Harvard and Yale Selling Off Private Equity Stakes

Harvard and Yale—titans of American higher education and longtime bellwethers of endowment strategy—are quietly offloading billions in private equity holdings. These moves, confirmed through multiple reports and market insiders, signal a significant shift in institutional investing, with potential ripple effects across the higher ed landscape and beyond.

The two Ivies, boasting the largest university endowments in the world ($50.7 billion for Harvard, $40.7 billion for Yale as of 2024), have long championed the “Yale model” of endowment investing: high allocations to illiquid assets such as private equity, venture capital, hedge funds, and real assets like timberland and oil. But the bloom is off the rose.

From Darling to Dilemma

Private equity once promised high returns, portfolio diversification, and access to elite deals not available to public investors. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, as traditional markets stagnated, institutions doubled down on alternative investments. For years, this strategy paid off—at least on paper.

But cracks have been forming.

Private equity valuations have come under scrutiny as deal activity has slowed, interest rates have risen, and exits through IPOs and acquisitions have dried up. Many private equity funds are now sitting on aging portfolios—so-called "zombie funds"—that have not returned capital in years. Meanwhile, limited partners like universities are increasingly liquidity-constrained, especially as operating costs rise and tuition-dependent revenues remain fragile.

Harvard Management Company and Yale’s Investment Office, once aggressive buyers, are now sellers on the secondary market. Reports indicate both institutions are using intermediaries to quietly market stakes in private equity funds—often at discounts of 10% to 20%, or more, below net asset value.

A Broader Retreat?

This retreat isn’t just about balance sheet management. It’s a broader reassessment of what endowments should be doing—and what risks they should be bearing.

Universities face mounting scrutiny over their massive, tax-advantaged endowments and their relationships with Wall Street. Critics question why institutions with social missions are entangled in opaque, leveraged, and sometimes predatory industries. Private equity firms, after all, have been deeply involved in sectors like healthcare, housing, for-profit education, and prison services—areas where returns often come at the cost of public welfare.

Moreover, the mismatch between the long lock-up periods of private equity investments and the growing need for financial flexibility is becoming more apparent. University administrators now must navigate volatile geopolitical conditions, student protests over divestment, and uncertain federal funding. Liquidity matters more than it did a decade ago.

The End of the Yale Model?

David Swensen, Yale’s late investment chief, revolutionized university finance with his embrace of illiquid alternatives. But times have changed. While the strategy made Yale’s endowment a model for copycats, today it may represent an outdated orthodoxy.

Harvard and Yale’s pivot may be the beginning of the end for the “Yale model” as we know it. Other institutions—especially smaller endowments that tried to mimic the Ivies—may find themselves stuck with toxic assets, unable to unload them without taking steep losses.

In fact, some mid-tier and small colleges may have to choose between covering operational costs and holding on to underperforming private equity positions. For those with limited financial cushions, the fallout could be existential.

Higher Ed’s Reckoning with Risk

The endowment shift also raises a philosophical question: What is the purpose of university wealth?

As elite schools back away from the riskier corners of Wall Street, perhaps it's time for a broader reckoning—about not just how universities invest, but why. Should institutions built on ideals of knowledge, access, and social progress be hand-in-glove with industries known for wage suppression, regulatory arbitrage, and asset stripping?

Harvard and Yale may be late to that moral realization. But their financial pivot is a sign that even the most powerful players can’t ignore reality forever.

In the age of growing student debt, declining public trust, and ballooning inequality, selling off a few private equity funds is a small move. But it could be the start of a larger shift—one where higher education finally begins to question whether its financial strategies align with its educational mission.

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If you have insights into university endowment strategies or are a whistleblower inside the private equity world, contact us confidentially at Higher Education Inquirer. 

The Pritzker Paradox: Elite Influence and For‑Profit Exploitation in Higher Education

As the 2028 presidential race accelerates, J.B. Pritzker has emerged as a favored candidate among Democratic power brokers. His public image—competent, pragmatic, socially liberal, and reliably anti-Trump—has been carefully shaped to appeal to voters exhausted by polarization and chaos. But beneath this polished surface lies a deep and troubling contradiction that the public, and especially those affected by the student-debt crisis, cannot afford to ignore. This contradiction, the Pritzker Paradox, stems from the profound dissonance between Pritzker’s public rhetoric about educational opportunity and the private capital networks that have fueled both his family’s wealth and his political ascent.

The Pritzker family has long been intertwined with for-profit higher education and its surrounding ecosystem of lenders, service providers, and private-equity investors. These sectors have collectively played a major role in producing the contemporary student-debt crisis. While J.B. Pritzker often presents himself as a champion of equity, public investment, and educational access, his family’s financial history reveals an alignment with institutions that have extracted billions from low-income students, veterans, and Black and Latino communities through high-cost, low-value educational programs.

This is not simply a matter of past investments. It is part of an ongoing and highly influential political economy in which wealthy Democratic donors, private-equity executives, and education “reformers” operate as a unified class. Central to that class formation is The Vistria Group, a Chicago-based private-equity firm founded by Marty Nesbitt, a close friend of Barack Obama. Vistria stands at the intersection of Democratic power and education profiteering. After the collapse of scandal-ridden chains like Corinthian Colleges and ITT Tech, Vistria did not step in to dismantle the exploitative for-profit model. Instead, it strategically acquired distressed educational assets and reconstructed them into a new generation of institutions that presented themselves as “nonprofits” while maintaining tuition-driven, debt-laden business models. Former Obama administration officials moved seamlessly into Vistria and related firms, raising serious questions about regulatory capture and revolving-door governance.

Pritzker moves within this same Chicago-centered network. His political donors, associates, and advisers overlap significantly with the circles that built Vistria’s ascent. The structural relationships matter more than any single investment. A Pritzker administration would not exist outside this ecosystem; it would be shaped by it. The question, therefore, is not whether Pritzker personally signed a for-profit acquisition deal but whether the political world that produced him can be trusted to regulate higher education fairly and aggressively. The answer, based on the last twenty years of policy and practice, is no.

This is especially troubling because presidents play a decisive role in higher-education oversight. Through the Department of Education, a president can strengthen or weaken borrower protections, set standards for nonprofit conversions, determine enforcement priorities, and decide whether private-equity extraction will be challenged or quietly accommodated. Millions of borrowers harmed by predatory institutions are currently awaiting relief through borrower defense, income-driven repayment audits, and Gainful Employment rules. The integrity of these processes depends on political leadership that is independent from the private-equity interests that helped create the crisis.

Pritzker’s political style—managerial, technocratic, deeply rooted in elite networks—suggests continuity rather than challenge. The neoliberal framework he embodies does not confront structural inequalities; it manages them. It does not dismantle extractive systems; it attempts to regulate their excesses while leaving their core intact. In higher education, this approach has already failed. It is the reason the for-profit sector was allowed to expand dramatically under both Republican and Democratic administrations. It is why private-equity firms continue to control large segments of the educational marketplace through complex ownership structures and shadow nonprofits. And it is why millions of borrowers remain trapped in debts for degrees that offered little or no economic return.

The Pritzker Paradox is therefore not a story about one wealthy governor. It is a story about the consolidation of political and economic power within a narrow elite that has profited handsomely from the financialization of education while promising, cycle after cycle, to reform the very problems it helped create. Vistria exemplifies this dynamic. The Pritzker family’s history echoes it. And a Pritzker presidency would likely entrench it further.

America needs leadership willing to challenge private-equity influence in higher education, not leadership bound to it. The country needs a president who understands education as a public good, not a marketplace. For borrowers, students, and communities harmed by decades of predatory practices, the stakes could not be higher. The choice before the nation is not simply whether Pritzker is preferable to Trump. It is whether the country will continue to entrust its public institutions to elites who speak the language of equity while advancing the interests of the very networks that undermined educational opportunity in the first place.

Sources
Public reporting on Pritzker family investments in for-profit and education-related sectors; investigations by the Senate HELP Committee, GAO, and CFPB; reporting on The Vistria Group’s acquisitions and nonprofit conversions; analyses of private-equity influence in U.S. higher education; academic literature on neoliberalism and elite capture.

Mental Health for the Working Class: Who’s Behind the Therapy Boom?

The Affordable Care Act (ACA), commonly known as Obamacare, has significantly expanded access to mental health services in the United States, particularly for working-class individuals and families. The expansion of Medicaid and marketplace plans has made therapy and psychiatric care more accessible. However, the infrastructure supporting this mental health revolution is complex, under-resourced, and increasingly influenced by private equity. As more Americans seek care, questions arise about who is delivering that care—and whether the system prioritizes well-being or profits.

The Workforce Patchwork

The delivery of mental health services today relies on a varied network of professionals. In community clinics, federally qualified health centers, and outpatient networks, the bulk of therapeutic care comes from mid-level clinicians: Licensed Clinical Social Workers (LCSWs), Licensed Professional Counselors (LPCs), and Marriage and Family Therapists (MFTs). These are master's-level professionals who carry substantial educational and clinical training but are frequently underpaid and overworked.

Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners have also filled a critical gap, often handling medication management in lieu of psychiatrists, especially in rural and underserved areas. Meanwhile, case managers and peer support workers—some with minimal formal education—are tasked with providing wraparound services like housing support, job placement, and crisis management.

Psychiatrists and doctoral-level psychologists, though highly trained, are in short supply and are often unwilling to accept Medicaid or ACA plan reimbursements. This leaves many lower-income patients with few options for specialized care.

Enter Private Equity

In recent years, private equity (PE) firms have aggressively moved into the mental health space. Attracted by rising demand for services and relatively stable reimbursement streams from public insurance programs, PE investors have acquired numerous outpatient mental health clinics, telehealth platforms, and addiction treatment centers. Research indicates that PE firms now account for as much as a quarter of practices providing behavioral health services in some states (OHSU, 2024).

While this influx of capital has allowed for rapid expansion, it has also introduced new pressures on the workforce. To maximize returns, many PE-backed firms rely heavily on newly licensed clinicians or even graduate students under supervision. In some cases, providers are pushed into independent contractor roles to reduce labor costs and avoid benefit obligations.

Clinicians report being pressured to increase their patient loads, reduce session times, and adhere to standardized scripts or protocols designed for efficiency, not individualized care. Turnover is high, and burnout is common. A 2023 survey by the American Psychological Association found that over 60% of mental health practitioners reported experiencing symptoms of burnout (Therapy Wisdom, 2024).

The Role of Robocolleges in the Mental Health Pipeline

The rise of online, for-profit, and quasi-public "robocolleges"—such as Walden University, Purdue University Global, the University of Phoenix, Capella University, and others—has significantly shaped the labor pipeline for mental health services. These institutions mass-produce degrees in psychology, counseling, and social work, often catering to nontraditional and working adult students with limited time and financial resources.

Programs are designed for scale and efficiency, not necessarily for rigor or clinical depth. Courses are often asynchronous, adjunct-taught, and heavily standardized. Clinical placements and supervision, vital components of a therapist’s training, are sometimes outsourced or inadequately supported—leaving graduates with inconsistent real-world experience.

These institutions also disproportionately enroll students from lower-income and minority backgrounds, many of whom take on significant debt for degrees that may lead to low-paying, high-stress jobs in underfunded clinics or PE-owned mental health companies.

While robocolleges expand access to credentials, they may also contribute to a deprofessionalized, precarious workforce—one in which therapists are underprepared, underpaid, and overextended. Their graduates often fill the lower rungs of the mental health care ladder, working in environments where quality and continuity of care are compromised by systemic churn.

Quality and Equity in the Balance

The result is a mental health system that, while more accessible than in previous decades, is increasingly stratified. Working-class patients often receive care from entry-level or overburdened professionals, while wealthier clients can afford private practitioners who offer more time, continuity, and personalized care.

This imbalance is further complicated by a lack of oversight. Licensing boards and state agencies struggle to monitor the growing number of clinics and telehealth services, many of which operate across state lines or rely on algorithms to triage patients.

Meanwhile, the very people the ACA aimed to help—those juggling low-wage jobs, family stress, and systemic disadvantage—are left in a system where care may be quick, transactional, and occasionally substandard.

The Role of Traditional Higher Education

Traditional colleges and universities play a dual role: they continue to train therapists and counselors in more rigorous academic environments, but they also face growing pressure to "compete" with robocolleges in terms of cost, speed, and flexibility. At the same time, these institutions increasingly outsource student counseling services to external mental health platforms—some of them owned by private equity firms.

Thus, the cycle continues: higher education feeds the mental health system, while also adopting many of its structural compromises.

Conclusion

The expansion of mental health coverage under the ACA is a major public policy achievement. But access alone is not enough. The quality of care, the working conditions of providers, and the growing influence of profit-seeking investors and education mills all demand greater scrutiny.

For working-class Americans, mental health has become another arena where the promise of care often collides with the reality of austerity and privatization. And for those training to enter the profession, especially through robocolleges, the path forward may be just as precarious.

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References:

• Private Equity’s Inroads Into Mental Health Bring Concern

• The State of the Behavioral Health Workforce, November 2024 – HRSA

• Private Equity’s Move into Behavioral Health Care and Disparities

• Therapist Burnout and Toxic Private Equity in 2025

• Private Equity Is Gutting Autism Services – The Nation

• OHSU Study: Private Equity Expanding into Mental Health

• University of Phoenix and the Business of Selling Degrees

• The Cost of a Walden Degree

The Pritzker Family Paradox: Elite Power, Higher Education, and Political Ambition

          [JB and Penny Pritzker] 

The Pritzker family stands as a symbol of wealth, influence, and access in American public life. From the luxury of Hyatt Hotels to the boardrooms of private equity and the highest ranks of government, their reach extends across economic sectors and institutional spheres. But beneath the carefully managed public image lies a troubling contradiction—one that implicates higher education, for-profit exploitation, and national politics.

Penny Pritzger

Penny Pritzker, a former U.S. Secretary of Commerce and current trustee of Harvard University, has been a key figure in shaping education policy from elite perches. She also had a working relationship with Vistria Group, a private equity firm that now owns the University of Phoenix and Risepoint. These two entities have been central to the subprime college industry—profiting from the hopes of working-class students while delivering poor outcomes and burdensome debt.

Pritzker’s relationship with Vistria runs deeper than simple association. In the late 1990s, she partnered with Vistria co-founder Marty Nesbitt to launch The Parking Spot, a national airport parking venture that brought them both business success and public recognition. When Nesbitt founded Vistria in 2013, he brought with him the experience and elite networks formed during that earlier partnership. Penny Pritzker’s family foundation—Pritzker Traubert—was among the early funders of Vistria, helping to establish its brand as a more “socially conscious” private equity firm. Although she stepped away from any formal role when she joined the Obama administration, her involvement in Vistria’s formation and funding set the stage for the firm’s expansion into sectors like for-profit education and healthcare.

Vistria’s acquisition of the University of Phoenix, and later Risepoint, positioned it as a major player in the privatization of American higher education. The firm continues to profit from schools that promise economic mobility but often deliver student debt and limited job prospects. This is not just a critique of business practices, but a systemic indictment of how elite networks shape education policy, finance, and outcomes.

Penny’s role as a trustee on the Harvard Corporation only sharpens this contradiction. Harvard, a university that markets itself as a global champion of meritocracy and inclusion, remains silent about one of its trustees helping to finance and support a firm that monetizes educational inequality. The governing body has not publicly addressed any potential conflict of interest between her Harvard role and her involvement with Vistria.

JB Pritzger

These contradictions are not limited to Penny. Her brother, J.B. Pritzker, is currently the governor of Illinois and one of the wealthiest elected officials in the country. Though he has no documented personal financial stake in Vistria, his administration has significant ties to the firm. Jesse Ruiz, J.B. Pritzker’s Deputy Governor for Education during his first term, left state government in 2022 to take a top leadership position at Vistria as General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer.

This revolving-door dynamic—where a senior education policymaker transitions directly from a progressive administration to a private equity firm profiting from for-profit colleges—underscores the ideological alignment and operational synergy between the Pritzker political machine and firms like Vistria. While the governor publicly champions equity and expanded public education access, his administration’s former top education official is now helping manage legal and compliance operations for a firm that extracts value from struggling students and public loan programs.

J.B. Pritzker has announced plans to run for a third term as governor in 2026, but many observers believe he is positioning himself for a 2028 presidential campaign. His high-profile public appearances, pointed critiques of Donald Trump, and increased visibility in early primary states all suggest a national campaign is being tested. With his vast personal wealth, Pritzker could self-fund a serious run while drawing on elite networks built over decades—networks that include both his sister’s role at Harvard and their shared business and political allies.

Elites in US Higher Education, A Familiar Theme 

What emerges is a deeply American story—one in which the same elite networks shape both the problems and the proposed solutions. The Pritzkers are not alone in this dynamic, but their dual influence in higher education and politics makes them a case study in elite capture. They are architects and beneficiaries of a system in which public office, private equity, and nonprofit institutions converge to consolidate power.

The for-profit education sector continues to exploit regulatory gaps, marketing expensive credentials to desperate individuals while avoiding the scrutiny that traditional nonprofit colleges face. When private equity firms like Vistria acquire troubled institutions, they repackage them, restructure their branding, and keep extracting value from public loan dollars. The government lends, students borrow, and investors profit. The people left behind are those without political clout—low-income students, veterans, working parents—who believed the marketing and now face debt with little return.

Harvard’s silence, University of Phoenix’s reinvention, the rebranding of Academic Partnerships/Risepoint, and J.B. Pritzker’s ambitions all signal a troubling direction for American democracy. As more billionaires enter politics and public institutions become more dependent on private capital, the line between public service and private gain continues to erode.

The Higher Education Inquirer believes this moment demands not only scrutiny, but structural change. Until elite universities hold their trustees accountable, until political candidates reject the influence of exploitative industries, and until the public reclaims its voice in higher education policy, the Pritzker paradox will continue to define the American experience—where access to opportunity is sold to the highest bidder, and democracy is reshaped by those who can afford to buy it.

Sources
– U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard
– University of Phoenix outcome data (IPEDS, 2024)
– Harvard University governance and trustee records
– Vistria Group investor reports and public filings
– Wall Street Journal, “America’s Second-Richest Elected Official Is Acting Like He Wants to Be President” (2025)
– Associated Press, “Governor J.B. Pritzker positions himself as national Democratic leader” (2025)
– Vistria.com, “Marty Nesbitt on his friendship with Obama and what he learned from the Pritzkers”
– Politico, “Former Obama Insiders Seek Administration’s Blessing of For-Profit College Takeover” (2016)
– Vistria Group announcement, “Jesse Ruiz Joins Vistria as General Counsel and CCO” (2022)

What do the University of Phoenix and Risepoint have in common? The answer is a compelling story of greed and politics.

In the increasingly commodified world of higher education, the University of Phoenix and Risepoint (formerly Academic Partnerships) represent parallel tales of how private equity, political influence, and deceptive practices have shaped the online college landscape. While their paths have diverged in branding and institutional affiliation, the underlying motives and outcomes share disturbing similarities.

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The University of Phoenix: A Legacy of Legal and Ethical Trouble

The University of Phoenix (UOP) has been a central player in the for-profit college boom, particularly during and after the 2000s. Under the ownership of Apollo Education Group, and later the Vistria Group, UOP has faced a relentless stream of lawsuits, regulatory scrutiny, and public outrage.

In 2019, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reached a $191 million settlement with UOP over allegations of deceptive advertising. UOP falsely claimed partnerships with major corporations like Microsoft, AT&T, and Twitter to entice students. The result was $50 million in restitution and $141 million in student debt relief.

But the legal troubles didn’t stop there. In 2022 and 2023, the U.S. Department of Education included UOP in a broader class action that granted $37 million in borrower defense discharges. These claims stemmed from deceptive marketing and predatory recruitment practices.

Meanwhile, in 2024, the California Attorney General settled with UOP for $4.5 million over allegations of illegally targeting military service members between 2012 and 2015. The university’s controversial relationship with the military community also led to a temporary VA suspension of GI Bill enrollments in 2020.

The legal history includes False Claims Act suits brought by whistleblowers, including former employees alleging falsified records, incentive-based recruiter pay, and exaggerated graduation and job placement statistics. In 2019, Apollo Education settled a securities fraud lawsuit for $7.4 million.

More recently, UOP has been embroiled in political controversy in Idaho. In 2023 and 2024, the Idaho Attorney General challenged the state's attempt to acquire UOP, citing Open Meetings Act violations and lack of transparency. Though a federal judge initially dismissed the suit, Idaho’s Supreme Court allowed an appeal to proceed.

Through all of this, Vistria Group—UOP’s private equity owner since 2017—has reaped massive profits. Vistria was co-founded by Marty Nesbitt, a close confidant of Barack Obama, underscoring the bipartisan political protection that shields for-profit education from lasting accountability.

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Risepoint and the Online Program Management Model

Risepoint, formerly Academic Partnerships (AP), tells a similarly troubling story, albeit from the Online Program Manager (OPM) side of the education-industrial complex. Founded in 2007 by Randy Best, a well-connected Republican donor with ties to Jeb Bush, AP helped universities build online degree programs in exchange for a significant cut of tuition—sometimes up to 50%.

This tuition-share model, though legal, has raised ethical red flags. Critics argue it diverts millions in public education dollars into private hands, inflates student debt, and incentivizes aggressive, misleading recruitment. The most infamous case was the University of Texas-Arlington, which paid AP more than $178 million over five years. President Vistasp Karbhari resigned in 2020 after it was revealed he had taken international trips funded by AP.

Risepoint was acquired by Vistria Group in 2019, placing it in the same portfolio as the University of Phoenix and other education businesses. The firm’s growing influence in higher education—fueled by Democratic-aligned private equity—reflects a deeper entanglement of politics, policy, and profiteering.

In 2024, Minnesota became the first state to ban new tuition-share agreements with OPMs like Risepoint. This legislative action followed backlash from a controversial deal between Risepoint and St. Cloud State University, where critics accused the firm of extracting excessive revenue while offering questionable value.

Further pressure came from the federal level. In 2024, Senators Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown, and Tina Smith issued letters to major OPMs demanding transparency about recruitment tactics and tuition-share models. The Department of Education followed in January 2025 with new guidance restricting misleading marketing by OPMs, including impersonation of university staff.

Despite this, Risepoint continued expanding. In late 2023, the company purchased Wiley’s online program business for $150 million, signaling consolidation in a turbulent industry. Yet a 2024 report showed 147 OPM-university contracts had been terminated in 2023, and new contracts fell by over 50%.

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What Ties Them Together: Vistria Group

Vistria Group sits at the center of both sagas. The Chicago-based private equity firm has made education—especially online and for-profit education—a core pillar of its investment strategy. With connections to both Democratic and Republican power brokers, Vistria has deftly navigated the regulatory landscape while profiting from public education dollars.

Its ownership of the University of Phoenix and Risepoint demonstrates a clear strategy: acquire distressed or controversial education companies, clean up their public image, and extract revenue while avoiding deep reforms. Through Vistria, private equity gains access to billions in federal student aid with minimal oversight and a bipartisan shield.

The result is a higher education ecosystem where political influence, corporate profit, and public exploitation collide. And whether through online degrees from the University of Phoenix or public-private partnerships with Risepoint, students are often the ones left bearing the cost.

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As scrutiny intensifies and state and federal lawmakers demand reform, the futures of Risepoint and the University of Phoenix remain uncertain. But one thing is clear: their shared story reveals how higher education has become a battleground of greed, power, and politics.

The Functional Poverty of US Higher Education

In 1971, sociologist Herbert J. Gans published The Positive Functions of Poverty, a provocative essay that argued poverty persists not due to a lack of solutions, but because it benefits powerful institutions. Over fifty years later, his thesis haunts U.S. higher education, which does not merely reflect inequality but actively relies on it. The system functions less as an engine of mobility and more as a mechanism for managing and monetizing the poor.

Today, poverty is not an accident of the US higher education system—it is a prerequisite for its operation.

Poverty as Institutional Legitimacy

Colleges and universities frequently promote themselves as pathways out of poverty, showcasing stories of Pell Grant recipients and first-generation students to validate their missions. These narratives help secure federal funding, private donations, and political goodwill. Yet the vast majority of poor students never cross the commencement stage. Instead, their presence serves to bolster institutional credibility while masking the reality of systemic failure.

Programs like TRIO, GEAR UP, and Promise scholarships function not to eliminate poverty, but to manage it. They offer modest hope while ensuring the system continues undisturbed.

Poor Students as a Revenue Stream

The financial foundation of higher education rests heavily on low-income students. For-profit colleges, many of them reincarnated under new branding or partnerships, depend almost entirely on federal aid and student loans tied to impoverished enrollees. These institutions aggressively recruit students with big promises and deliver little in return. Graduation rates remain dismal, while student debt mounts.

Private student lenders have filled the remaining gaps left by federal aid caps and rising tuition. Fintech platforms like SoFi, College Ave, and Earnest offer loans with complex terms and minimal consumer protections, particularly to vulnerable students desperate for access. For many borrowers, this creates a lifetime of indebtedness for a credential that may never yield a return.

The Administrative Industry of Poverty

A burgeoning sector of higher education administration is devoted to managing the symptoms of poverty. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) offices—now under political assault—often oversee food banks, mental health outreach, and “resilience” programming for first-gen students. Meanwhile, a growing HR specialty has emerged to “track and support” the poor.

These staffers may act with sincere intention, but their existence also reveals the transactional nature of institutional concern. Without poor students to manage, their roles—and the bureaucracies behind them—would shrink. Food insecurity and academic struggle have become normalized to the point that colleges maintain food pantries as a permanent feature of campus life.

Exploiting the Educated Underclass

As sociologist Gary Roth has observed, higher education produces a surplus of credentialed workers with no corresponding demand. These graduates, often from poor backgrounds, return to campus as adjunct faculty, graduate assistants, or gig workers—essential but expendable.

Their labor sustains the system at low cost. They teach core courses, staff libraries, and support faculty research while earning poverty wages themselves. The promise of education becomes a loop of unfulfilled mobility.

Poor Students as Research Subjects

Low-income students are not only sources of revenue and labor—they are also the subjects of academic research. Entire disciplines, from sociology to education and public health, have been built upon the study of poverty. Yet few researchers challenge the institutional structures that perpetuate the very inequalities they document.

Faculty careers flourish. Tenure is won. Grants are secured. The students themselves often see no tangible benefit from this knowledge production.

Reinforcing the Myth of Meritocracy

Elite universities use a handful of poor students to validate the myth of meritocracy. These “success stories” are amplified through PR campaigns, donor appeals, and glossy admissions brochures. They function as symbolic proof that the system works—even as the vast majority of poor students are shunted into lower-tier institutions with fewer resources and worse outcomes.

The truth is clear: wealth remains the strongest predictor of educational success in the United States.

Stratification by Design

The U.S. higher education system is structured to reproduce class hierarchy. Community colleges and regional public universities disproportionately enroll poor and working-class students. Flagship publics and elite privates cater to the children of the professional and ruling classes.

This credentialing hierarchy maintains social order while offering just enough upward mobility to justify its existence.

Political Utility: Blame the Poor

When institutions face financial shortfalls or declining enrollment, they often scapegoat the poor. Students are labeled unprepared, unmotivated, or emotionally fragile. Rarely are structural causes—such as rising tuition, defunded public services, or predatory loan systems—acknowledged.

Neoliberal reforms and conservative attacks on “woke” education continue to target vulnerable populations, obscuring the institutional failures that drive inequity.

Private Equity and the Monetization of Student Housing

One of the latest frontiers in the commodification of poverty within higher education is campus-adjacent real estate. Private equity (PE) firms are aggressively acquiring student housing near flagship state universities, turning basic shelter into another site of financial extraction.

Evidence of PE Expansion:
Private equity firms such as Investcorp, Rockpoint, and KKR have amassed significant portfolios of student housing near schools like the University of Florida, University of Texas at Austin, and College of Charleston. These acquisitions are not random—they target institutions with large, stable enrollment and limited new housing supply.

Rents on the Rise:
In cities like Tampa, rents increased by 49% from 2019 to 2023—a jump partly attributed to institutional investors, although the exact role of PE firms in driving this increase is contested. Still, anecdotal reports and advocacy groups point to rising rents, increased fees, and aggressive management practices following PE takeovers.

Housing Scarcity as Leverage:
While it's difficult to isolate private equity's influence from broader housing shortages and enrollment growth, it's clear that PE is exploiting structural constraints—just as for-profit colleges exploit financial aid loopholes. Where public universities fail to build sufficient housing, private investors step in, profiting from desperation.

A System That Needs Poverty

Herbert Gans argued that poverty survives because it serves essential functions for society’s powerful institutions. In American higher education, this dynamic is not theoretical—it is lived reality. Colleges and universities don’t just educate the poor; they extract value from them at every level.

From student loans and real estate speculation to adjunct labor and administrative bloat, the system is built around managing—not eradicating—poverty.

Until higher education confronts its own complicity in perpetuating structural inequality, it will remain what it is today: an industry that feeds on hope, and thrives on hardship.

Sources
Gans, Herbert J. “The Positive Functions of Poverty.” American Journal of Sociology, 1971.
Roth, Gary. The Educated Underclass: Students and the Promise of Social Mobility. Pluto Press, 2019.
National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)
U.S. Department of Education, College Scorecard
Private Equity Stakeholder Project
RealPage Analytics
Advocacy reports on student housing and rent inflation
Higher Education Inquirer FOIA research files

The Expanding Crisis in U.S. Higher Education: OPMs, Student Loan Servicers, Deregulation, Robocolleges, AI, and the Collapse of Accountability

Across the United States, higher education is undergoing a dramatic and dangerous transformation. Corporate contractors, private equity firms, automated learning systems, and predatory loan servicers increasingly dictate how the system operates—while regulators remain absent and the media rarely reports the scale of the crisis. The result is a university system that serves investors and advertisers far more effectively than it serves students.

This evolution reflects a broader pattern documented by Harriet A. Washington, Alondra Nelson, Elisabeth Rosenthal, and Rebecca Skloot: institutions extracting value from vulnerable populations under the guise of public service. Today, many universities—especially those driven by online expansion—operate as financial instruments more than educational institutions.

The OPM Machine and Private Equity Consolidation

Online Program Managers (OPMs) remain central to this shift. Companies like 2U, Academic Partnerships—now Risepoint—and the restructured remnants of Wiley’s OPM division continue expanding into public universities hungry for tuition revenue. Revenue-sharing deals, often hidden from the public, let these companies keep up to 60% of tuition in exchange for aggressive online recruitment and mass-production of courses.

Much of this expansion is fueled by private equity, including Vistria Group, Apollo Global Management, and others that have poured billions into online contractors, publishing houses, test prep firms, and for-profit colleges. Their model prioritizes rapid enrollment growth, relentless marketing, and cost-cutting—regardless of educational quality.

Hyper-Deregulation and the Dismantling of ED

Under the Trump Administration, the federal government dismantled core student protections—Gainful Employment, Borrower Defense, incentive-compensation safeguards, and accreditation oversight. This “hyper-deregulation” created enormous loopholes that OPMs and for-profit companies exploited immediately.

Today, the Department of Education itself is being dismantled, leaving oversight fragmented, understaffed, and in some cases non-functional. With the cat away, the mice will play: predatory companies are accelerating recruitment and acquisition strategies faster than regulators can respond.

Servicers, Contractors, and Tech Platforms Feeding on Borrowers

A constellation of companies profit from the student loan system regardless of borrower outcomes:

• Maximus (AidVantage), which manages huge portfolios of federal student loans under opaque contracts.

• Navient, a longtime servicer repeatedly accused of steering borrowers into costly options.

• Sallie Mae, the original student loan giant, still profiting from private loans to risky borrowers.

• Chegg, which transitioned from textbook rental to an AI-driven homework-and-test assistance platform, driving new forms of academic dependency.

Each benefits from weak oversight and an increasingly automated, fragmented educational landscape.

Robocolleges, Robostudents, Roboworkers: The AI Cascade

Artificial Intelligence has magnified the crisis. Universities, under financial pressure, increasingly rely on automated instruction, chatbot advising, and algorithmic grading—what can be called robocolleges. Students, overwhelmed and unsupported, turn to AI tools for essays, homework, and exams—creating robostudents whose learning is outsourced to software rather than internalized.

Meanwhile, employers—especially those influenced by PE-backed workforce platforms—prioritize automation, making human workers interchangeable components in roboworker environments. This raises existential questions about whether higher education prepares people for stable futures or simply feeds them into unstable, algorithm-driven labor markets.

FAFSA Meltdowns, Fraud, and Academic Cheating

The collapse of the new FAFSA system, combined with widespread fraudulent applications, has destabilized enrollment nationwide. Colleges desperate for students have turned to risky recruitment pipelines that enable identity fraud, ghost students, and financial manipulation of aid systems.

Academic cheating, now industrialized through generative AI and contract-cheating platforms, further erodes the integrity of degrees while institutions look away to protect revenue.

Advertising and the Manufacture of “College Mania”

For decades, advertising has propped up the myth that a college degree—any degree, from any institution—guarantees social mobility. Universities, OPMs, lenders, test-prep companies, and ed-tech platforms spend billions on marketing annually. This relentless messaging drives families to take on debt and enroll in programs regardless of cost or quality.

College mania is not organic—it is manufactured. Advertising convinces the public to ignore warning signs that would be obvious in any other consumer market.

A Media Coverage Vacuum

Despite the scale of the crisis, mainstream media offers shockingly little coverage. Investigative journalism units have shrunk, education reporters are overstretched, and major outlets rely heavily on university advertising revenue. The result is a structural conflict of interest: the same companies responsible for predatory practices often fund the media organizations tasked with reporting on them.

When scandals surface—FAFSA failures, servicer misconduct, OPM exploitation—they often disappear within a day’s news cycle. The public remains unaware of how deeply corporate interests now shape higher education.

The Emerging Picture

The U.S. higher education system is no longer simply under strain—it is undergoing a corporate and technological takeover. Private equity owns the pipelines. OPMs run the online infrastructure. Tech companies moderate academic integrity. Servicers profit whether borrowers succeed or fail. Advertisers manufacture demand. Regulators are missing. The media is silent.

In contrast, many other countries maintain strong limits on privatization, enforce strict quality standards, and protect students as consumers. As Washington and Rosenthal argue, exploitation persists not because it is inevitable but because institutions allow—and profit from—it.

Unless the U.S. restores meaningful oversight, reins in private equity, ends predatory revenue-sharing models, rebuilds the Department of Education, and demands transparency across all contractors, the system will continue to deteriorate. And students, especially those already marginalized, will pay the price.

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Sources (Selection)

Harriet A. Washington – Medical Apartheid; Carte Blanche
Rebecca Skloot – The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Elisabeth Rosenthal – An American Sickness
Alondra Nelson – Body and Soul
Stephanie Hall & The Century Foundation – work on OPMs and revenue sharing
Robert Shireman – analyses of for-profit colleges and PE ownership
GAO (Government Accountability Office) reports on OPMs and student loan servicing
ED OIG and FTC public reports on oversight failures (various years)
National Student Legal Defense Network investigations
Federal Student Aid servicer audits and public documentation

Pigs on Parade: The University of Phoenix IPO

Apollo Global Management and Vistria have an offer only a pig would consider: the Phoenix Education Partners IPO.

Touted by Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Bank of Montreal, Jefferies, and Apollo Global Securities, the offering of Phoenix Education Partners brings the University of Phoenix (PXED) back to public markets—but few fans remain in the audience.

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A Decade of Decline: From Expansion to Erosion

In the early 2000s, the University of Phoenix was hailed as a pioneering force in adult education—cozy campuses near freeway exits and an advanced online infrastructure for working learners earned praise. Its founder John Sperling was seen as visionary.

But by 2010 enrollment had already begun plummeting after reaching nearly 470,000 students, and the school’s academic quality and recruiting ethics were under the microscope. Critics decried “The Matrix,” a perverse scheme where recruiters were aggressively incentivized to push enrollments—no matter the cost.

By 2018, more than 450 locations had shuttered, enrollment was down by approximately 80%, and half the remaining sites were no longer accepting new students. Even Hawaii, Jersey City, Detroit, and other major cities were on the closure list.

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Regulatory Fallout: Lawsuits, Settlements, and Borrower Defenses

From the early 2010s onward, the University of Phoenix (aka UoPX) saw an avalanche of legal scrutiny. In 2019, the FTC leveled a $191 million settlement against it for misleading advertising, including deceptive claims about job placement and corporate partnerships.

By late 2023, 73,740 borrower-defense claims had been filed by former students under federal programs. Many of these were settled under the Sweet v. Cardona class action, with estimates of the university’s potential liability ranging from $200 million to over $1 billion. Meanwhile, nearly one million debtors owed a combined $21.6 billion in student loans—about $22,000 per borrower on average.

Another flashpoint: UoPX agreed to pay $4.5 million in 2024 to settle investigations by California’s Attorney General over military-targeted recruiting tactics.

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The Ownership Unicorn: Apollo, Vistria, and Political Backing

After Apollo Global Management and the Vistria Group acquired UoPX in 2016, the school became a commodified unit in a larger private equity portfolio. The deal brought in figures like Tony Miller, a political insider, as chairman—signaling strategic power play as much as financial management.

Vistria’s broader stable included Risepoint (previously Academic Partnerships), meaning both UoPX and OPM entities were controlled by one private-equity firm—drawing criticism for creating a “for-profit, online-education industrial complex.”

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The IPO Circus: “Pigs on Parade”

Enter the Phoenix Education Partners IPO (PXED), steered onto the market with all the pomp of a carnival but none of the substance. The front-line banks—Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, BMO, Jefferies, Apollo Global Securities—are being paid handsomely to dress up this distressed asset as a growth opportunity.

But here’s what those colorful floats hide:

• Collapse, not comeback. Enrollment and campus infrastructure have withered.

• Debt, not opportunity. Nearly a million debt-laden alumni owe $21.6 billion.

• Liability, not credibility. Borrower defense claims and state investigations continue to mount.

• Profit, not public good. Ownership is consolidated in private equity with political access, not academic mission.

This is a pig in parade attire. Investors are being asked to cheer for ribbon-cutting and banners, while the mud-stained hooves of exploitative business models trudge behind.

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The HEI Verdict

This PXED IPO isn’t a pivot toward better education—it’s a rebrand of an exploitative legacy. From aggressive recruitment of vulnerable populations (“sandwich moms,” military servicemembers) to mounting legal liabilities, the University of Phoenix remains the same broken system.

Investors, regulators, and the public must not be dazzled by slick packaging. The real story is one of failed promises, students carrying lifelong debt, and private equity cashing out. In education, as in livestock, parades are meant to show off—just make sure you're not cheering at the wrong spectacle.

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Sources

• Higher Education Inquirer. Search: University of Phoenix

• Higher Education Inquirer. “The Slow-Motion Collapse of America’s Largest University” (2018)

• Higher Education Inquirer. “University of Phoenix Collapse Kept Quiet” (2019)

• Higher Education Inquirer. “Fraud Claims Against University of Phoenix” (2023)

• Higher Education Inquirer. “University of Phoenix Uses ‘Sandwich Moms’ in Recruiting” (2025)

• Higher Education Inquirer. “What Do the University of Phoenix and Risepoint Have in Common?” (2025)

• Federal Trade Commission. “FTC Obtains $191 Million Settlement from University of Phoenix” (2019)

• Sweet v. Cardona Settlement Documents (2022–2023)

• California Attorney General. “University of Phoenix to Pay $4.5 Million Over Deceptive Military Recruiting” (2024)

University of Phoenix, Oracle, and the Russian Cybercrime Crisis That Should Never Have Been Allowed to Happen

The University of Phoenix breach is more than another entry in the long list of attacks on higher education. It is the clearest evidence yet of how private equity, aging enterprise software, and institutional neglect have converged to create a catastrophic cybersecurity landscape across American colleges and universities. What happened in the summer of 2025 was not an unavoidable act of foreign aggression. It was the culmination of years of cost-cutting, inadequate oversight, and a misplaced faith in legacy vendors that no longer control their own risks.

The story begins with the Russian-speaking Clop cyber-extortion group, one of the most sophisticated data-theft organizations operating today. In early August, Clop quietly began exploiting a previously unknown vulnerability in Oracle’s E-Business Suite, a platform widely used for payroll, procurement, student employment, vendor relations, and financial aid administration. Oracle’s EBS system, decades old and deeply embedded across higher education, was never designed for modern threat environments. As soon as Clop identified the flaw—later assigned CVE-2025-61882—the group launched a coordinated campaign that compromised dozens of major institutions before Oracle even acknowledged the problem.

Among the most heavily affected institutions was the University of Phoenix. Attackers gained access to administrative systems and exfiltrated highly sensitive data: names, Social Security numbers, bank accounts, routing numbers, vendor records, and financial-aid related information belonging to students, faculty, staff, and contractors. The breach took place in August, but Phoenix did not disclose the incident until November 21, and only after Clop publicly listed the university on its extortion site. Even after forced disclosure, Phoenix offered only vague assurances about “unauthorized access” and refused to provide concrete numbers or a full accounting of what had been stolen.

Phoenix was not alone. Harvard University confirmed that Clop had stolen more than a terabyte of data from its Oracle systems. Dartmouth College acknowledged that personal and financial information for more than a thousand individuals had been accessed, though the total is almost certainly much higher. At the University of Pennsylvania, administrators said only that unauthorized access had occurred, declining to detail the scale. What links these incidents is not prestige, geography, or mission. It is dependency on Oracle’s aging administrative software and a sector-wide failure to adapt to a threat environment dominated by globally coordinated cybercrime operations.

But Phoenix stands apart from its peers because Phoenix, Apollo Global Management, and The Vistria Group should have known better. This institution has long operated at a scale more comparable to a financial-services company than a school. It handles vast volumes of sensitive data connected to federal student aid, identity verification, private loans, tuition reimbursement programs, and employer partnerships. A university with this profile should have been treating cybersecurity as a core institutional function, not an afterthought.

Apollo Global Management, which owned Phoenix during a period of enrollment decline and regulatory exposure, was fully aware of the vulnerabilities associated with online enrollment, financial-aid processing, and aging ERP infrastructure. Apollo’s business model is built on risk analysis and mitigation, yet it consistently underinvested in sustainable IT modernization while focusing on financial engineering and cost extraction. Phoenix emerged from Apollo’s ownership with significant technical debt and a compliance culture centered on limiting institutional liability rather than strengthening institutional defenses.

When The Vistria Group, through Phoenix Education Partners, acquired the university, it promised a new era of stability and digital transformation. Instead, it delivered a familiar private-equity formula: leaner operations, staff reductions, increased reliance on contractors, and deferred infrastructure investment. All of this occurred as ransomware groups such as Clop, LockBit, BlackCat, and Vice Society were escalating attacks on universities. The MOVEit crisis, the Accellion breach, and dozens of ransomware incidents had already demonstrated that higher education was an increasingly profitable target. Vistria had every signal necessary to understand the stakes, yet Phoenix entered the summer of 2025 with outdated Oracle systems, slow patch deployment, inadequate monitoring, and minimal segmentation between financial-aid and general administrative systems.

The breach was not a surprise. It was an inevitability. A university holding the sensitive financial and identity data of hundreds of thousands of current and former students, staff, and vendors cannot protect itself with minimal investment and outdated architecture. When Clop exploited Oracle’s flaw, Phoenix lacked the tools to detect lateral movement early, the expertise to identify unusual activity quickly, and the governance structure to respond decisively. The institution did not discover the breach on its own; it reacted only when a criminal syndicate announced its presence to the world.

This incident exposes a broader truth about higher education infrastructure in the United States. Universities have grown dependent on enterprise vendors whose systems are increasingly brittle and whose security models no longer meet contemporary requirements. Meanwhile, private-equity owners emphasize cost containment and short-term returns over long-term stability. The University of Phoenix breach is the result of those conditions converging with a global cybercrime ecosystem that is more organized, better funded, and more technically agile than the institutions it targets.

Students, faculty, staff, and vendors will bear the consequences for years. Many will face identity theft, fraudulent activity, and the lingering fear that their most sensitive information is circulating indefinitely on criminal marketplaces. Phoenix, like other affected institutions, will offer credit monitoring and generic assurances. But the public disclosures arrived too late, and the underlying failures were years in the making.

Phoenix should have known better.
Apollo Global Management should have known better.
The Vistria Group should have known better.
And American higher education should finally recognize that it can no longer treat cybersecurity as a line-item expense. It is now one of the central pillars of institutional survival.

Sources
Bleeping Computer
Security Affairs
The Register
CPO Magazine
The Record
University of Phoenix breach notifications
Clop leak site monitoring data

Epstein, Dershowitz, Summers, and the Long Arc of Elite Impunity

For many observers, Jeffrey Epstein, Alan Dershowitz, and Larry Summers appear as separate figures orbiting the world of elite academia, finance, and politics. But together—and through the long lens of history—they represent something far more revealing: the modern expression of a centuries-old system in which elite institutions protect powerful men while sacrificing the vulnerable.

The Epstein-Dershowitz-Summers triangle is not a scandal of individuals gone astray. It is the predictable result of structures that make such abuses almost inevitable.

The Modern Version of an Old System

Jeffrey Epstein built his influence not through scholarship or scientific discovery—he had no advanced degrees—but by inserting himself into the financial bloodstream of the Ivy League. Harvard and MIT accepted his money, his introductions, and his promises of access to ultra-wealthy networks. Epstein did not need credibility; he purchased it.

Larry Summers, as president of Harvard from 2001 to 2006, continued to engage with Epstein after the financier’s first arrest and plea deal. Summers’ administration accepted substantial Epstein donations, including funds channeled into the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics. Summers and his wife dined at Epstein’s Manhattan home. After leaving Harvard, Summers stayed in touch with Epstein even as the financier’s abuses became increasingly public. Summers used the same revolving door that has long connected elite universities, Wall Street, and presidential administrations—moving freely and comfortably across all three.

Alan Dershowitz, former Harvard Law Professor and Epstein’s close associate and legal strategist, exemplifies another pillar of this system: elite legal protection. Dershowitz defended Epstein vigorously, attacked survivors publicly, and remains embroiled in litigation connected to the case. Whether one believes Dershowitz’s claims of innocence is secondary to the structural fact: elite institutions reliably shield their own.

Together, Epstein offered money and connections; Summers offered institutional prestige and political access; Dershowitz offered legal insulation. Harvard, meanwhile, offered a platform through which all three profited.

Knowledge as a Shield—Not a Light

For centuries, elite universities have served as both engines of knowledge and fortresses of power. They are not neutral institutions.

They defended slavery and eugenics, supplying “scientific” justification for racial hierarchies.
They exploited labor—from enslaved workers who built campuses to adjuncts living in poverty today.
They marginalized survivors of sexual violence while protecting benefactors and faculty.
They accepted fortunes derived from war profiteering, colonial extraction, hedge-fund predation, and private-equity devastation.

Epstein did not invent the model of the toxic patron. He merely perfected it in the neoliberal era.

A Four-Step Pattern of Elite Impunity

The scandal surrounding Epstein, Dershowitz, and Summers follows a trajectory that dates back centuries:

1. Wealth accumulation through exploitation
   From slave plantations to private equity, concentrated wealth is generated through systems that harm the many to benefit the few.

2. The purchase of academic legitimacy
   Endowed chairs, laboratories, fellowships, and advisory roles allow dubious benefactors to launder reputations through universities.

3. Legal and cultural shielding
   Elite lawyers, confidential settlements, non-disclosure agreements, and institutional silence create protective armor.

4. Silencing of survivors and critics
   Reputational attacks, threats of litigation, and internal pressure discourage transparency and accountability.

Epstein operated within this system. Dershowitz defended it. Summers benefited from it. Harvard reinforced it.

Larry Summers: An Anatomy of Power

Summers’ career illuminates the deeper structure behind the scandal. His trajectory—Harvard president, U.S. Treasury Secretary, World Bank chief economist, adviser to hedge funds, consultant to Big Tech—mirrors the seamless circulation of elite power between universities, finance, and government.

During his presidency, Harvard publicly embraced Epstein’s donations. After Epstein’s first sex-offense conviction, Summers continued to meet with him socially and professionally. Summers leveraged networks that Epstein also sought to cultivate. And even after the Epstein scandal fully broke open, Summers faced no meaningful institutional repercussions.

The message was clear: individual wrongdoing matters less than maintaining elite continuity.

Higher Education’s Structural Complicity

Elite universities were not “duped.” They were beneficiaries.

Harvard returned only a fraction of Epstein’s donations, and only after the press exposed the relationship. MIT hid Epstein’s gifts behind false donor names. Faculty traveled to his island and penthouse without demanding transparency.

Meanwhile:

Adjuncts qualify for food assistance
Students carry life-crippling debt
Administrators earn CEO-level pay
Donors dictate priorities behind closed doors

This is not hypocrisy—it is hierarchy. A system built to serve wealth does exactly that.

A Timeline Much Longer Than Epstein

To understand the present, we must zoom out:

Oxford and Cambridge accepted slave-trade wealth as institutional lifeblood.
Gilded Age robber barons endowed libraries while crushing labor movements.
Cold War intelligence agencies quietly funded research centers.
Today’s oligarchs, tech billionaires, and private-equity titans buy influence through endowments and think tanks.

The tools change. The pattern does not.

Universities help legitimate the powerful—even when those powerful figures harm the public.

Why This Still Matters

The Epstein scandal is not resolved. Court documents continue to emerge. Survivors continue to speak. Elite institutions continue to stall and deflect. Harvard still resists meaningful transparency, even as its endowment approaches national GDP levels.

The danger is not simply that another Epstein will emerge. It is that elite universities will continue to provide the conditions that make another Epstein inevitable.

What Breaking the Pattern Requires

Ending this system demands more than symbolic gestures or public-relations apologies. Real reform requires:

Radical donor transparency—with all gifts, advisory roles, and meetings disclosed
Worker and student representation on governing boards
Strong whistleblower protections and the abolition of secret NDAs
Robust public funding to reduce reliance on elite philanthropy
Independent journalism committed to exposing institutional power

Ida B. Wells, Jessica Mitford, Upton Sinclair, and other muckrakers understood what universities still deny: scandals are symptoms. The disease is structural.

Epstein was not an anomaly.
Dershowitz is not an anomaly.
Summers is not an anomaly.

They are products of a system in which universities serve power first—and truth, only if convenient.

If higher education wants to reclaim public trust, it must finally decide which side of history it is on.

Should Elites Get Bailed Out Again?

In 1929, when the stock market crashed, millions of Americans were plunged into unemployment, hunger, and despair. Yet the elites of Wall Street—whose reckless speculation fueled the disaster—often landed softly. By 1933, as the Great Depression deepened, nearly a quarter of the U.S. workforce was unemployed, thousands of banks had failed, and working families bore the brunt of the collapse. Ordinary people endured soup lines, Dust Bowl migration, and generational poverty. The government of Franklin D. Roosevelt eventually stepped in with reforms and safeguards like the FDIC and Glass-Steagall, but not before working-class Americans had paid the heaviest price.

Fast forward to 2008, when the global financial system once again teetered on collapse. This time, instead of letting the failures run their course, the U.S. government rushed to bail out Wall Street banks, auto manufacturers, and other corporate giants deemed “too big to fail.” Banks survived, CEOs kept their bonuses, and investors were shielded. Meanwhile, millions of working-class families lost their homes, jobs, and savings. Student loan borrowers, particularly those from working-class and minority backgrounds, never got a bailout. Adjunct faculty, contract workers, and gig laborers were left to navigate economic insecurity without systemic relief.

The pandemic brought the same story in a new form. Corporate bailouts, Federal Reserve interventions, and stimulus packages stabilized markets far more effectively than they stabilized households. Wall Street bounced back faster than Main Street. By 2021, the wealth of America’s billionaires had surged by more than $1.8 trillion, while ordinary workers struggled with eviction threats, childcare crises, and medical debt.

But the stakes are even higher today. U.S. elites are not only repeating past mistakes—they are doubling down on mass speculation across Artificial Intelligence, crypto, real estate, and equity markets. The rise and collapse of speculative cryptocurrencies revealed how wealth can be created and destroyed almost overnight, with everyday investors bearing the losses while venture capitalists and insiders cashed out early. Real estate speculation has driven housing prices beyond the reach of millions of working families, fueling homelessness and displacement. Equity markets, inflated by cheap debt and stock buybacks, have become disconnected from the real economy, rewarding executives while leaving workers behind.

This speculative frenzy is not just an economic issue—it is an environmental one. Artificial Intelligence requires enormous data farms that use lots of energy.  Fossil fuel corporations and their financiers continue to reap profits from industries that accelerate climate change, deforestation, and resource depletion. The destruction of ecosystems, the intensification of climate disasters, and the burden of environmental cleanup all fall disproportionately on working-class and marginalized communities. Yet when markets wobble, it is these same polluting elites who position themselves first in line for government protection.

The Federal Reserve has played a decisive role in this cycle. By keeping interest rates artificially low for years, it fueled debt-driven speculation in housing, equities, and corporate borrowing. When inflation spiked, the Fed shifted gears, raising rates at the fastest pace in decades. This brought pain to households through higher mortgage costs, rising credit card balances, and job insecurity—but banks and investment firms continued to receive lifelines through emergency lending facilities. The Fed’s interventions have too often prioritized elite stability over working-class survival.

Political leadership has compounded the problem. Under Donald Trump's first term, deregulation accelerated, with key provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act rolled back in 2018. Banks gained greater leeway to take risks, and oversight of mid-sized institutions weakened—a decision that later contributed to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in 2023. Trump’s tax cuts overwhelmingly favored corporations and the wealthy, further concentrating wealth at the top while leaving the federal government less able to respond to future crises. In his second term, Trump and his allies signal that they would pressure the Fed to prioritize markets over workers and strip down remaining regulatory guardrails.

The logic of endless bailouts assumes that the survival of elites ensures the survival of the economy. But history proves otherwise. Whether in 1929, 2008, or 2020, the repeated subsidization of corporations and financial elites entrenches inequality, fuels reckless risk-taking, and leaves working families with the bill. The banks, crypto funds, and private equity firms that profit most during boom times rarely share their gains, yet they demand protection in busts.

And the problem is no longer just domestic—it is geopolitical. While U.S. elites depend on bailouts, rival powers are recalibrating. China is building alternative banking systems through the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Belt and Road Initiative. Russia, sanctioned by the West, is tightening its economic ties with China and other non-Western states. India and Brazil, key players in the BRICS bloc, are exploring alternatives to U.S. dollar dominance. If the U.S. continues to subsidize private failure with public money, it risks undermining its own global credibility and ceding economic leadership to rivals.

National security is directly tied to economic and environmental stability. A U.S. that repeatedly bails out elites while leaving ordinary citizens vulnerable erodes trust not only at home but abroad. Allies may question American leadership, while adversaries see opportunity in its fragility. If the U.S. financial system is perceived as permanently rigged—propping up elites while disempowering its workforce—it will accelerate the shift of global influence toward China, Russia, India, and Brazil.

Perhaps it’s time to let the system fail—not in the sense of mass suffering for ordinary people, but in the sense of refusing to cushion elites from the consequences of their own decisions. If banks gamble recklessly, let them face bankruptcy. If private equity firms strip-mine industries, let them collapse under their own weight. If universities chase speculative growth with predatory lending and overpriced credentials, let them answer for it in the courts of law and public opinion.

Failure, though painful, can also be cleansing. Without bailouts, institutions would be forced to reckon with structural flaws instead of papering them over. Alternatives could emerge: community-based credit unions, worker-owned cooperatives, public higher education funded for the public good rather than private profit, and serious investment in green energy and sustainable development.

The real question is not whether elites deserve another bailout. The real question is whether the United States can afford to keep subsidizing them while undermining its working class, its environment, and its national security. For too long, workers, students, and families have shouldered the costs of elite failure. The survival of the U.S. economy—and its place in the world—may depend not on saving elites, but on building something stronger and fairer in their place.

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Sources:

• Congressional Budget Office, The 2008 Financial Crisis and Federal Response

• Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Bank Failures During the Great Depression

• Institute for Policy Studies, Billionaire Wealth Surge During COVID-19

• Federal Reserve, Monetary Policy and Emergency Lending Facilities

• Brookings Institution, Bailouts and Moral Hazard

• BRICS Policy Center, Alternative Financial Governance Structures

• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Climate Change 2023 Synthesis Report

• National Association of Realtors, Housing Affordability Data

• Public Law 115-174, Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act (2018)