End of an Era

For now, we have suspended our three decade long run of citizen journalism and will let you know where we go from here.  Two of our other publications, American Injustice and street sociologist are also closed, but remain online for now on Blogger. 

Our Anti-SLAPP lawsuit (Chip Paucek and Pro Athlete Community v Dahn Shaulis) is pending. While the legal bill is enormous, we expect to win. In the meantime, please support independent voices like Democracy Now!, Richard Wolff, Robert A. Pape, Julie K. Brown, Roger Sollenberger, and Troy Barile. 

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Use the search tools and click on these hashtags for more information from the College Meltdown and Higher Education Inquirer archives.  

#1stAmendment #2025 #2026 #2U #accountability #addiction #adjunct #AFT #AI #AImeltdown #alcoholism #algo #algorithm #alienation #Ambow #anomie #anti-intellectual #anxiety #Apollo #austerity #BariWeiss #Baylor

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#veritas #virtue #Vistria #wikipedia #Yale

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   Higher Education and Class Sorting. Image by Glen McGhee

On our last full day of operation, we extend our deepest gratitude to the many courageous voices who have contributed to the Higher Education Inquirer over the years. Through research, reporting, whistleblowing, analysis, and public service, you have exposed inequities, challenged powerful interests, and helped the public understand the realities of higher education. Together, you form a resilient network of knowledge, courage, and public service, showing that collective insight can illuminate even the most entrenched systems. Your dedication has been, and continues to be, invaluable.

Special thanks to:
Bryan Alexander (Future Trends Forum), J. J. Anselmi (author), Devarian Baldwin (Trinity College),  Lisa Bannon (Wall Street Journal), Joe Berry (Higher Education Labor United), Kate Bronfenbrenner (Cornell), Stephen Burd (New America), Ann Bowers (Debt Collective), James Michael Brodie (Black and Gold Project Foundation), Patrick Campbell (Vets Ed Brief), Richard Cannon (activist), Kirk Carapezza (WGBH), Kevin L. Clay (Rutgers), Randall Collins (UPenn), Marianne Dissard (activist), Cory Doctorow, William Domhoff (UC Santa Cruz), Ruxandra Dumitriu, Keil Dumsch, Garrett Fitzgerald (College Recon), Glen Ford (with the ancestors), Richard Fossey (Condemned to Debt), Erica Gallagher (2U Whistleblower), Cliff Gibson III (Gibson & Keith), Henry Giroux (McMaster University), Terri Givens (University of British Columbia), Aaron Glantz, Luke Goldstein (The Lever),  Nathan Grawe (Carleton College), Michael Green (UNLV), Michael Hainline (Restore the GI Bill for Veterans), Debra Hale Shelton (Arkansas Times), Stephanie M. Hall (Protect Borrowers),  David Halperin (Republic Report), Bill Harrington (Croatan Institute), Phil Hill (On EdTech), Investor X (business insider), Robert Jensen (UT Austin), Seth Kahn (WCUP), Hank Kalet (Rutgers), Ben Kaufman (Protect Borrowers), Robert Kelchen (University of Tennessee), Karen Kelsky (The Professor Is In), Neil Kraus (UWRF), LACCD Whistleblower, Michelle Lee (whistleblower), Wendy Lynne Lee (Bloomsburg University of PA), Emmanuel Legeard (whistleblower), Adam Looney (University of Utah), Alec MacGillis (ProPublica), Jon Marcus (Hechinger Report), Steven Mintz (University of Texas), John D. Murphy (Mission Forsaken), Annelise Orleck (Dartmouth), Margaret Kimberly (Black Agenda Report), Austin Longhorn (UT student loan debt whistleblower), Richard Pollock (journalist), Debbi Potts (whistleblower), Jack Metzger (Roosevelt University), Derek Newton (The Cheat Sheet), Jeff Pooley (Annenberg Center), Fahmi Quadir (Safkhet Capital), Chris Quintana (USA Today), Jennifer Reed (University of Akron), Kevin Richert (Idaho Education News), Gary Roth (Rutgers-Newark), Mark Salisbury (TuitionFit), Stephanie Saul (NY Times), Christopher Serbagi (Serbagi Law), Alex Shebanow  (Fail State), Bob Shireman (TCF), Bill Skimmyhorn (William & Mary), Peter Simi (Chapman University), Jeffrey Sonnenfeld (Yale), Gary Stocker (College Viability), Strelnikov (Wikipedia Sucks), Taylor Swaak (Chronicle of Higher Education), Theresa Sweet (Sweet v Cardona), Harry Targ (Purdue University), Moe Tkacik (American Prospect),  Kim Tran (activist), Mark Twain Jr. (business insider), Michael Vasquez (The Tributary), Marina Vujnovic (Monmouth), Richard Wolff (Economic Update), David Whitman, Todd Wolfson (Rutgers, AFT), Helena Worthen (Higher Ed Labor United), DW (South American Correspondent), Heidi Weber (Whistleblower Revolution), Michael Yates (Monthly Review), government officials who have supported transparency and accountability, and the countless other educators, researchers, whistleblowers, advocates, and public servants whose work strengthens our understanding of higher education.

Dum spiro spero  (While I breathe, I hope),

Dahn Shaulis and Glen McGhee

The Enshitification of Higher Education in the United States

Cory Doctorow’s theory of enshitification—originally coined to describe how digital platforms decay over time—perfectly captures the grim evolution of U.S. higher education. Institutions that once positioned themselves as public goods now exist primarily to sustain themselves, extracting revenue, prestige, and labor at the expense of students, faculty, and the broader public.

In the post–World War II era, higher education in the United States was broadly seen as a driver of social mobility, economic growth, and democratic citizenship. The GI Bill and substantial state funding opened college doors to millions. Tuition at public institutions was minimal or nonexistent. Academic freedom, faculty governance, and research for the common good were foundational ideals.

By the 1980s, neoliberal policies began to reshape the higher education landscape. Public disinvestment led institutions to rely more heavily on tuition, philanthropy, corporate partnerships, and student debt. Universities became more bureaucratic and brand-conscious. Students were reframed as consumers, and education as a commodity. Faculty positions gave way to underpaid adjunct labor, and Online Program Managers like 2U, Academic Partnerships (aka Risepoint) and Kaplan emerged to monetize digital learning. Marketing budgets ballooned. Classrooms and research labs became secondary to enrollment targets and revenue generation.

A 2019 Higher Education Inquirer report revealed how elite universities joined the downward spiral. Institutions like Harvard, Yale, and USC outsourced online graduate programs to 2U, employing aggressive recruitment tactics that resembled those of discredited for-profit colleges. Applicants were encouraged to take on excessive debt for degrees with uncertain returns. Whistleblowers likened it to fraud-by-phone—evidence that even the most prestigious universities were embracing an extractive model.

Doctoral education offers a deeper glimpse into how enshitification has hollowed out academia. Sold as a noble pursuit of truth and a path to secure academic employment, the Ph.D. has become, for many, a journey into economic instability, psychological distress, and underemployment. Only a small percentage of doctoral students land tenure-track jobs. Graduate schools continue to admit far more students than they can responsibly support, while providing little preparation for careers outside academia. Mentorship is often lacking, and financial support is frequently inadequate. Many graduate students rely on food pantries, defer medical care, or take on gig work just to survive. Meanwhile, universities benefit from their labor in teaching and research.

International graduate students face even steeper challenges. Promised opportunity, they instead encounter a saturated job market, low wages, and immigration precarity. Their labor props up U.S. research and rankings, but their long-term prospects are often bleak.

The rise of career-transition consultants—like Cheeky Scientist and The Professor Is In—has become a booming cottage industry, a byproduct of the failed academic job pipeline. For most Ph.D.s, what was once considered “alternative academia” is now the only path forward.

Financial hardship compounds the crisis. Graduate stipends in many programs are far below local living wages, especially in high-cost cities like San Francisco, Boston, or New York. Few programs provide retirement benefits or financial literacy resources. The financial toll of earning a doctorate is often hidden until students are years deep into their programs—and years behind in wealth accumulation.

Meanwhile, university medical centers—often affiliated with elite institutions—offer a parallel example of institutional enshitification. These hospitals have long histories of exploitation, particularly of poor and minority patients. Even today, these facilities prioritize affluent patients and donors, while relying on precariously employed staff and treating marginalized communities as research subjects. The disparities are systematic and ongoing. The rhetoric of innovation and healing masks a legacy of racial injustice and extractive labor practices.

Legacy admissions further entrench inequality. While race-conscious admissions have been rolled back, legacy preferences remain largely untouched. They serve to maintain elite networks, ensuring that wealth and access remain intergenerational. These policies not only contradict the rhetoric of meritocracy but also deepen structural inequities in the name of tradition.

Today, higher education serves itself. Institutions protect billion-dollar endowments, award executive salaries in the millions, expand sports programs and real estate portfolios, and depend on underpaid faculty and indebted students. Campuses are rife with inequality, surveillance of student protest, and performative gestures of inclusion, even as DEI initiatives are gutted by state governments or internal austerity.

The consequences are clear. Enrollment is declining. Campuses are closing. Faculty are being laid off. Public trust is eroding. And even elite institutions are feeling the strain. Doctorow’s theory suggests that once a system has fully enshittified, collapse becomes inevitable. The College Meltdown is not hypothetical—it’s here.

And yet, collapse can be a beginning. Higher education must be radically reimagined: public investment, tuition-free education, student debt relief, labor protections, honest admissions policies, and genuine democratic governance. The alternative is more of the same: a system that costs more, delivers less, and cannibalizes its future to feed its prestige economy.

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Selected Sources

Caterine, Christopher L. Leaving Academia: A Practical Guide. Princeton University Press, 2020.

Cassuto, Leonard. The Graduate School Mess: What Caused It and How We Can Fix It. Harvard University Press, 2015.

Kelsky, Karen. The Professor Is In: The Essential Guide to Turning Your Ph.D. into a Job. Three Rivers Press, 2015.

Roberts, Emily. Personal Finance for Ph.D.s. https://www.pfforphds.com

Shaulis, Dahn. “2U Expands College Meltdown to Elite Universities.” Higher Education Inquirer, Oct. 4, 2019. https://www.highereducationinquirer.org/2019/10/college-meltdown-expands-to-elite.html

Shaulis, Dahn. “The Dark Legacy of Elite University Medical Centers.” Higher Education Inquirer, Mar. 13, 2025. https://www.highereducationinquirer.org/2025/03/the-dark-legacy-of-elite-university.html

Doctorow, Cory. “TikTok's Enshittification.” Pluralistic.net, Jan. 21, 2023. https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/

American Association of University Professors. Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession, 2023. https://www.aaup.org

National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Current Term Enrollment Estimates, 2024. https://nscresearchcenter.org

Newfield, Christopher. The Great Mistake: How We Wrecked Public Universities and How We Can Fix Them. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016.

Goldrick-Rab, Sara. Paying the Price: College Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American Dream. University of Chicago Press, 2016.

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

Teen Vogue. “The Movement Against Legacy Admissions.” Jan. 2, 2025. https://www.teenvogue.com/story/movement-against-legacy-admissions

The Guardian. “‘Affirmative Action for the Privileged’: Why Democrats Are Fighting Legacy Admissions.” Aug. 11, 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/aug/11/college-legacy-admissions-affirmative-action-democrats

How might we do climate action in academia under a second Trump administration? (Bryan Alexander)

With the reelection of Donald Trump, a candidate who has flaunted his desire for autocracy—aided and abetted by a Republican-controlled Congress that will not constrain him with guardrails—the United States is now poised to become an authoritarian state ruled by plutocrats and fossil fuel interests. It is now, in short, a petrostate.

–professor Michael Mann, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

How can we do climate crisis work within the higher education ecosystem under a second Trump administration?

With today’s post I’d like to explore strategic options in the present and near future. This is for everyone, but I’ll conclude with some self-reflection. My focus here will be on the United States, yet not exclusively so.

(I’ve been tracking possibilities for a Trump return for a while. Here’s the most recent post.)
Climate change under Trump: pressures on higher education

To begin with, the threat is that president Trump will undo federal support for climate action across the board (for evidence of this, see statements in Agenda 47, Project 2025, and elsewhere). Beyond the federal government, Trump can cause spillover effects at state and local levels. This should strengthen red states, counties, and cities in anti-climate policies and stances.

That governmental change will likely have direct impacts on higher education. About two thirds of American colleges and universities are public, meaning state-owned and -directed and therefore quite exposed to political pressures. Academics working in those institutions will be vulnerable to those forces, depending on their situation (institutional type, what a government actually does, the structural supports for units and individuals). How many academics – faculty, staff, students – will be less likely to undertake or support climate action? Will senior administrators be similarly disinclined to take strategic direction for climate purposes?

Beyond governments, how would the return of Trump to national power, complete with Republican control of Congress and the Supreme Court, shape private entities in their academic work? I’m thinking here of non-governmental funders, such as foundations, along with the many businesses which work with post-secondary education (publishers, ed tech companies, food service, etc.). Researchers studying global warming might have a harder time getting grants. Some funders might back off of academics doing climate work of all kinds. This can impact private as well as public academic institutions.

On the international side, Trump’s promised withdrawal from the Paris agreement and his repeated dismissal of climate change might make it harder for American academics to connect with global partners. Without simplifying too much, non-American academics might find Trump 2.0 an extra barrier to partnering with peers in the United States, especially if their national or local governments also took up anti-climate positions. International businesses developing decarbonization goods and services might step back from a newly Trumpified America (here’s one recent example).

Beyond those entities we should expect various forms of cultural resistance to climate work. Leaders from Trump and Vance on down can stir up popular attitudes and actions; the anti-immigrant focus on Springfield, Ohio gives one example. Politically-engaged individuals can challenge, threaten, or attack academics whom they see as doing harmful actions along climate lines.

On the other hand, academics might draw support from governments, businesses, nonprofits, and individuals who resist MAGA and seek to pursue climate goals. We could see governmental climate energies devolve below the federal level to states and below. Hypothetically, a professor in, say, California or Vermont might fare better than peers in Texas or South Carolina.

To be fair, political boundaries might not be cut and dried. Climate disasters might change minds. Republicans who benefit from the surviving pieces of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act might decide not to oppose academics doing climate work. The low costs of solar can trump (as it were) ideology. And insurance companies seem likely to continue their forceful actions of denying coverage and increasing fees in especially endangered areas.

I’ve been speaking of the academic population as a whole, but we should bear in mind the district experience of campus leaders (presidents, chancellors, system administrators, provosts, vice presidents, deans) in this situation. They play a decisive role in supporting climate action through setting strategic directions, developing programs, and, of course, providing funding. In my experience of researching academic climate action and thinking I’ve found this population to be, all too often, resistant to the idea for a variety of reasons: perceived lack of faculty interest; concerns about board/state government politics; anxieties about community response; fears of financial challenges. Then the Gaza protests happened and campus leaders seem to me even more nervous about taking public stances. How will they act under a new Trump administration?

Recall that politicians can bypass those leaders. The recent Texas A&M story is illustrative in this regard. A state politician decided that the university should no longer offer a LGBTQ studies minor. Campus faculty and its president refused to end the program, but the institution’s board unilaterally terminated it. It’s easy to imagine parallel cases for climate activity, from offering a sustainability degree to overhauling buildings to reduce their carbon footprint, only to be met by a politician’s enmity.
Academic options and possibilities

So what can we do now?

One option is for those doing climate work to just keep on doing it, damning the torpedoes. After all, climate action has historically elicited blowback and hostility, so Trump 2.0 is nothing new. Perhaps it’s a difference in kind, not degree. Academics who see themselves having institutional or other backing (tenure, private funding, benefactors) may just continue. Some might relish the prospect of a public fight.

The public/private divide might be a powerful one. Being employed by, or taking classes at, a state university makes climate politics potentially powerful, even dispositive. Blue states might double down on climate action, which could take the form of new regulations forcing campuses to decarbonize more rapidly or to include global warming in general education. Red states, in contrast, can disincentivize faculty, staff, and students from the full range of climate action, making teaching, research, campus operational changes more difficult, even dangerous.

In contrast, academics affiliated with private colleges and universities might enjoy greater political latitude, at least in terms of direct governmental authority. Some might find themselves constrained by their non-governmental institutional affiliations – i.e., by their churches, if they’re a religious school. Economic and cultural pressures can also hit academics in private institutions. That said, we could see private campuses take a leading role compared with their public colleagues.

What new forms might academic climate action take?

We could well see new informal support networks appear, perhaps quietly, perhaps openly. This could take place via a variety of technological frameworks, from Discord to email. People involved will need others working on the same lines. There are already some formal networks, like AASHE and Second Nature. They might serve as bulwarks against hostility. We could also see new nonprofits form to support academic climate action.

Another tactic might be to establish a for-profit company to do climate work. This might sound strange, but businesses often appeal to the famously business-friendly GOP. An LLC or S-corp doing climate work in higher education could look less Green New Deal-y.

Will we see academics become more public in their climate research, perhaps participating in government lobbying, civic demonstrations, or more? After all, four more years of Trump means we will see increased American greenhouse gas emissions. The crisis is worsening, and that fact might engage more faculty, staff, and students to resist. Perhaps campuses will become centers or hubs of all kinds of climate action.

Furthermore, we might see more direct action. American colleges and universities have seen little of this so far, as opposed to European institutions. There have been some initial, tentative signs of this outside of the academy, like Just Stop Oil spray painting an American embassy in the United Kingdom.



Might we see American students, staff, faculty letting the air out of SUVs, damaging oil infrastructure, pie-ing fossil fuel company executives, or more?

A very different tactic for academics to consider is to be stealthy in order to avoid hostile attention. Not talking about one’s new climate class on social media, not sharing global warming research on TikTok, not doing a public talk in the community might be appealing tactics. Similarly, scholars might avoid publishing in open access journals in favor of those behind high paywalls. We could organize using private messaging apps, like Signal.

We could also stop. We might judge the moment too dangerous to proceed. Think about the largest population of faculty, adjuncts, who have so little workplace protections. They might deem it safer to go dark for a few years until things are less dangerous. Consider academics in various forms of marginalization – by race, religion, gender, professional position – as well as those with non-academic pressures (financial, familial). How many of us will pause this work for the time being?

Those academics who are committed to climate work are thinking about such choices now. And some may be participating in conversations about these options.

Let me close on a moment of self-reflection.

I’ve been doing climate research for years as part of my overall work on higher education’s future. This has taken many forms, including a scholarly book, blog writing, teaching, and a lot of presentations, both in-person and virtual. I have been participating in several networks of like-minded folks. I’ve hosted and interviewed climate experts in various venues. Overall, I work climate change into nearly everything I do professionally.

Yet I am an independent, as some of you know. I do not have a tenured or full time academic position. I don’t have independent wealth backing me up. Doing climate work is increasingly risky. To the extent that people know my commitment, I might quietly lose work, allies, colleagues, supporters. I have seen some signs of this already. Similarly, the public nature of what I do opens me up to the possibility of public attacks. I have not yet experienced this.

My philosophy of work – heck, of life – is that it’s better when shared with other people, hence my longtime preference for sharing so much of what I do online. This makes my work better, I think. Yet now, with a new and energetic conservative administration in the country where I live and do most of my work, perhaps this is too risky. I’ve already received advice to run dark, to do climate and other work underground.

Or maybe this is me overthinking things, starting at shadows. These are possibilities, each contingent on many factors and developments in a sprawling and complex academic ecosystem. We could see versions of all of the above playing out at the same time. Some presidents may boldly lead their institutions into accelerated climate action, while others forbid faculty and staff from any such activity. Some professors may launch new climate-focused classes while others delay teaching theirs for years. Staff members in a blue state might set up organic farms and push for fossil fuel vehicle parking fees, while others focus on other topics and keep their heads down. Some of us will make content for public view while others head underground.

Everything I know about climate change tells me this is a vast, civilization-wide crisis which humanity is struggling to apprehend, and that academia can play a significant role in addressing it if we choose to do so. Today I do not feel comfortable advising individuals on what each person should best do in this new political era. But I want to place the options before the public for discussion, to the extent people feel they should participate.

I hope I can keep doing this work. It needs to be done.

(thanks to the Hechinger Report and many friends including Karen Costa and Joe Murphy)

 

 

Bryan Alexander is an award–winning, internationally known futurist, researcher, writer, speaker, consultant, and teacher, working in the field of higher education’s future. He is currently a senior scholar at Georgetown University.  This article was originally published at BryanAlexander.org.