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

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

—Erich Fromm, Escape From Freedom

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

The Rumbles Before the Eruption

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

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

The Trump Spending Bill and Project 2025

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

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

Higher Education: Complicit, Crippled, and Co-opted

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

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

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

The Yearning for Submission

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

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

What Comes Next?

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

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

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

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

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Sources

• Erich Fromm, Escape From Freedom (1941)

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

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

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

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

• Higher Education Inquirer archives

The War on Thought: Higher Education and the Fight Against Authoritarianism (Henry Giroux)

According to the 2024 Democracy Index, approximately 45% of the world's population now resides in democracies, yet only 8% live in full democracies. The rise in authoritarian regimes is particularly alarming, with over 35% of the global population living under such systems. This backslide is attributed to factors such as authoritarian crackdowns, increasing political polarization, and geopolitical tensions. Regions like Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America have seen marked declines, while even historically stable democracies like the U.S. face concerns over institutional erosion and political divisiveness. The data calls for a reevaluation of global political trends, urging a commitment to reinforcing democratic principles in the face of rising authoritarianism and instability, a task made all the more challenging by far-right attacks on higher education in the U.S., Hungary, and India.

For those of us shaped in the revolutionary democratic spirit of the sixties, it is both painful and disheartening to witness the rise of fascism in the U.S. and the slow, tragic unraveling of democracy around the world. Decades of neoliberalism have relentlessly eroded higher education, with a few notable exceptions. The once-cherished notion that the university is a vital advocate for democracy and the public good now seems like a distant memory. What we face today is the collapse of education into mere training, an institution dominated by regressive instrumentalism, hedge-fund administrators, and the growing threat of transforming higher education into spaces of ideological conformity, pedagogical repression, and corporate servitude.

We have seen this before in other authoritarian regimes, where the outcome was the death not only of academic freedom but also of democracy itself.

In the face of the current attacks on higher education, especially in the U.S., it becomes more difficult for faculty to make thought matter, to encourage students to ask important questions, and to view thinking as a form of political engagement, to think the unthinkable in the service of justice and equality. Yet despite these overwhelming challenges, higher education remains one of the few remaining spaces where critical thought can still flourish, serving as a bulwark against authoritarianism. As scholars Heba Gowayed and Jessica Halliday Hardie have noted, despite the deep flaws of academic institutions, they remain vital spaces for critical thought and civic learning, making them prime targets for authoritarian attacks. They write:

While academic institutions are deeply flawed, they are also, in their ideal form, bastions for thought and pedagogy. They are where students can make mistakes and learn from one another. They are also crucial spaces of learning for the citizenry. This is why they are the longtime targets of rightwing attack.

As Hannah Arendt once said, “What really makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other kind of dictatorship to rule is that the people are not informed”. This lack of information and historical awareness is precisely what authoritarians seek to exploit. The need for intellectual autonomy and historical consciousness is paramount in resisting these threats. Arendt's work on the erosion of thinking under totalitarian regimes remains incredibly relevant. It was quite clear to her that a government that lies deprives people of their capacity to think, act, and judge. She writes: “If everyone always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but that no one believes anything at all anymore, and rightly so, because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, to be ‘re-lied,’ so to speak”.

Under the Trump regime, we are witnessing the erosion of critical thought, a deliberate rewriting of history, and the paralyzing of intellectual autonomy, each a direct manifestation of authoritarian tactics. We live in an authoritarian society where the truth itself is under attack, along with the institutions that allow citizens to differentiate between truth and lies, thereby holding power accountable. This is more than an act of irrationality; it is a fundamental element of fascism.  This is a signpost for revealing the damaged passions and delusions of invincibility that characterize a culture’s descent  into authoritarianism and the crime of what Arendt called “the deprivation of citizenship.” The erosion of intellectual autonomy inevitably leads to a denial of citizenship, as Arendt warns. In the face of this, higher education, traditionally a site of critical engagement, is now under siege.

Higher education, traditionally a space for critical thinking and civic engagement, however limited, is now under a savage assault by the global far-right. International students face detentions and deportations without cause, and professors are silenced for speaking out against injustice. The state, right-wing mobs, and even university administrations perpetuate this attack on the university, a situation reminiscent of McCarthy-era repression, though more deeply embedded in the system.

The emerging fascism across the globe underscores the need to educate young people, and the wider public, on the importance of critical thinking. Understanding the threat of authoritarianism is more crucial than ever. Ethics matters, civic education matters, and the humanities matter, especially today. Political consciousness, a crucial element of democracy, must be nurtured, it does not emerge automatically. In a culture that devalues public education, silences dissent, and commodifies expression, many youth feel abandoned. They are hyper-visible as threats but invisible as citizens.

The horror of fascist violence is back, though it is now draped in AI-guided bombs, ethnic cleansing, and white supremacists basking in their project of racial cleansing while destroying every vestige of decency, human rights, and democracy. As global fascism rises, youth have taken center stage in the resistance, challenging forces that threaten both democracy and justice. This emerging youth-led movement, from Indigenous land defenders to climate activists and campus protesters, is pivotal in shaping the future.

Against the rise of fascism globally and its attack on any institution that supports critical thinking and a crucial form of pedagogical citizenship, youth are leading resistance movements around the world. From Indigenous land defenders to climate activists and campus protesters, young people are naming the violences shaping their lives and imagining alternatives. This demands a broad, interconnected movement to unite struggles against ecological destruction, systemic racism, economic inequality, and the transformation of democracy into an authoritarian state.

Education must be central to these efforts, not just formal schooling, but a deeper political and ethical education that links knowledge to action. Authoritarian regimes fear such education, which is why they attack libraries, ban books, and silence educators. They understand what is often forgotten: education is the foundation for both defending and enabling democracy.

This is not a time for despair, but for militant hope, rooted in resistance, collective care, and the belief that youth are not disposable but vital to a democratic future. They are not the problem; they are the possibility. In a time when universities face racist, anti-intellectual assaults from demagogues like Trump, Stephen Miller, and Kristi Noem, epitomized by the recent attack on Harvard, it is crucial for educators, students, administrators, and those who believe in democracy to rise against the authoritarian forces threatening the U.S. and emerging democracies alike. It is absolutely essential to stand against genocidal warmongers, ethnic cleansing, and state-sanctioned violence, at home and abroad. It is fundamental to fight for civic courage, social responsibility, and dignity, values that sustain a thriving democracy.

We must learn from history, to prevent Trump and his merry crew of authoritarians from turning higher education into laboratories of dehumanization and indoctrination. To the students delivering graduation speeches in the name of justice and freedom, such as Logan Rozos, and being punished by university administrators for speaking out, such courage stands as a model of hope. These brave students, along with the student protesters fighting for Palestinian freedom, make clear that education is a crucial bulwark against what the conservative Spanish think tank, Foro de Sevilla, has called the "dark paths of neo-Nazism," which are with us once again. What must be fought in the realm of culture and on the streets at all costs is the silence surrounding the thousands of children killed in Gaza, the erasure of historical memory, and the war on youth in our own land, exemplified by a GOP budget soaked in blood.

Fascism is more than a distant moment in history; it is a breathing threat and wound that has emerged in different forms once again. And the endpoint of such savagery is always the same, racial and ethnic hatred that ends with broken and bloodied bodies in the camps, detention centers, and mass graves.

Any viable call to resistance must stand in stark contrast to the hollow platitudes of right-wing figures, compromised politicians, and celebrities who serve the status quo. Their words and policies echo a complicit silence in the face of government corruption, student abductions, and tax cuts for the wealthy funded by the poor. This is gangster capitalism at its worst.

Hopefully, in such dark times, there will emerge a language of critique and hope, the power of collective struggle, and an education rooted in justice and empowerment. One that fuels a call to mass action, civic courage, and the relentless pursuit of democracy through unity and defiance. 

The US Government Shutdown: "Let Them Eat Cheese"

The stock market is up. Politicians beam on cable news about “economic resilience.” But on the ground, the picture looks very different. Jobs are scarce or unstable, rents keep rising, and food insecurity is back to 1980s levels. The government shutdown has hit federal workers, SNAP recipients, and service programs for the poor and disabled. And what does Washington offer the hungry? Cheese—literally and metaphorically.

Government cheese once symbolized a broken welfare system—a processed product handed out to the desperate while politicians preached self-reliance. Today’s version is digital and disembodied: food banks filled with castoffs, online portals for benefits that don’t come, “relief” programs that require a master’s degree to navigate. People are told to be grateful while they wait in line for what little is left.

Meanwhile, the headlines celebrate record-breaking stock prices and defense contracts. Billions flow abroad to Argentina, Ukraine, and Israel—especially Israel, where U.S. aid underwrites weapons used in what many describe as genocide in Palestine. Corporate media downplay it, politicians justify it, and dissenters are told they’re unpatriotic.

In the U.S., the old cry of “personal responsibility” masks the reality of neoliberal economics—a system that privatizes profit and socializes pain. When the government shuts down, it’s the poor who feel it first. The “educated underclass”—graduates burdened by debt, adjuncts working without benefits, laid-off professionals—are just a few missed paychecks away from standing in the same line for government cheese.

Yet many Americans don’t see who the real enemy is. They turn on one another—Democrats versus Republicans, urban versus rural, native-born versus immigrant—while the architects of austerity watch from gated communities. The spectacle distracts from the structural theft: trillions transferred upward, democracy traded for debt, justice sold to the highest bidder.

“Let them eat cheese” is no longer a historical joke. It’s the bipartisan message of a political class that rewards Wall Street while abandoning Main Street. And as long as the public stays divided, hungry, and distracted, the pantry of power remains locked.

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Sources

• U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). “Household Food Insecurity in the United States in 2024.”

• Gary Roth. "The Educated Underclass." 

• Congressional Budget Office (CBO). “Economic Effects of a Government Shutdown.”

• Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. “Wealth Inequality and Stock Market Concentration.”

• The Intercept. “How U.S. Weapons and Aid Fuel the Assault on Gaza.”

• Associated Press. “Food Banks Report Record Demand Amid Inflation.”

• Jacobin Magazine. “Neoliberalism and the Return of American Austerity.”

• Reuters. “U.S. Sends Billions in Loans and Aid to Argentina.”

• Economic Policy Institute (EPI). “Wage Stagnation and the Cost of Living Crisis.”

Higher Education Inquirer Selected Archive (2016-2023)

In order to streamline the Higher Education Inquirer, we have removed the HEI archive from the right panel of the blog; information that could only be seen in the non-mobile format.   

The HEI archive has included a list of important books and other sources, articles on academic labor, worker movements, and labor actions, student loan debt, debt forgiveness, borrower defense to repayment and student loan asset-backed securities, robocolleges, online program managers, lead generators, and the edtech meltdown, enrollment trends at for-profit colleges, community colleges, and small public and private universities, layoffs and closings of public and private institutions, consumer awareness and organizational transparency and accountability, neoliberalism, neo-conservativism, neo-fascism and structural racism in higher education, and strategic corporate research.  

HEI Resources  
Rutgers University Workers Waging Historic Strike For Economic Justice (Hank Kalet)Borrower Defense Claims Surpass 750,000. Consumers Empowered. Subprime Colleges and Programs Threatened.I Went on Strike to Cancel My Student Debt and Won. Every Debtor Deserves the Same. (Ann Bowers)
Erica Gallagher Speaks Out About 2U's Shady Practices at Department of Education Virtual Listening Meeting
An Email of Concern to the People of Arkansas about the University of Phoenix (Tarah Gramza)
University of California Academic Workers Strike for Economic Justice
The Power of Recognizing Higher Ed Faculty as Working-Class (Helena Worthen)
More Transparency About the Student Debt Portfolio Is Needed: Student Debt By Institution
Is Your Private College Financially Healthy? (Gary Stocker)
The College Dream is Over (Gary Roth)
"Edugrift": Observations of a Subprime College Lead Generator (by J.D. Suenram)
The Tragedy of Human Capital Theory in Higher Education (Glen McGhee)
Let's all pretend we couldn't see it coming (US Working Class Depression)
A preliminary list of private colleges at risk
The Growth of Robocolleges and Robostudents
A Letter to the US Department of Education and Student Loan Servicers on Behalf of Student X (Heidi Weber)
The Higher Education Assembly Line
College Meltdown Expands to Elite Universities
The Slow-Motion Collapse of America’s Largest University
What happens when Big 10 college grads think college is bullsh*t?
Coronavirus and the College Meltdown
Academic Capitalism and the next phase of the College Meltdown
When College Choice is a Fraud
Charlie Kirk's Turning Point Empire Takes Advantage of Failing Federal Agencies As Right-Wing Assault on Division I College Campuses Continues
Navient and the Zombie SLABS Meltdown (Bill Harrington)
College Meltdown at a Turning Point
Charting the College Meltdown
Colleges Are Outsourcing Their Teaching Mission to For-Profit Companies. Is That A Good Thing? (Richard Fossey)
Rebuilding the Purpose of the GI Bill (Garrett Fitzgerald)
Paying the Poorly Educated (Jack Metzger)
Forecasting the US College Meltdown
College Meltdown 2.0
State Universities and the College Meltdown
"20-20": Many US States Have Seen Enrollment Drops of More Than 20 Percent (Glen McGhee and Dahn Shaulis)
Visual Documentation of the College Meltdown Needed

Lies, Damn Lies, and Projections: Higher Ed Business and the Enrollment Cliff

While nothing is for sure, we at the Higher Education Inquirer believe higher education enrollment is going to continue on a slow downward slope for the foreseeable future, and that it could get worse. Looking at the numbers we see, it's difficult to imagine anyone arguing this. But today there is a debate between those who believe in the enrollment cliff and those who do not.

The Debate

Carleton College Professor Nathan Grawe has used the term "enrollment cliff" to describe the decline that is projected to come to a number of states within the next two years and with a trend that will last for a number of years. He uses information from a number of sources, including the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) to make these estimates. These projected declines are the result of a decline in births during and after the Great Recession. US fertility and birth rates have been declining for generations, but enrollment has been shored up by in-migration and higher rates of high school graduation. These rates could increase as abortions are criminalized.  

US Department of Education enrollment projections are fueling the debate for enrollment cliff deniers. But HEI has observed that ED has been wrong in its projections for years and has largely maintained its faulty formula. Presumably the enrollment cliff deniers also don't believe in the projections by WICHE which predicts modest declines in the number of high school graduates. For the record, these deniers are not uniform in their beliefs, values, or their intentions. 

University of Wisconsin-River Falls Professor Neil Kraus, author of the Fantasy Economy: Neoliberalism, Inequality, and the Education Reform Movement, believes that "in the aggregate, higher ed enrollments are fairly constant over time, and if you go back decades, have gradually gone up." Kraus has a point. Relatively stable birth rates would seemingly keep enrollments stable, but there are other social, economic, and political factors in the equation. 

It's a Racket on Both Sides 

Some enrollment deniers may not be so sincere. Many in the education business, including the Department of Education, have vested interests in believing everything is OK. But it's not OK. And while funding is important, it's not the entire answer, especially when the money goes into the wrong (greedy) hands, as it frequently does. 

Higher education has become a racket that has garnered increasing public skepticism about its value. That does not mean that parents won't continue to buy into the college mania and encourage all their children to go to a college regardless of the costs, and the potential debt.   

Some who believe in the enrollment cliff, and pitch it to others, may also be insincere. The President of the University of Idaho, for example, has used the enrollment cliff to rationalize their purchase of the University of Phoenix to shore up their revenues, even though Idaho is not likely to feel dramtic looses in enrollment. There are undoubtedly many others who are using this phenomenon to scare people into buying and selling their products and services.

Coming to a Consensus?

Perhaps the term "enrollment cliff" needs to be defined or the term to define the enrollment decline needs to be renamed. No one can deny that US higher education has seen an enrollment peak and a slow steady decline since 2011. There are also estimates that population declines will occur in many states, as a result of out-migration patterns that have been ongoing. There are other states that will continue to see enrollment gains, especially in the South and West. Maybe enrollment cliff is too harsh a term, but reduced enrollment cannot be ignored. 

Related links: 

Department of Education Fails (Again) to Modify Enrollment Projections

State Budgets Are Downsizing (Pew)

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

Baby Boomers Turning 80: The Flip Side of the 2026 Enrollment Cliff

State Universities and the College Meltdown

"20-20": Many US States Have Seen Enrollment Drops of More Than 20 Percent

US Department of Education Fails to Recognize College Meltdown

Forecasting the US College Meltdown

Navigating the Storm: Existential Questions for Higher Education and the Nation

“Who are we? Where are we going? Where do we come from?” These existential questions are not luxuries in times of crisis—they are necessities. And as the storms of political, social, and environmental upheaval grow darker, they demand our full attention.

For many in the United States, especially younger generations, the future feels bleak. Student loan debt weighs down tens of millions. Meaningless, low-wage, precarious employment—what anthropologist David Graeber called “bullsh*t jobs”—dominates the landscape, even for the college educated. Higher education, once touted as the great equalizer, has increasingly functioned as a sorting mechanism that reinforces class division rather than dismantling it.

This is not accidental. It is the consequence of more than a half century of growing inequality, fueled by tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulation, union busting, and the privatization of public goods. Since the 1970s, wages for working people have stagnated, while the top one percent has consolidated unimaginable wealth and power. Higher education has both suffered from and contributed to this shift: as public funding declined, universities increasingly turned to corporate partnerships, tuition hikes, student loans, and contingent labor to survive. In doing so, they have often replicated the very inequalities they claim to challenge.

Instead of building an informed and empowered citizenry, the modern university too often churns out debt-saddled consumers, precarious workers, and disillusioned graduates. The idea of education as a public good has been replaced by the logic of the market—branding, metrics, debt financing, and labor flexibility.

Meanwhile, U.S. politics offers little solace. We are caught between the reactionary authoritarianism of Trumpism and the managerial neoliberalism of the Democratic establishment. Both forces have proven inadequate in confronting systemic inequality, environmental collapse, and imperial overreach. Instead, they compete to maintain the illusion of normalcy while conditions deteriorate.

Internationally, the collapse of moral leadership is most evident in the ongoing genocide in Palestine. Backed by billions in U.S. aid and political cover, the Israeli military has killed tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza and displaced countless more. Hospitals, schools, and entire neighborhoods have been leveled. On college campuses across the U.S., students and faculty who dare to speak out against this atrocity have faced surveillance, censorship, arrests, and administrative repression. At a moment when moral clarity should be the minimum, too many institutions of higher learning have chosen complicity.

This convergence of global injustice and domestic repression raises urgent questions for academia. What is the role of the university in a world marked by war, inequality, and ecological collapse? What values will guide us through the storm?

The answer begins with honesty. We must recognize that higher education is not separate from society’s failures—it is entangled in them. But that also means it can be part of the solution. Colleges and universities can serve as spaces of resistance, reflection, and regeneration—but only if they reject their alignment with empire, capital, and white supremacy.

Where do we come from? From resistance: from student uprisings, civil rights sit-ins, anti-apartheid divestment, labor organizing, and community building. From people who believed—and still believe—that education should serve justice, not profit.

Where are we going? That depends on whether we are willing to confront power, abandon illusions, and build institutions that are democratic, transparent, and rooted in the needs of the many rather than the few.

The future is uncertain. The storm is here. But history is not finished. A more humane and equitable society remains possible—if we have the courage to demand it.

Questioning the Higher Education Establishment

"So that's how it is," sighed Yakov. "Behind the world lies another world." Bernard Malamud

The Higher Education Inquirer has published a number of articles about how US higher education works and the institutions, organizations, and individuals it serves. 

We have written about US higher education in a number of ways, discussing the history, economics, and underlying ideologies (e.g. neoliberalism, white supremacy) and theories making it what it is--an industry that reinforces a larger (and environmentally unsustainable) economic system and an industry that produces too many unneeded credentials--and soul crushing student loan debt. 

We have listed the myths that US higher education perpetuates and the methods it uses to disseminate them. We have examined a number of higher education institutions and their categories (including university hospitals, state universities, private colleges, community colleges, and online robocolleges). We have investigated several businesses associated with higher education, some nefarious, many profit driven, and a few (like TuitionFit and College Viability App) driven by integrity and values. And we have followed the struggle of labor and consumers. HEI has even created an outline for a People's History of US Higher Education.

But we haven't examined higher education as part of the establishment. Like the establishment that students of the 1960s talked about as something not to trust. The trustees, endowment managers, foundation presidents, accreditors, bankers, bond raters, CEOs and CFOs who make the decisions that affect how higher ed operates and who at the same time work to make consumers, workers, and activists invisible. 

To say we cannot trust US higher education administrators and business leaders may sound passe, or something that only extremists of the Left or Right might say, but it isn't, and more folks are seeing that. 

Examining US higher education needs to be assessed more deeply (like Craig Steven Wilder, Davarian Baldwin, and Gary Roth have done) and more comprehensively (like Marc Bousquet), and it needs to be explained to the People. It's something few have endeavored, because it isn't profitable, not even for tenure in some cases. 

Without our own sustainable business model, the Higher Education Inquirer will continue writing (and prompt others to write) stories significant to workers and consumers, the folks who deserve to be enlightened and who deserve to tell their stories. 

And as long as we can, the Higher Education Inquirer will ask the Establishment for answers that only they know, something few others are willing to do. 

College Mania!, College Meltdown, and the other "C" Words

What are we seeing in US higher education and American society today?  Lower college enrollments (for some colleges), high student loan debt (for some consumers) and upward mobility and increasing wealth for others. Many of us hope to be the fortunate ones, through hard work and persistence.

Culture and society (including myths, marketing and advertising, and media) tell folks that higher education is essential and elite education is necessary for upward social mobility. Others see higher education, especially borrowing money to go to school, as a road to nowhere: of untold debt and unhappiness. What people are seeing would seem to be confusing, but it shouldn't be if we understand our system and how it works.  

 

Capitalism (also known as neoliberalism) is the underlying program or structure that guides behavior in the US. We are immersed in it. It also guides other values that we may hold about family, religion, government, and the economy. Under this system, the differences between the rich and poor have been increasing for more than a half century and life expectancy and fertility rates are stagnant.

Consumers are bombarded with stories that reflect how we should perceive higher education. The stories that we see and hear may vary and may appear contradictory if we are willing to look at all sides. Some of the stories are myths, others are downright lies. Targeted marketing means that we may not get the same messages as others. 

Class is how the program of capitalism works, with elites at the top, small business owners and managers in the middle, and workers who do the labor necessary to keep society running.  These distinctions may be small in some places and enormous in others, and there may even be overlap in wealth and income.  Social mobility is possible, but in the US social mobility is stagnant for many non-immigrants. Workers are sometimes appreciated but often unappreciated and even scapegoated. 

Communities are diverse and cut across class boundaries and even geography. Groups seen as homogeneous are rarely that. And stereotypes are used (and misused) as a short hand for understanding other people or even ourselves. 

Civics is a formal understanding how the program/system works and typically how to be a good citizen. The idea of what makes a good citizen varies. Civics can be used as a tool of social control or a tool of reform and innovation. 

Conflict consists of opposing thoughts and actions. It can exist inside of us as well as outside, causing cognitive dissonance for those who are mindful. Some degree of conflict is necessary for society to be healthy. Too much conflict can destroy the fabric of society. 

Bibliography of the College Meltdown

Dahn Shaulis

CollegeMeltdown@protonmail.com

Alexander, B. (2020). Academia Next: The Futures of Higher Education

Angulo, A. (2016). Diploma Mills: How For-profit Colleges Stiffed Students, Taxpayers, and the American Dream

Armstrong, E. and Hamilton, L. (2015). Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality

Bennett, W. and Wilezol, D. (2013). Is College Worth It?: A Former United States Secretary of Education and a Liberal Arts Graduate Expose the Broken Promise of Higher Education                          

Berg, G. (2005). Lessons from the Edge: For-profit and Nontraditional Higher Education in America

Best, J, and Best, E. (2014). The Student Loan Mess: How Good Intentions Created a Trillion-Dollar Problem

Blumenstyk, G. (2014). American Higher Education in Crisis?: What Everyone Needs to Know

Bousquet, M. (2008). How the University Works: Higher Education and the Low Wage Nation

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Cappelli, P. (2015). Will College Pay Off?: A Guide to the Most Important Financial Decision You'll Ever Make

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Cottom, T. (2016). Lower Ed: How For-profit Colleges Deepen Inequality in America

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Donoghue, F.  (2008). The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities

Fabricant, M. (2016). Austerity Blues

Ginsberg, B. (2013). The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All Administrative University and Why It Matters

Giroux, H. (2014). Neoliberalism's War on Higher Education

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Goldrick-Rab, S. (2016). Paying the Price: College Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American Dream

Halperin, D. (2014). Stealing America's Future: How For-profit Colleges Scam Taxpayers and Ruin Students' Lives

Hentschke, G. et al. (2010). For-profit Colleges and Universities: Their Markets, Regulation, Performance, and Place in Higher Education

Johnson, B. et al. (2003). Steal This University: The Rise of the Corporate University and the Academic Labor Movement

Kinser, K. (2006). From Main Street to Wall Street: The Transformation of For-profit Higher Education

Leach, T. (2008). The Impact of For-profit Privatization on Higher Education in the State of Massachusetts

Levin, H. (2001). Thoughts on For-profit Schools

McGuire, M. (2012). Subprime Education: For-profit Colleges and the Problem with Title IV Student Aid. Duke Law Journal, 62 (1): 119-160

Mettler, S. (2014). Degrees of Inequality: How the Politics of Higher Education Sabotaged the American Dream

Morey, A. (2004). Globalization and the Emergence of For-profit Education

Murphy, J. (2013). Mission Forsaken—The University of Phoenix Affair With Wall Street

Newfeld, C. (2011). Unmaking the Public University

Newfeld, C. (2016). The Great Mistake: How We Wrecked Public Universities and How We Can Fix Them

Perini, M.(2011). A Phoenix Still in Ashes: For-profit Open Admissions and the Public Good

Roth, G. (2019). The Educated Underclass: Students and the False Promise of Social Mobility

 
Ruch, R. (2003). Higher Ed Inc.: The Rise of the For-profit University

Selingo, J. (2013). College Unbound: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students    

Stodghill, R. (2015). Where Everybody Looks Like Me: At the Crossroads of America's Black Colleges and Culture                                                                                                       

Vedder, R. (2004). Going Broke By Degree: Why College Costs Too Much          

Washburn, J. (2006). University Inc.: The Corporate Corruption of Higher Education

The New Cold War in the Americas: Power, Proxy, and the People Caught in Between

The Western Hemisphere is entering a new and dangerous phase of global rivalry—one shaped by old imperial habits, new economic pressures, and resurgent great-power maneuvering. From Washington to Beijing to Caracas, political leaders are escalating tensions over Venezuela’s future, reviving a familiar script in which Latin America becomes the proving ground for foreign powers and a pressure cooker for working-class people who have no say in the geopolitical games unfolding above them.

What looks like a confrontation over oil, governance, or regional security is better understood as a collision of neoliberal extraction, colonial legacies, and competing empires, each claiming moral authority while pursuing strategic advantage. In this moment, it is essential to remember what history shows again and again: ordinary people—soldiers, students, workers—pay the highest price for elite ambitions.

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A Long Shadow: U.S. Intervention in Latin America Since the 1890s

The U.S. role in Latin America cannot be separated from its imperial foundations. Over more than a century, Washington has repeatedly intervened—militarily, covertly, and financially—to shape political outcomes in the region:

• 1898–1934: The “Banana Wars.” U.S. Marines were deployed throughout the Caribbean and Central America to secure plantations, protect U.S. investors, and maintain favorable governments in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Panama, and Honduras.

• 1954: Guatemala. The CIA overthrew democratically elected President Jacobo Árbenz after he challenged United Fruit Company landholdings.

• 1961: Bay of Pigs Invasion. A failed U.S.-backed attempt to overthrow Fidel Castro.

• 1973: Chile. U.S. support for the coup against Salvador Allende ushered in the Pinochet dictatorship and a laboratory for neoliberal economics.

• 1980s: Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala. Funding death squads, supporting Contra rebels, and fueling civil wars that killed hundreds of thousands.

• 1989: Panama. A full-scale U.S. invasion to remove Manuel Noriega, with civilian casualties in the thousands.

• 2002: Venezuela. U.S. officials supported the brief coup against Hugo Chávez.

• 2020s: Economic warfare continues. Sanctions, diplomatic isolation, and support for factions opposing Nicolás Maduro all sustain a long-running pressure campaign.

This is not ancient history. It is the operating system of U.S. hemispheric influence.

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China’s Expanding Soft Power and Strategic Positioning

While the U.S. escalates military signaling toward Venezuela, China is expanding soft power, economic influence, and political relationships throughout Latin America—including with Venezuela. Beijing’s strategy is centered not on direct military confrontation but on long-term infrastructure, trade, and diplomatic partnerships designed to reduce U.S. dominance.

Recent statements from Beijing underscore this shift. Chinese President Xi Jinping publicly backed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, describing China and Venezuela as “intimate friends” as the U.S. intensifies military pressure in the region. China’s role extends beyond rhetoric: loans, technology transfers, energy investments, and political support form a web of influence that counters U.S. objectives.

This is the new terrain: the U.S. leaning on sanctions and military posture, China leveraging soft power and strategic alliances.

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Russia as a Third Power in the Hemisphere

Any honest assessment of the current geopolitical climate must include Russia, which has expanded its presence in Latin America as part of its broader campaign to counter U.S. power globally. Moscow has supplied Venezuela with military equipment, intelligence support, cybersecurity assistance, and diplomatic cover at the United Nations. It has strengthened ties with Nicaragua, Cuba, and other governments willing to challenge U.S. regional dominance.

Russia’s involvement is not ideological; it is strategic. It seeks to weaken Washington’s influence, create leverage in distant theaters, and embed itself in the Western Hemisphere without deploying large-scale military forces. Where China builds infrastructure and invests billions, Russia plays the spoiler: complicating U.S. policy, reinforcing embattled leaders when convenient, and offering an alternative to nations seeking to escape U.S. hegemony.

The result is a crowded geopolitical arena in which Venezuela becomes not just a domestic crisis but a theater for multipolar contention, shaped by three major powers with very different tools and interests.

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Neoliberalism, Colonialism, and the Repeating Pattern

Viewed in historical context, today’s crisis is simply the newest iteration of a long-standing pattern:

1. Colonial logics justify intervention. The idea that Washington must “manage” or “stabilize” Latin America recycles the paternalism of earlier eras.

2. Neoliberal extraction drives policy. Control over energy resources, access to markets, and geopolitical leverage matter more than democracy or human well-being.

3. Foreign powers treat the region as a chessboard. The U.S., China, and Russia approach Latin America not as sovereign equals but as terrain for influence.

4. People—not governments—bear the cost. Sanctions devastate civilians. Military escalations breed proxy conflicts. Migration pressures rise. And working-class youth are recruited to fight battles that are not theirs.

This is why today’s developments must be understood as part of a wider global system that treats nations in the Global South as resources to exploit and battlegrounds to dominate.

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A Warning for Those Considering Enlistment or ROTC

In moments like this, the pressure on young people—especially working-class youth—to join the military increases. Recruiters frame conflict as opportunity: tuition money, job training, patriotism, adventure, or stability. But the truth is starker and more political.

Muhammad Ali’s stance during the Vietnam War remains profoundly relevant today. He refused the draft, famously stating that the Vietnamese “never called me [a slur]” and declaring that he would not fight a war of conquest against people who had done him no harm.

The same logic applies to today’s geopolitical brinkmanship. Young Americans are asked to risk their lives in conflicts that protect corporate interests, reinforce imperial ambitions, and escalate global tensions. Venezuelan workers, Chinese workers, Russian workers, and U.S. workers are not enemies. They are casualties-in-waiting of decisions made by governments and corporations insulated from the consequences of their actions.

Before enlisting—or joining ROTC—young people deserve to understand the historical cycle they may be pulled into. Wars in Latin America, proxy or direct, have never served the interests of everyday people. They serve empires.

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Sources

• Firstpost. “Xi Backs Maduro, Calls China and Venezuela ‘Intimate Friends’ as Trump Steps Up Military Pressure.”

• Greg Grandin, Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism

• Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine

• Stephen Kinzer, Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change

• U.S. Congressional Research Service reports on U.S. policy in Venezuela and China-Latin America relations

• UN Human Rights Council documentation on sanctions and civilian impact

The Higher Education Inquirer’s Dramatic Rise in Viewership

The Higher Education Inquirer has experienced a dramatic surge in readership in recent months, defying the odds in a media ecosystem dominated by corporate influence, algorithmic manipulation, and declining public trust. Without the benefit of advertising dollars, search engine optimization tactics, or institutional backing, the Inquirer has built an expanding audience on the strength of its investigative rigor, academic credibility, and fearless confrontation of power in higher education.

The Inquirer’s success lies in its refusal to chase headlines or appease stakeholders. Instead, it examines the underlying systems that have shaped the American higher education crisis—escalating student debt, the exploitation of adjunct faculty, administrative overreach, the encroachment of private equity, and the weakening of regulatory oversight. Its reporting draws directly from primary source documents: internal university records, SEC filings, FOIA requests, and government data from the U.S. Department of Education, Department of Veterans Affairs, and other public institutions. Readers trust the Higher Education Inquirer not simply because it is independent, but because it is evidence-based and relentlessly honest.

This journalistic integrity has attracted a diverse and influential group of contributors whose work amplifies the publication’s reach and credibility. Among them is David Halperin, an attorney, journalist, and watchdog who has long held the for-profit college industry accountable. Halperin’s sharp investigative writing has helped shape federal policy, inform regulatory action, and expose the inner workings of a powerful, often unregulated sector of higher education.

Other essential contributors include Henry Giroux, whose writing connects neoliberalism, authoritarianism, and education policy; Bryan Alexander, who offers foresight into technological and demographic changes shaping the future of academia; and Michael Hainline, who combines investigative rigor with grassroots activism. Together, these voices reflect a commitment to intellectual diversity grounded in a shared mission: to make sense of a higher education system in crisis, and to imagine alternatives.

HEI's timing could not be more significant. As student loan debt hits historic levels, public confidence in higher education erodes, and international students reassess their futures in the United States, people are seeking answers—and not from the usual pundits or PR firms. They’re turning to sources like the Inquirer that offer clarity, accountability, and a refusal to look away from injustice.

With more than 700 articles and videos in its growing archive, the Inquirer has become a vital resource for researchers, journalists, educators, and activists alike. And unlike many mainstream outlets, it remains open-access, free of paywalls and advertising clutter. It encourages participation from readers through anonymous tips, public commentary, and shared research, building a collaborative community that extends beyond the screen.

Last week, more than 30,000 readers visited the site—a significant number for an independent, ad-free platform. But more than numbers, this growth signals a shift in how people consume and value journalism. It shows that there is a real appetite for media that holds power accountable, that prioritizes substance over spectacle, and that dares to tell the truth even when it’s inconvenient.

The Higher Education Inquirer is not chasing influence—it’s earning it. Through fearless reporting, scholarly insight, and a commitment to justice, it has become a trusted voice in the fight to reclaim higher education as a public good. And with its core group of contributors continuing to inform and inspire, the Inquirer is poised to grow even further, serving as a beacon for those who believe that education—and journalism—should serve the people, not the powerful.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So where does that leave us?

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

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

The scam isn’t over. It’s reloading.

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

Sources:

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

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

• Private correspondence with a longtime borrower, July 2025

Why People Under 35 Are Not Afraid of Democratic Socialism

For Americans under 35, the term “democratic socialism” triggers neither fear nor Cold War reflexes. It represents something far simpler: a demand for a functioning society. Younger generations have grown up in a world where basic pillars of American life—higher education, medicine, economic mobility, and even life expectancy—have deteriorated while inequality has soared. Democratic socialism, in their view, is not a fringe ideology but a practical response to systems that have ceased to serve the common good.

Nowhere is this clearer than in higher education. Millennials and Gen Z entered adulthood as universities became corporate enterprises, expanding administrative layers, pushing adjunct labor to the brink, and relying on debt-financed tuition increases to keep the machine running. Public investment collapsed, predatory for-profit chains proliferated, and nonprofit universities acted like hedge funds with classrooms attached. Students saw institutions with billion-dollar endowments operate as landlords and asset managers, all while passing costs onto working families. When Bernie Sanders called for tuition-free public college, young people did not hear utopianism—they heard a plan grounded in global reality, a model that exists in Germany, Sweden, Finland, and other social democracies that treat education as a public good rather than a revenue stream.

Healthcare tells an even harsher story. Americans under 35 watched their parents and grandparents navigate a system more focused on billing codes than care, one where an ambulance ride costs a week’s wages and a bout of illness can mean bankruptcy. They experienced the rise of corporatized university medical centers, private equity–owned emergency rooms, and insurance bureaucracies that ration access more cruelly than any state. They saw life-saving drugs priced like luxury goods and mental health services pushed out of reach. Compare this to nations with universal healthcare: longer life expectancy, lower infant mortality, and far less medical debt. Again, Sanders’ Medicare for All resonated not because of ideology but because young people recognized it as a plausible path toward the kind of humane medical system described by scholars like Harriet Washington, Elisabeth Rosenthal, and Mahmud Mamdani, who all critique the structural violence embedded in systems of unequal care.

Life expectancy itself has become a generational indictment. For the first time in modern U.S. history, it has fallen, driven by overdose deaths, suicide, preventable illness, and worsening inequities. Younger Americans know that friends and peers have died far earlier than their counterparts abroad. They see that countries with strong public services—childcare, unemployment insurance, housing supports, universal healthcare—live longer, healthier lives. They also see how austerity and privatization have hollowed out public health infrastructure in the United States, leaving communities vulnerable to crises large and small. The message is clear: societies that invest in people live longer; societies that treat health as a commodity do not.

Quality of Life (QOL) ties all of this together. People under 35 face rent burdens unimaginable to previous generations, debts that prevent them from forming families, stagnant wages, and a labor market defined by precarity. They face the erosion of public space, public transit, libraries, and social supports—what Mamdani would describe as the slow unraveling of the civic realm under neoliberalism. When they look abroad, they see countries with social democratic frameworks offering guaranteed parental leave, subsidized childcare, free or nearly free college, universal healthcare, and robust worker protections. These are not distant fantasies; they are functioning models that produce higher happiness levels, stronger social trust, and more stable democracies.

Older generations often accuse young people of radicalism, but the reality is the reverse. Millennials and Gen Z are pragmatic. They have lived through the failures of unfettered capitalism: historic inequality, monopolistic industries, soaring costs of living, and a political class unresponsive to their material conditions. They have read Sanders’ critiques of oligarchy and Mamdani’s analyses of state power and structural violence, and they see themselves reflected in those diagnoses. Democratic socialism appeals because it is rooted in material improvements to daily life rather than in abstract political theory. It promises a society where income does not determine survival, where education does not require lifelong debt, where parents can afford to raise children, and where basic health is not a luxury good.

People under 35 are not afraid of democratic socialism because they have already seen what the absence of a social democratic framework produces. They are not seeking revolution for its own sake. They are seeking a livable future. And increasingly, they view democratic socialism not as a radical break but as the only realistic path toward rebuilding public institutions, revitalizing democracy, and ensuring that future generations inherit a country worth living in.

Sources
Sanders, Bernie. Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In.
Sanders, Bernie. Where We Go from Here: Two Years in the Resistance.
Mamdani, Mahmood. Define and Rule: Native as Political Identity.
Mamdani, Mahmood. Neither Settler nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities.
Washington, Harriet. Medical Apartheid.
Rosenthal, Elisabeth. An American Sickness.
Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.
Baldwin, Davarian. In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower.
Bousquet, Marc. How the University Works.