Public University    | $35,000
Graduate Degree      | Private Nonprofit    | $49,000

This chart highlights how both degree completion and institution type shape borrowing outcomes. Borrowers with no degree, particularly those who attended for-profit colleges, face high risk with lower earning potential. In contrast, graduate students from private institutions carry the highest debt loads, but typically with greater long-term income.

---

Sources:

• Federal Reserve Board, Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking (2014–2024)

• New York Federal Reserve, Student Loan Borrowing and Repayment Behavior (2014, 2019)

• Boston Federal Reserve, Student Loan Debt and Economic Outcomes in New England (2014, 2016)

• Richmond Federal Reserve, Do Federal Student Loans Drive Tuition? (2022)

• Chicago Federal Reserve, The Shadow of the Great Recession and Student Loan Burden (2024)

• St. Louis Federal Reserve, Students Are Borrowing Too Much—or Too Little (2019)

Indeed and the Illusion of Opportunity: The Platform Monopoly on Jobs and Careers

In the platform-dominated economy, Indeed.com has established itself as the central marketplace for jobseekers and employers alike, boasting tens of millions of listings across industries and geographies. But behind its user-friendly design lies a powerful, opaque system that reinforces labor precarity, exploits the desperation of the underemployed, and facilitates fraud and exploitation—including through job scams designed to funnel people into for-profit colleges and dubious training schemes.

Indeed’s rise is emblematic of a larger pattern in the U.S. political economy, where platforms extract profit from human need—especially from the millions of Americans struggling to find secure employment in a shrinking labor market. While claiming to connect jobseekers with opportunity, Indeed increasingly operates as a gatekeeper and a filter, favoring employers with the ability to pay for prominence, and quietly profiting from a user base navigating worsening inequality.

From Opportunity to Exploitation: The Platform Economy

Indeed’s near-monopoly over online job listings positions it as the Amazon of employment—a central aggregator of job ads, resume submissions, employer reviews, and workforce data. Its business model is rooted in ad-based revenue: companies pay to boost job visibility, while jobseekers receive a flood of suggested listings—many of which are irrelevant, low-quality, or outright deceptive.

One particularly disturbing trend: a growing number of "job postings" on Indeed are not job offers at all, but veiled advertisements for for-profit colleges and unaccredited training programs. These listings typically appear legitimate, bearing the titles of medical assistant, phlebotomist, cybersecurity technician, or paralegal. But once an applicant shows interest, they are quickly routed to admissions representatives, not employers. In short, they’ve fallen for a bait-and-switch scheme.

Indeed does little to prevent these tactics. Despite flagging mechanisms and user complaints, scammers and aggressive recruiters return repeatedly under new listings or shell company names. And because these advertisers pay to promote their listings, there is a built-in conflict of interest: Indeed profits from ads designed to exploit vulnerable jobseekers, many of whom are already burdened by unemployment, underemployment, or student debt.

The Job Training Charade: A National Problem

As labor economist Gordon Lafer argues in The Job Training Charade, job training programs have long functioned as a public relations tool for elected officials, who promise “skills-based solutions” rather than structural labor reform. Publicly funded retraining programs and for-profit career schools capitalize on this narrative, convincing jobseekers that their struggles stem from a personal “skills gap” rather than systemic inequality.

Indeed’s platform reinforces this logic by flooding users with listings that promote training and certification programs as prerequisites for jobs that often don’t exist or pay poorly. Even in legitimate industries—like healthcare and IT—the overabundance of credential inflation and unnecessary gatekeeping leads to further debt accumulation without guaranteeing meaningful work.

As Lafer writes, “Training has become a substitute for economic policy—a way of appearing to do something without actually improving people’s lives.” And Indeed is a willing partner in this substitution, profiting from a constant churn of dislocated workers trying to retool their résumés and lives to meet an ever-shifting set of employer demands.

The Educated Underclass and Platform Paternalism

Gary Roth, in The Educated Underclass, identifies another critical aspect of this ecosystem: the overproduction of college graduates relative to the needs of the labor market. As more people earn degrees, the wage premium diminishes, and once-secure professions become crowded with overqualified applicants chasing scarce opportunities.

Indeed’s platform becomes the proving ground for this underclass: college-educated workers competing for service jobs, temp contracts, or entry-level roles barely above minimum wage. Meanwhile, the site’s tools—resume scores, AI-based job match algorithms, and automated rejection letters—reinforce the idea that unemployment is a personal failure rather than a structural outcome.

This is platform paternalism at its worst. Jobseekers are “nudged” into applying for low-quality work, “encouraged” to pursue unnecessary training, and surveilled through behavioral data that is packaged and sold to employers and third-party marketers. Career development becomes not a public good but a private product—sold back to workers in pieces, with no guarantee of outcome.

Job Scams and Regulatory Blind Spots

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and state attorneys general have received thousands of complaints about online job scams—including fake recruiters, phony employers, and misleading school advertisements. Yet enforcement remains weak, and platforms like Indeed enjoy limited legal liability, protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields them from responsibility for user-generated content.

Even when caught, fraudulent advertisers often reappear. As one whistleblower told The Higher Education Inquirer, “We’d flag scam listings, and two days later they’d pop back up under a new name. It was like a game of whack-a-mole—and no one at the top cared.”

Indeed's user agreement explicitly disclaims responsibility for the authenticity of job listings. And although the company has instituted basic verification and reporting tools, they are inadequate to stem the tide of predatory postings, especially those tied to the multibillion-dollar for-profit education industry.

A Broken System Masquerading as Innovation

The consolidation of online job markets under platforms like Indeed represents a profound shift in the political economy of labor. No longer mediated by public institutions or strong unions, the search for work is now a privatized experience, managed by algorithms, monetized through ads, and vulnerable to deception.

To be clear: Indeed does not create jobs. It creates the illusion of access. It obscures labor precarity behind UX design and paid listings. It enables fraudulent training pipelines while pushing the burden of risk and cost onto workers. And it profits from the widening chasm between what higher education promises and what the economy delivers.

At The Higher Education Inquirer, we demand accountability—not just from institutions of higher learning but from the platforms that now mediate our futures. The illusion must be pierced, and jobseeking must be reclaimed as a public function, free from predation, profiteering, and platform capture.

---

Sources:

• Lafer, Gordon. The Job Training Charade. Cornell University Press, 2002.

• Roth, Gary. The Educated Underclass: Students and the Promise of Social Mobility. Pluto Press, 2019.

• U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC). “Job Scams: What You Need to Know.” 2024.

• Recruit Holdings. Annual Reports and Investor Presentations, 2020–2024.

• U.S. Department of Labor. “Contingent and Alternative Employment Arrangements.” 2023.

• Brody, Leslie. “Students Lured Into For-Profit Colleges Through Fake Job Ads.” Wall Street Journal, 2022.

• Zuboff, Shoshana. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. PublicAffairs, 2019.

• Glassdoor, Indeed, and CareerBuilder community complaint forums (2021–2025).

“You Don’t Need a Tariff. You Need a Revolution”: A Viral Wake-Up Call—Or CCP Propaganda?

In a clip that’s rapidly gone viral among both left-leaning critics of neoliberalism and right-wing populists, a young Chinese TikTok influencer delivers a searing indictment of American economic decline. Fluent in English and confident in tone, the speaker lays bare what many struggling Americans already feel: that they’ve been conned by their own elites.

“They robbed you blind and you thank them for it. That’s a tragedy. That’s a scam,” the young man declares, addressing the American people directly.

The video, played and discussed on Judging Freedom with Judge Andrew Napolitano and Professor John Mearsheimer, has sparked praise—and suspicion. While the message resonates with a growing number of Americans disillusioned by the bipartisan political establishment, some are asking: Who is behind this message?

 
A Sharp Critique of American Oligarchy

In his 90-second monologue, the influencer claims U.S. oligarchs offshored manufacturing to China for profit—not diplomacy—gutting the middle class, crashing the working class, and leaving Americans with stagnating wages, unaffordable healthcare, mass addiction, and what he calls “flag-waving poverty made in China.” Meanwhile, he says, China reinvested its profits into its people, raising living standards and building infrastructure.

“What did your oligarchs do? They bought yachts, private jets, and mansions… You get stagnated wages, crippling healthcare costs, cheap dopamine, debt, and flag-waving poverty made in China.”

He ends with a provocative call: “You don’t need another tariff. You need to wake up… You need a revolution.”

It’s a blistering populist critique—and one that finds unexpected agreement from Mearsheimer, who said on the show, “I basically agree with him. I think he’s correct.”
A Message That Cuts Across Party Lines

The critique echoes themes found in Donald Trump’s early campaign rhetoric, as well as long-standing leftist arguments about neoliberal betrayal, corporate offshoring, and elite impunity. It’s the kind of message that unites the American underclass in its many forms—service workers, laid-off factory employees, disillusioned veterans, and student debtors alike.

Mearsheimer went on to argue that the U.S. national security establishment itself was compromised—that its consultants and former officials had deep financial ties to China, making them unwilling to confront the geopolitical risks of China’s rise. According to him, elites were more invested in their own gain than in the national interest.

But that raises an even more complicated question.

 
Is This an Authentic Voice—or a CCP Production?

The most provocative—and potentially overlooked—aspect of this story is the medium itself: TikTok, which is owned by ByteDance, a company under heavy scrutiny for its ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Could this slick, emotionally resonant video be part of a broader soft-power campaign?

The Chinese government has invested heavily in media operations that shape global narratives. While the content of the message may be factually accurate or emotionally true for many Americans, it’s not hard to imagine the CCP welcoming—if not engineering—videos that sow further division and distrust within the United States.

The video’s flawless production, powerful rhetoric, and clever framing—presenting China as the responsible partner and the U.S. as self-destructive—align closely with Beijing’s global messaging. Add to this the timing, with U.S.-China tensions running high over tariffs, Taiwan, and global power shifts, and the question becomes unavoidable:

Is this sincere grassroots criticism… or a polished psychological operation?

The answer may be both. It’s entirely possible that the young man believes everything he’s saying. But it’s also likely that content like this is algorithmically favored—or even quietly encouraged—by a platform closely tied to a government with every incentive to highlight American decline.
Weaponized Truth?

This is not a new tactic. During the Cold War, both the U.S. and the USSR employed truth-tellers and defectors to criticize their adversaries. But in today's digital landscape, the boundaries between propaganda, whistleblowing, and legitimate dissent are more porous than ever.

The Higher Education Inquirer has reported extensively on how American elites—across both political parties—have betrayed working people, including within the halls of higher education. That doesn’t mean we should ignore where a message comes from, or what strategic purpose it might serve.

The danger is not just foreign interference. The greater danger may be that such foreign-origin messages ring so true for so many Americans.
A Closing Thought: Listen Carefully, Then Ask Why

The influencer says:

“You let the oligarchs feed your lies while they made you fat, poor, and addicted… I don’t think you need another tariff. You need to wake up.”

He’s not wrong to say Americans have been exploited. But if the message is being boosted by a rival authoritarian state, it’s worth asking why.

America’s problems are real. Its discontent is justified. But as in all revolutions, the question is not only what we’re overthrowing—but what might take its place.

Sources:

Judging Freedom – Judge Andrew Napolitano and Professor John Mearsheimer

TikTok (ByteDance) ownership and CCP ties – Reuters, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal

The Higher Education Inquirer archives on student debt, adjunct labor, and corporate-academic complicity

Pew Research Center – Views of China, U.S. Public Opinion

Congressional hearings on TikTok and national security, 2023–2024

Chegg: A Critical History of a Disruptor Turned Controversy Machine

Chegg, once hailed as a Silicon Valley disruptor democratizing access to education, has undergone a profound and troubling transformation since its founding in 2005. What began as a textbook rental company evolved into a billion-dollar homework help empire—an empire that, critics argue, has done more to undermine academic integrity than to foster genuine learning. Its business model capitalized on the structural weaknesses of American higher education and, in the process, normalized a shadow system of paid cheating.

Origins: Textbooks, Student Debt, and Disruption

Chegg was born at the intersection of inflated textbook costs and the neoliberal university. Founders Osman Rashid and Aayush Phumbhra sought to bring the efficiencies of the sharing economy to the campus bookstore. In its early years, Chegg attracted investor attention by promising cheaper textbook rentals—a modest but important service in an era of spiraling student debt.

But as textbook rentals became commodified, Chegg pivoted. By the early 2010s, it was building a suite of digital services: step-by-step solutions, tutoring, and subscription-based homework help under its Chegg Study brand. When Chegg went public in 2013, it promoted itself not just as a tech company, but as a partner in “student success.” In reality, it had found a way to turn student desperation into a profitable SaaS model.

Homework Help or Cheating-as-a-Service?

Chegg’s transformation into a homework help platform would eventually earn it a darker moniker: “Cheating-as-a-Service.”

Nowhere is this critique more powerfully detailed than in education journalist Derek Newton’s Cheat Sheet, a Substack project dedicated to exposing the industrial-scale cheating facilitated by platforms like Chegg, Course Hero, and Studypool. Newton, who has tracked the issue since 2019, documented case after case in which students used Chegg not to learn—but to submit answers for graded assignments and exams. Faculty across disciplines and institutions began reporting widespread cheating enabled by Chegg, especially during the remote learning surge triggered by COVID-19.

In one issue of Cheat Sheet, Newton wrote:

“Chegg isn’t an education company. It’s a cheating company. It monetizes academic dishonesty, obfuscates accountability, and deflects responsibility while raking in millions in subscription revenue.”

According to Newton, Chegg’s "ask an expert" function—where students submit specific questions and receive solutions within minutes—became a tool of choice for real-time cheating during online exams. Despite university honor codes, many students saw Chegg as a normalized part of academic life. Meanwhile, Chegg’s refusal to proactively block cheating or cooperate fully with universities left institutions scrambling.

Pandemic Profits and Ethical Collapse

During the COVID-19 pandemic, as universities shifted online, Chegg’s subscriber base soared. Students confined to Zoom classrooms flocked to digital platforms for support—or shortcuts. By 2021, Chegg had nearly 7 million subscribers and posted annual revenues of $776 million. Its stock price peaked above $100 in February 2021.

But that growth came with growing backlash. Professors and academic integrity officers called for investigations. Some universities demanded IP logs and timestamps from Chegg in academic misconduct cases. In response, Chegg adopted a policy of releasing user data only under subpoena—shifting the burden to faculty and administrators.

Chegg, for its part, insisted it was simply offering "study support" and denied facilitating cheating. But the evidence presented in Newton’s Cheat Sheet and other academic publications told a different story.

Collapse, AI Disruption, and Image Repair

In 2023, a new threat emerged: OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Free, flexible, and fast, ChatGPT began to supplant Chegg for the same user base. In a rare moment of corporate honesty, Chegg CEO Dan Rosensweig told investors that ChatGPT was impacting the company’s subscriber growth. Wall Street panicked. Chegg’s stock plummeted, its valuation shrank, and the company began rounds of layoffs—first 4% of its workforce, then 23% in 2024.

Desperate to stay relevant, Chegg pivoted again—this time toward “CheggMate,” its proprietary AI chatbot built in partnership with OpenAI. Yet the damage to its brand, and its future, was already apparent.

By 2025, Chegg was struggling to define its purpose in a rapidly changing education tech landscape. Its subscription model had been undermined by free AI. Its name remained tainted by years of academic dishonesty. And efforts to shift into AI tutoring raised further concerns about data privacy, surveillance, and automation in learning.

A Mirror of Higher Education’s Failures

Chegg’s rise and fall cannot be understood in isolation. It thrived in a system where students are overburdened, instructors are underpaid, and administrators look the other way as long as graduation rates and tuition dollars remain stable. Its gig-based backend—where underpaid "experts" supply answers for a global audience—mirrors the adjunctification of academic labor itself.

Derek Newton’s Cheat Sheet and other critical reporting have exposed how edtech platforms exploit the credibility crisis in higher education. The real scandal isn’t just that Chegg exists—it’s that the ecosystem made it necessary.

Conclusion

Chegg’s legacy may one day be viewed not as a revolution in learning, but as a symptom of higher education’s marketized decline. Like diploma mills and for-profit colleges before it, Chegg served the needs of students abandoned by the system—but did so at the cost of academic trust and intellectual growth.

As the AI era unfolds, and companies like Chegg scramble to reposition themselves, the Higher Education Inquirer will continue to ask: who profits, who pays, and who is left behind?

---

Sources

• Derek Newton, Cheat Sheet newsletter: https://cheatsheet.substack.com

• Chegg Inc. 10-K and Investor Calls (2015–2025)

• The Chronicle of Higher Education, “Is Chegg Helping or Hurting?”

• Inside Higher Ed, “Chegg, ChatGPT, and the New Arms Race in EdTech”

• Bloomberg, “Chegg Warns of ChatGPT Threat”

• Reddit threads: r/Professors, r/College, r/AcademicIntegrity

• The Markup, “Chegg’s Gig-Economy Model and Academic Labor”

• The Atlantic, “The Cheating Economy”

• Higher Education Inquirer Archives on EdTech and Academic Integrity

As the Wealth Gap Widens, Executive Security Spending Surges

As economic inequality intensifies in the United States, corporate leaders are allocating more resources to personal security. CEOs, board members, and high-ranking executives in multiple sectors—including healthcare, tech, logistics, finance, and higher education—are investing in expanded protective measures in response to growing public anger and incidents like the 2024 assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson by Luigi Mangione.

In 2023, Meta Platforms spent $14 million on CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s personal security. Alphabet spent $5.9 million, Amazon reported $1.6 million, and JPMorgan Chase allocated $1.2 million for CEO protection, according to public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). These expenditures have risen steadily in recent years. The Institute for Policy Studies reports an 11 percent increase in executive security costs among the top 500 U.S. firms between 2021 and 2023.

The killing of Thompson in December 2024 catalyzed a wave of security upgrades. According to Business Insider, 40 UnitedHealthcare executives hired bodyguards, relocated, or altered travel routines. UnitedHealth later disclosed $1.7 million in new executive security costs, according to STAT News. Analysts and security firms have since labeled the trend the “Luigi effect.”

These developments are not confined to healthcare. Energy, retail, agriculture, and higher education executives are also responding to rising threats—many rooted in public dissatisfaction over price inflation, labor exploitation, and environmental degradation. In higher education, university presidents have increased security in response to student debt protests and adjunct faculty organizing. In logistics, following union drives and layoffs at UPS and Amazon, senior officials enhanced security at warehouses and corporate campuses.

These actions are occurring in a regulatory environment that has shifted in favor of corporate consolidation. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), under financial and political pressure, has seen a reduction in staffing and enforcement capacity. According to the FTC’s FY2024 budget report, the agency operated with fewer than 1,100 full-time employees—a 20 percent decline from a decade earlier. Congressional budget cuts and increased legal challenges from corporations have further limited the FTC’s ability to investigate and block mergers, enforce antitrust laws, or monitor deceptive corporate practices.

This decline in federal oversight has emboldened monopolistic behavior across industries. It has also allowed firms to suppress labor rights, raise prices, and consolidate control—actions that contribute directly to the growing frustration among workers and consumers. With weakened regulatory agencies and stagnant wages, the perception of impunity among corporate elites has only sharpened public resentment.

The Higher Education Inquirer affirms its commitment to nonviolence. Acts like those carried out by Luigi Mangione are not acceptable responses to injustice. But his case has become a symbolic reference point, signaling how far some individuals may go when democratic tools of accountability are weakened. Escalating security budgets are not just a reaction to individual threats—they are a measurable indicator of social distrust and institutional breakdown.

The solution is not fortification, but reform. Corporate leaders have an opportunity to respond by narrowing executive compensation gaps, supporting collective bargaining, addressing climate and public health impacts, and reducing their influence over regulatory systems. The FTC’s decline is a structural signal, just like the rise in CEO security costs. Both reveal a system drifting further from democratic accountability.

The path forward must be shaped by transparency, public policy, and peaceful resistance. If not, the costs—financial, social, and moral—will continue to rise.

Sources

• U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Proxy Filings: Meta (2023), Amazon (2023), Alphabet (2023), JPMorgan Chase (2023)

• Business Insider. “UnitedHealthcare Execs Hired Bodyguards After CEO’s Killing.” June 2025

• STAT News. “UnitedHealth Discloses $1.7 Million in Security Costs Post-Murder.” April 2025

• Institute for Policy Studies. Executive Excess 2023

• Federal Trade Commission. “Fiscal Year 2024 Congressional Budget Justification.” https://www.ftc.gov

• Economic Policy Institute. “CEO Pay Has Grown 1,209% Since 1978.” 2023

• Pew Research Center. “Public Trust in Institutions, 2023”

• Chronicle of Higher Education. “Presidents Increase Security Amid Campus Protests.” 2024

• New York Post. “Executives Rush to Boost Security in Wake of ‘Luigi Effect’.” May 2025

Academic closures, mergers, cuts: a summer 2025 update (Bryan Alexander)

Greetings from early July. I’m back home in northern Virginia where the heat is blazing and the humidity sopping.  Weather.com thinks it “feels like 102° F” and I agree.  The cats also agree, because they retreated elegantly inside to air conditioning after a brief outside stroll.

I wrote “back home” because my wife and I spent last week celebrating our 32nd anniversary in Canada (here’s one snapshot).  Afterwards I was hoping to get back into the swing of things, blogging, Substacking, vlogging various topics already under way, but things have been advancing at such a manic pace that I have to leap in in a hurry.

Case in point: after blogging about campus closures, cuts, and mergers last month more closures and cuts (albeit no mergers) have appeared in just the past few weeks.  In this post you’ll see a list of these, with links to supporting news stories and official documents.  Alas, this has become a tradition on this site.  (From last year: March 1, March 20, March 28, April, May, June, July, September, November. From this year: February, June.) My book on peak higher education is now in the editing process; hopefully by the time it appears the topic won’t be simply historical.

Today we’ll touch on one closure, then focus on cuts, with a few reflections at the end.

1. Closing colleges and universities

In Michigan Siena Heights University (Catholic) will close after the upcoming academic year.  The reasons: “the financial situation, operational challenges, and long-term sustainability,” according to the official statement.  A local account concurs, “citing rising costs and stiffer competition for new students.”

The official website doesn’t reflect this on its front page.

2. Program and staffing cuts

Also in Michigan, Concordia University (Lutheran) is shutting down most of its Ann Arbor campus programs. A much smaller set of offerings is what’s next:

Starting June 2025, the private Lutheran institution will offer just nine programs — all in medical-related fields — on its physical campus. That’s down from 53 campus programs the university currently lists on its website. It will offer another seven online programs, mostly in education fields, which is down from more than 60 currently.

Also nearby, Michigan State University (public, research) announced its intention to cut faculty and staff positions this year.  The drivers: inflation boosting costs, especially in health care; Trump administration research funding cuts; possible state support cuts; potential international student reduction.

Brown University (research; Rhode Island) is planning to cut an unspecified number of staff this summer.  Furthermore, “[a]dditional measures include scaling back capital spending and adjusting graduate admissions levels after limiting budget growth for doctoral programs earlier this year.”  The reasons here are financial, but based on the Trump administration’s cuts to federal research funding, not enrollment problems.

The Indiana Commission for Higher Education announced shutting down a huge sweep of academic programs across that state’s public universities.  More than 400 degrees will end, with 75 ended outright and 333 “merged or consolidated” with other programs.  The whole list is staggering.  There’s a lot of detail in that Indiana plan, from defining student minima to establishing various options for campuses, appealing closures to timelines for revving up new degrees.  It’s unclear how many faculty and/or staff cuts will follow.

Columbia College Chicago (private, arts focused) laid off twenty full-time professors.  The school is facing enrollment declines and financial problems. Nearly all of these faculty member are – were – tenure track, which makes this another example of the queen sacrifice.

University of California-Santa Cruz (public, research) is terminating its German and Persian language programs, laying off their instructors.  This sounds part of a broader effort to cut costs against a deficit, a deficit caused by “rising labor costs and constrained student enrollment growth,” according to officials.

Boston University (private, research) announced it would lay off 120 staff members as part of a budget-cutting strategy. BU will also close 120 open staff positions and “around 20 positions will undergo a change in schedule” (I’m not sure what that means – shift from full time to part?).    The reasons: Trump administration cuts and uncertainty, plus the longstanding issues of “rising inflation, changing demographics, declining graduate enrollment, and the need to adapt to new technologies.”

The president of Temple University (public, research, Pennsylvania) discussed job cuts as part of a 5% budget cut.  Reasons include lower enrollment which led to “a structural deficit [for which] university reserves were used to cover expenses.”

Champlain College (Vermont) is closing some low-enrolling majors. The avowed goal is to
“design a new ‘career-focused’ curriculum for the fall of 2026 ‘that is focused on and driven by employer needs and student interests.'”

The accounting program, for instance, saw its enrollment decline from 60 students in 2015 to 20 in February 2024, according to documents from the school’s Academic Affairs Committee. The law program, similarly, had little student interest, Hernandez said, and had only three students apply in the fall of 2023, while the data analytics program had only two applications.

At the same time the school is facing serious challenges.  Enrollment has sunk from 4,778 students in 2016 to 3,200 last year.  The college ran deficits in some reason years and a federal audit criticized the amount of debt it carries.  This year “the college’s bond rating was lowered, and its outlook downgraded to ‘negative’ by S&P Global Ratings.”

Looking across the lake from Burlington, near Champlain’s campus back in 2017: a cheery image to balance sad stories.

A small but symbolic cut is under way at Albright College (private, liberal arts, Pennsylvania), whose president decided to sell their art college at auction.  “It includes pieces by Karel Appel, Romare Bearden, Robert Colescott, Bridget Riley, Leon Golub, Jasper Johns, Jacob Lawrence, Marisol, Gordon Parks, Jesús Rafael Soto and Frederick Eversley, among others.”

Why do this?  according to the administration, it was a question of relative value:

“We needed to stop the bleeding,” says James Gaddy, vice-president for administration at Albright, noting that over the past two years the college has experienced shortfalls of $20m. Calling himself and the college’s president Debra Townsley, both of whom were hired last year, “turn-around specialists”, Gaddy claimed that Albright’s 2,300-object art collection was “not core to our mission” as an educational institution and was costing the college more than the art is worth.

“The value of the artworks is not extraordinary,” he says, estimating the total value of the pieces consigned to Pook & Pook at $200,000, but claimed that the cost of maintaining the collection was high and that the cost of staffing the art gallery where the objects were displayed and (mostly) stored was “more than half a million dollars” a year.

A screenshot of some of the auction lots.

3 Budget crises, programs cut, not laying off people yet

Cornell University is preparing staff cuts in the wake of Trump administration research funding reductions.

The University of Minnesota’s administration agreed to a 7.5% cut across its units, along with a tuition increase.  The president cited frozen state support and rising costs.

New York University (NYU) announced a 3% budget cut.  So far this is about “emphasizing cuts to such functions as travel, events, meals, and additional other-than-personal-service (OTPS) items.” NYU will keep on not hiring new administrators and is encouraging some administrators and tenured professors to retire.

Yale University paused ten ongoing construction projects because of concerns about cuts to federal monies.

Reflections

Many of these stories reflect trends I’ve been observing for a while.  Declining enrollment is a major problem for most institutions. The strategy of cutting jobs to balance a budget remains one at least some leaders find useful. The humanities tend to suffer more cuts than others (scroll down the Indiana pdf for a sample). Depending on the state, state governments can increase budget problems or alter academic program offerings.

The second Trump administration’s campaign against higher education is drawing blood, as we can see from universities citing the federal research cuts in their budgets and personnel decisions. Note that this is before the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s provisions take hold, from capping student aid to increasing endowment taxes. And this is also before whatever decrease will appear with international student enrollment this fall. (Here’s my video series on Trump vs higher ed; new episode is in the pipeline.)

Note the number of elite institutions in today’s post.  In the past I’ve been told that the closures, mergers, and cuts primarily hit low-ranked and marginal institutions, which was sometimes true. But now we’re seeing top tier universities enacting budget cuts, thanks to the Trump administration.

Let me close by reminding everyone that these are human stories. Program cuts hurt students’ course of student. Budget cuts impact instructors and staff of all kinds. When we see the statistics pile up we can lose sight of the personal reality.  My heart goes out to everyone injured by these institutional moves.

Finally, I’d like to invite anyone with information on a college or university’s plans to close, merge, or cut to share them with me, either as comments on this post, as notes on social media, or by contacting me privately here.  I write these posts based largely on public, open intelligence (news reports, investigations, roundups) but also through tips, since higher education sometimes has issues with transparency.  We need better information on these events.

(thanks to Will Emerson, Karl Hakkarainen, Kristen Nyht, Cristián Opazo, Peter Shea, Jason Siko, George Station, Nancy Smyth, Ed Webb, and Andrew Zubiri for supplying links and feedback)

This article first appeared at bryanalexander.org