The Case Against Higher Education Reform (Glen McGhee)

For decades, critics and policymakers have argued that American higher education could be “fixed” through better management, new credentials, accountability systems, or market competition. But the evidence now points to a sobering reality: the time for meaningful reform has passed. What remains is a structurally inert system staggering toward collapse, incapable of adapting in ways that would meaningfully serve students, faculty, or the broader society.

Too Late: The System Has Already Crystallized

Sociologists Michael Hannan and John Freeman warned in 1984 that organizations often fall prey to “structural inertia,” creating a form of lock-in that makes real transformation virtually impossible. Today’s higher education sector exemplifies their theory.

Since 2010, undergraduate enrollment has declined by more than 15%, representing 2.7 million fewer students nationwide. The FAFSA fiasco of 2024–25 alone is expected to result in hundreds of thousands fewer freshmen, according to Brookings. This is not gradual adjustment but systemic breakdown occurring within institutions whose structures are too rigid to respond.

The so-called “demographic cliff” beginning in 2025 will accelerate these failures. The Philadelphia Federal Reserve predicts that 1 in 10 U.S. colleges faces “significant financial distress” in the next decade. Closures are already mounting: Birmingham-Southern College in Alabama shut its doors in 2024 after 168 years, despite political lobbying and emergency funding attempts. In Vermont, the Vermont State Colleges System closed three campuses in 2020, citing declining enrollment and unsustainable costs. In Massachusetts, Mount Ida College collapsed in 2018, leaving students stranded. These are not isolated cases—they are signs of a broader unraveling.

No Power, No Resources: Reform Advocates Lack Institutional Leverage

Those demanding reform—students burdened by debt, adjuncts trapped in precarity, or concerned citizens—lack meaningful power within entrenched governance structures. Administrative hierarchies create what organizational theorists call “hierarchical inertia”: resistance to bottom-up change.

Between 2010 and 2018, spending on administrative services grew by 25%, compared with only 16% growth in instructional spending. Administrative salaries rose faster than faculty pay, and presidents of elite private universities now routinely earn over $1 million annually, while the median adjunct pay per course hovers around $3,500.

Meanwhile, the faculty workforce has stratified into a rigid caste system: 48% of all faculty are adjuncts, compared with only 33% who are tenure-track. Nearly one in four adjuncts qualifies for some form of public assistance, according to the American Federation of Teachers.

Higher Education as a Caste System

The metaphor of higher education as a caste system is not rhetorical exaggeration—it is sociological description.

• Academic labor: Adjuncts teach 60–70% of all undergraduate courses at some public universities, yet lack benefits, job security, or office space.

• Institutional prestige: The top 20 U.S. universities control nearly $400 billion in endowment wealth, while the median endowment across all institutions is less than $200 million—a disparity that drives inequality in faculty hiring, research opportunities, and student aid.

• Student access: Federal data show that students from the top income quartile are five times more likely to attend a selective university than students from the bottom quartile.

As one adjunct professor bitterly described it: “I guess I am in the Sudra—servant—class.”

Path Dependence and the Logic of Lock-In

American higher education is path dependent: historical decisions have created self-reinforcing mechanisms that are now nearly impossible to undo.

The feedback loops are obvious. Average tuition has tripled (in real dollars) since 1980, while total student loan debt now exceeds $1.7 trillion, owed by more than 43 million borrowers. Tuition hikes fuel administrative growth, which requires even higher tuition. Federal student loans underwrite rising costs, which then justify further loan expansion.

Even when institutions attempt reform, history traps them. Consider New College of Florida, a small public liberal arts institution: under political pressure in 2023, its governance was remade to align with a conservative ideological agenda. The result has been turmoil, plummeting enrollment, and national headlines—but no structural fix to the deeper financial instability.

The sector has reached what economists call “quasi-irreversibility”: a point beyond which reform cannot meaningfully occur without collapse.

The Futility of Cosmetic Solutions

The reforms most commonly floated today—cost containment, program elimination, or alternative credentials—misunderstand structural inertia.

In 2025, West Virginia University cut 28 academic programs, including its entire foreign language department, as part of an effort to address a projected $45 million deficit. Dozens of other universities, from regional publics to small privates, have announced similar cuts. These moves balance budgets temporarily but hollow out educational missions.

Calls for universities to spend more of their endowments overlook the fact that even elite institutions already average spending rates around 4.5%, which is close to what financial managers consider sustainable. Meanwhile, 90% of U.S. colleges have endowments under $100 million, meaning they cannot rely on them for meaningful financial rescue.

Alternative credentials face similar structural limits. A 2022 SHRM survey found that while 48% of employers expressed interest in microcredentials, only 20% actually considered them in hiring decisions. Applicant tracking systems are built to screen for traditional degrees, not experimental certificates.

The Iron Law of Institutional Preservation

Sociologists describe “institutional isomorphism”—the tendency for organizations to mimic each other in ways that resist innovation. In higher education, this has created an “iron law” of institutional preservation.

When faced with crisis, universities respond with defensive maneuvers: hiring freezes, program eliminations, and lobbying for more federal support. In 2025 alone, more than 100 institutions announced cuts to majors, from classics to physics, while maintaining administrative and athletic spending.

The overriding purpose of universities is no longer the pursuit of knowledge or the education of students, but the preservation of their own bureaucratic forms.

Collapse Before Reform

The conclusion is stark but unavoidable: American higher education has passed the point of meaningful reform. Its rigid hierarchies, path dependence, and preservation instincts make internal change impossible. Demographic decline and financial pressures will likely force widespread collapse before adaptation occurs.

Hannan and Freeman’s theory predicted this outcome: organizational change is rarely the product of internal reform. Instead, it comes through environmental selection—the replacement of existing institutions by new ones better suited to survive.

The American university may not disappear entirely, but the form it has taken since the mid-20th century is unsustainable. Collapse is not only likely—it may already be underway.

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Sources:
Hannan & Freeman (1984); BestColleges (2025); Brookings (2025); Philadelphia Fed (2024); Forbes (2025); Inside Higher Ed (2023); Academe Blog (2013); Governing (2023); AFT (2020); SHRM (2022); Al Jazeera (2025); ERIC (2020); Birmingham-Southern (2024); WVU (2025); Mount Ida (2018); Vermont State Colleges (2020).

The Right-Wing Roots of EdTech

The modern EdTech industry is often portrayed as a neutral, innovative force, but its origins are deeply political. Its growth has been fueled by a fusion of neoliberal economics, right-wing techno-utopianism, patriarchy, and classism, reinforced by racialized inequality. One of the key intellectual architects of this vision was George Gilder, a conservative supply-side evangelist whose work glorified technology and markets as liberating forces. His influence helped pave the way for the “Gilder Effect”: a reshaping of education into a market where technology, finance, and ideology collide, often at the expense of marginalized students and workers.

The for-profit college boom provides the clearest demonstration of how the Gilder Effect operates. John Sperling’s University of Phoenix, later run by executives like Todd Nelson, was engineered as a credential factory, funded by federal student aid and Wall Street. Its model was then exported across the sector, including Risepoint (formerly Academic Partnerships), a company that sold universities on revenue-sharing deals for online programs. These ventures disproportionately targeted working-class women, single mothers, military veterans, and Black and Latino students. The model was not accidental—it was designed to exploit populations with the least generational wealth and the most limited alternatives. Here, patriarchy, classism, and racism intersected: students from marginalized backgrounds were marketed promises of upward mobility but instead left with debt, unstable credentials, and limited job prospects.

Clayton Christensen and Michael Horn of Harvard Business School popularized the concept of “disruption,” providing a respectable academic justification for dismantling public higher education. Their theory of disruptive innovation framed traditional universities as outdated and made way for venture-capital-backed intermediaries. Yet this rhetoric concealed a brutal truth: disruption worked not by empowering the disadvantaged but by extracting value from them, often reinforcing existing inequalities of race, gender, and class.

The rise and collapse of 2U shows how this ideology plays out. Founded in 2008, 2U promised to bring elite universities online, selling the dream of access to graduate degrees for working professionals. Its “flywheel effect” growth strategy relied on massive enrollment expansion and unsustainable spending. Despite raising billions, the company never turned a profit. Its high-profile acquisition of edX from Harvard and MIT only deepened its financial instability. When 2U filed for bankruptcy, it was not simply a corporate failure—it was a symptom of an entire system built on hype and dispossession.

2U also became notorious for its workplace practices. In 2015, it faced a pregnancy discrimination lawsuit after firing an enrollment director who disclosed her pregnancy. Women workers, especially mothers, were treated as expendable, a reflection of patriarchal corporate norms. Meanwhile, many front-line employees—disproportionately women and people of color—faced surveillance, low wages, and impossible sales quotas. Here the intersections of race, gender, and class were not incidental but central to the business model. The company extracted labor from marginalized workers while selling an educational dream to marginalized students, creating a cycle of exploitation at both ends of the pipeline.

Financialization extended these dynamics. Lenders like Sallie Mae and Navient, and servicers like Maximus, turned students into streams of revenue, with Student Loan Asset-Backed Securities (SLABS) trading debt obligations on Wall Street. Universities, including Purdue Global and University of Arizona Global, rebranded failing for-profits as “public” ventures, but their revenue-driven practices remained intact. These arrangements consistently offloaded risk onto working-class students, especially women and students of color, while enriching executives and investors.

The Gilder Effect, then, is not just about technology or efficiency. It is about reshaping higher education into a site of extraction, where the burdens of debt and labor fall hardest on those already disadvantaged by patriarchy, classism, and racism. Intersectionality reveals what the industry’s boosters obscure: EdTech has not democratized education but has deepened inequality. The failure of 2U and the persistence of predatory for-profit models are not accidents—they are the logical outcome of an ideological project rooted in conservative economics and systemic oppression.

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Sources

• EdSurge. “What a New Strategy at 2U Means for the Future of Online Higher Education.” August 5, 2022. https://www.edsurge.com/news/2022-08-05-what-a-new-strategy-at-2u-means-for-the-future-of-online-higher-education

• Newswire. “2U Faces Lawsuit for Pregnancy Discrimination.” June 2015. https://www.newswire.com/news/2u-faces-lawsuit-for-pregnancy-discrimination

• Christensen, Clayton M. and Michael B. Horn. Disrupting Class. McGraw-Hill, 2008.

• McMillan Cottom, Tressie. Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy. The New Press, 2017.

• Cellini, Stephanie Riegg. “For-Profit Higher Education: An Assessment of Costs and Benefits.” National Bureau of Economic Research, 2012.

• Rosenthal, Elisabeth. An American Sickness. Penguin, 2017.

The Forgotten Value of the “Community of Scholars”

In the race for market share, rankings, and research grants, many U.S. colleges have lost sight of one of higher education’s oldest and most fertile ideals: the community of scholars.

This concept—once central to the mission of universities—rests on a deceptively simple truth: the most powerful breakthroughs often come from hearing perspectives outside your discipline and engaging with people whose work seems, at first glance, irrelevant to your own.

In an authentic community of scholars, a physics student might stumble into a conversation with a medieval historian; a music major might find themselves challenged by an environmental scientist; a business student might be forced to grapple with the moral arguments of a philosopher. These encounters aren’t just “nice to have.” They form the unpredictable crosscurrents that spark creativity, encourage critical thinking, and lead to what some would call pure genius.

A Tradition Worth Remembering

The ideal of the community of scholars is not new. Medieval universities like Oxford were built around the idea that students from across Europe, speaking different languages and studying different subjects, could live and learn together. The University of Chicago’s early 20th-century model emphasized the Great Books and interdisciplinary conversation, requiring students to wrestle with texts and ideas far outside their intended careers.

Even America’s land-grant universities, founded in the 19th century, blended practical training with exposure to the liberal arts, aiming to create citizens as well as skilled professionals. These institutions understood that broad intellectual engagement was not a distraction—it was the soil in which innovation grew.

The New Monoculture

Today, this cross-pollination is endangered. A 2023 study by the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) found that 62% of college students reported taking courses only within their major field, with fewer than 20% participating in interdisciplinary classes. Moreover, 71% of students said they had limited meaningful interaction with peers outside their academic discipline.

Colleges, driven by market logic, have created silos—both academic and social—where students stay within their majors, their professional networks, and even their ideological bubbles. The shift to online learning has, in many cases, accelerated this isolation. Cross-disciplinary curiosity is increasingly treated as a luxury, not a necessity.

This narrowing of intellectual horizons harms everyone. It produces specialists who can code or model or calculate with great precision, but who lack the breadth to see the larger social, ethical, or historical implications of their work. It fosters students who are career-ready but not idea-ready. According to a 2022 survey by the Association of American Colleges & Universities, only 34% of employers rated recent graduates as “very well prepared” to solve complex, interdisciplinary problems.

Rebuilding the Garden

Restoring the “community of scholars” is not just about offering more electives or organizing a few interdisciplinary conferences. It requires a deliberate cultural shift:

• Creating more spaces—physical and virtual—where students and faculty from radically different fields can collide intellectually.

• Valuing curiosity for its own sake, not just for its potential market application.

• Encouraging students to explore “useless” subjects, precisely because their utility may emerge in ways no algorithm could predict.

Universities love to market themselves as incubators of innovation and genius. But genius rarely grows in monoculture. It flourishes in the wild garden of unexpected encounters, where ideas mingle across disciplines, and where “irrelevant” conversations can suddenly change the world.

If higher education continues to forget this, it risks producing graduates who are highly trained but narrowly formed—capable, but not transformative.

Sources

• National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), 2023 Report, “Interdisciplinary Learning and Student Interaction.”

• Association of American Colleges & Universities, 2022 Employer Survey on College Learning Outcomes.

• Geiger, Roger L. Knowledge and Money: Research Universities and the Paradox of the Marketplace. Stanford University Press, 2004.

• Kimball, Bruce A. Orators & Philosophers: A History of the Idea of Liberal Education. College Board, 1995.

• Thelin, John R. A History of American Higher Education. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019.

• Klein, Julie Thompson. Interdisciplinarity: History, Theory, and Practice. Wayne State University Press, 1990.

• Bok, Derek. Higher Education in America. Princeton University Press, 2013.

• Alexander, Bryan. “Digital Learning and the Risk of Intellectual Silos,” EDUCAUSE Review, 2020.

"ACTIVE SHOOTER" at Villanova University was a "cruel hoax."

News sources in the Philadelphia area were alerted today that there was an active shooter at Villanova University. Students received text messages and rushed for safety. About two hours later, the university President Rev. Peter M. Donohue called it a "cruel hoax."

Campus hoaxes are not mere pranks. They are crimes and a dangerous reflection of a society where the line between reality and rumor blurs under the shadow of violence. Each false alarm chips away at the sense of security that universities promise their students. Until the United States addresses the root causes of both gun violence and the culture of fear it breeds, campus hoaxes will remain part of higher education’s uneasy reality.

The Broader Context: America’s Culture of Violence

The threat of harm is not abstract. In the U.S., campus shootings have become a recurring tragedy: Virginia Tech (2007), Northern Illinois University (2008), Umpqua Community College (2015), and Michigan State (2023), among many others. This context makes hoaxes especially dangerous: police and students cannot know in the moment whether the threat is real. A single misstep could cost lives.

Accountability and Prevention

Universities and local authorities have begun tracking and prosecuting hoaxes and swatting calls, but enforcement is difficult. Prevention may require better technology, coordinated responses, and clear communication with students. Most importantly, it requires addressing the broader conditions that make both real shootings and hoaxes possible: widespread access to firearms, untreated mental illness, and a culture desensitized to violence.

August 21, 2025 Dear Members of the Villanova Community, Today, as we are celebrating Orientation Mass to welcome our newest Villanovans and their families to our community, panic and terror ensued with the news of a possible shooter at the Law School. Mercifully, no one was injured, and we now know that it was a cruel hoax—there was no active shooter, no injuries and no evidence of firearms present on campus. While that is a blessing and relief, I know today’s events have shaken our entire community.  I would like to thank everyone involved in securing the safety of our community, especially our Villanova Public Safety department and the first responders from Radnor Police and other local police departments. I would also like to thank our Orientation Counselors and all of the Villanova staff in attendance at the Orientation Mass, who responded calmly and compassionately to a very frightening and unnerving situation. Amid my thanks, I would like to apologize to our first-year students and their families. This is not the introduction to Villanova that I had hoped for you. And while I cannot do anything to relieve the unrest that you are feeling right now, I can offer a prayer. As generations of Villanovan know, this prayer is how I close Orientation Mass each year. Since we were interrupted today, I would like to offer it now. Whomever you are with, I ask that you reach out to them and repeat after me. May God bless you and protect you. May your heart and mind be united in faith so that you may be able to love wisely, work creatively, laugh heartily, and live honestly. May you use your education to bring justice and peace to the world, for the benefit of our human family and all of God’s creation. And may you always know that you are loved. Amen I am sure there will be more questions in the coming days and weeks, and we will share as much information with you as we can, but for now, I am thankful that everyone is safe.  With Caritas, Rev. Peter M. Donohue, OSA President

From Philosophy to Sophistry: Why Critical Thinking Matters More Than Ever

Today, we are witnessing a troubling inversion in thought: philosophy—the love of wisdom—is increasingly being displaced by sophistry, rhetoric, and propaganda. What once served as tools for deeper understanding are now too often harnessed to manipulate opinion, defend entrenched power, and obscure reality.

The ancients recognized this danger. Socrates warned against the sophists who sold clever arguments as if they were wisdom itself, teaching young men how to win debates regardless of truth. Plato cautioned that rhetoric untethered from philosophy could become nothing more than flattery and deception. Aristotle, while systematizing rhetoric, insisted it must remain tied to logic and ethics if it was to serve the public good.

But today, these warnings are largely ignored. Rhetoric, unmoored from philosophical foundations, has become a weapon of politics, commerce, and even academia. Universities that once defended philosophy departments as central to a liberal education now shrink or eliminate them, replacing courses in logic and ethics with training in “communications,” “branding,” or “leadership.” The point is no longer truth, but persuasion—often persuasion in service of profit or political expediency.

Propaganda in Higher Education: Then and Now

The problem is not new. During the Cold War, elite universities like Harvard and Stanford became entangled in government propaganda and intelligence work. Research contracts from the Department of Defense and the CIA shaped entire fields, from area studies to behavioral psychology, with the aim of waging ideological war against communism. At Stanford, the Hoover Institution served as a pipeline between academia and Washington, producing research tailored to reinforce Cold War orthodoxy. Students were often unaware that their “objective” curricula were saturated with political agendas.

Corporate influence has also long steered academic knowledge. At the University of Chicago and Harvard Business School, neoliberal economics became dominant not because it was the most rigorous or humane, but because it was well-funded and aligned with Wall Street interests. Entire generations of business leaders were trained to see deregulation, privatization, and financialization as common sense. Meanwhile, corporations like ExxonMobil and Philip Morris poured millions into universities to shape research downplaying the harms of fossil fuels and tobacco—turning respected labs into propaganda mills under the guise of scientific inquiry.

In the for-profit sector, the University of Phoenix and Kaplan University demonstrated how higher education could be weaponized into pure marketing. Phoenix perfected the art of recruiting vulnerable students with glossy advertising campaigns while leaving many graduates with crushing debt and worthless credentials. Sophistry was not the byproduct of the system; it was the business model.

The Debt Machine as Propaganda

The rise of mass student debt in the U.S. is perhaps the clearest example of sophistry in action. For decades, policymakers, banks, and university leaders insisted that loans were an “investment” in the future. Billions of dollars in advertising, recruitment pitches, and presidential speeches told working-class families that debt was the price of opportunity, mobility, and the American Dream.

The rhetoric was powerful—but it was also false. Instead of producing universal prosperity, student loans created a new form of indenture, locking tens of millions of Americans into decades of repayment. Behind every slogan of “access” and “opportunity” was a reality of wage garnishment, ruined credit, and even Social Security checks seized from retirees.

Universities—public, private, and for-profit alike—benefited from this propaganda system. Administrators justified tuition hikes by pointing to the availability of federal loans, while politicians masked austerity and disinvestment by praising the “resilience” of students who borrowed. Sophistry covered over what philosophy might have revealed: that a system built on lifelong debt was neither just nor sustainable.

Contemporary Battles

Today, propaganda saturates every corner of higher education. Corporate partnerships with edtech firms like 2U, Coursera, and Pearson promise “innovation” while shifting costs and risks onto students and contingent faculty. DEI initiatives, while sometimes earnest, are often reduced to branding campaigns that distract from rising tuition, underfunded support services, and administrative bloat. On the other side, anti-DEI crusades, most visibly in Florida under Governor Ron DeSantis, have transformed universities like the University of Florida and New College into battlegrounds where rhetoric substitutes for governance.

Even the managerial language of “student success,” “excellence,” and “resilience” functions as propaganda. At Arizona State University, marketed as the “New American University,” branding and performance metrics often obscure deep reliance on adjunct labor and the struggles of students who leave with debt but no degree.

Why Critical Thinking Matters

In this environment, the ability to distinguish reason from sophistry is not just an academic exercise—it is essential for democratic survival. Critical thinking, logical reasoning, and ethical reflection must not be treated as luxuries reserved for philosophy majors. They are skills every student—and every citizen—requires to navigate a world saturated with propaganda.

If education has any remaining claim to a higher purpose, it is this: to cultivate minds capable of questioning, analyzing, and resisting manipulation. A society that abandons philosophy leaves itself at the mercy of those who wield rhetoric without conscience. But one that revives philosophy as a living practice of inquiry and critique can resist the slide into sophistry and reclaim some measure of truth, justice, and freedom.

The future of higher education, and perhaps democracy itself, depends on whether we choose philosophy or propaganda. The stakes could not be clearer.

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Sources

– Christopher Simpson, Universities and Empire: Money and Politics in the Social Sciences during the Cold War (1999)
– Noam Chomsky & Edward Herman, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988)
– Derek Bok, Universities in the Marketplace: The Commercialization of Higher Education (2003)
– David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs: A Theory (2018)
– Michael Hudson, The Destiny of Civilization (2022)
– Maurizio Lazzarato, The Making of the Indebted Man (2012)
– William Deresiewicz, Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite (2014)
– Tressie McMillan Cottom, Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy (2017)

Iron Cage or Golden Handcuffs? (Glen McGhee and Dahn Shaulis)

Max Weber’s “iron cage” described a world where bureaucratic rationality and capitalist structures governed life so thoroughly that individuality and freedom were diminished. Today, Americans still live in that cage, bound by debt, hierarchy, and rules that channel human energy into impersonal systems. Alongside the cage sits another metaphor: the “golden handcuffs.” Unlike the coercion of bureaucracy, golden handcuffs represent the comfort and stability of jobs, mortgages, and benefits that discourage mobility. Taken together, iron and gold shape a society increasingly stuck in place.

Nowhere is this more visible than in the experience of younger generations. Student loan debt has become one of the most powerful bars of the iron cage. For decades, policymakers sold higher education as the ticket to mobility, yet the financing model has left tens of millions of Americans burdened with obligations that stretch across lifetimes. Parents still paying their own loans now watch their children borrow again, creating a cycle of indebtedness that limits family formation, delays homeownership, and stifles geographic mobility. College graduates often cannot take risks—whether by starting a business, moving to a new city, or pursuing meaningful but lower-paid work—because debt service makes such choices impossible. The American promise of education as liberation has become, for many, education as shackles.

Layered onto this cage is the massive growth of what anthropologist David Graeber called “bullshit jobs”—roles that exist less to create value than to maintain bureaucratic appearance and control. Whole sectors of the economy are filled with paper-pushers, compliance officers, middle managers, and customer service agents who know that their work adds little or nothing to society. Yet these jobs proliferate because they keep the system running, providing salaries and benefits that workers can’t easily abandon. Here lie the golden handcuffs: people remain in unfulfilling work not because they love it, but because the alternative—losing health insurance, defaulting on loans, or risking homelessness—is too dangerous. In effect, workers trade freedom for security, their ambitions dulled by the constant calculation of what can be risked and what cannot.

The Wall Street Journal recently documented how job-switching and geographic mobility have fallen to historic lows. For many, the causes are high housing costs, limited relocation packages, and rising mortgage rates. But behind those immediate factors lie deeper structures. Student loan debt reduces the willingness to gamble on uncertain opportunities. Bullshit jobs, however empty, offer just enough stability to keep people locked in place. Older generations, insulated by home equity or pensions, may experience the golden handcuffs as a form of protection, but their children and grandchildren feel more of the iron cage, inheriting debts and diminished opportunities while being funneled into roles that drain meaning from their labor.

The intergenerational effect is stark. Families once imagined that each generation would surpass the last, but mounting evidence shows downward mobility as the norm. Debt and immobility mean that the youngest workers face worse prospects than their parents, often despite higher levels of formal education. The cage has become hereditary, reinforced by golden handcuffs that reward those already inside while barring others from entry.

The consequences reach far beyond individual frustration. A society of debt-burdened, risk-averse workers chained to meaningless jobs loses dynamism, creativity, and the possibility of real progress. Economic innovation falters when people cannot afford to move, switch jobs, or challenge existing hierarchies. Civic life suffers when millions are too tired or precarious to participate fully. What Weber described as the cold rationality of bureaucracy now fuses with financialization and corporate incentives to produce both stagnation and quiet despair.

The question is not only whether Americans are trapped in iron cages or bound by golden handcuffs, but who profits from these arrangements. Student loan servicers, corporate employers, and real estate interests all benefit from a population too indebted, too constrained, and too risk-averse to push back. Unless there is structural change—through debt relief, meaningful labor reform, and a housing policy that restores mobility—the chains will only tighten, passed from one generation to the next.

The iron cage and the golden handcuffs are not metaphors in tension; they are metaphors in partnership, binding Americans simultaneously by force and by comfort. Together they describe a society that promises freedom while delivering entrapment, and a generation that is learning the hard way that education, work, and home are less ladders to opportunity than carefully designed systems of control.

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Sources

Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905).
“Understanding Max Weber’s Iron Cage,” ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/understanding-max-webers-iron-cage-3026373
“Nobody’s Buying Homes, Nobody’s Switching Jobs—and America’s Mobility Is Stalling,” Wall Street Journal, August 14, 2025. https://www.wsj.com/economy/american-job-housing-economic-dynamism-d56ef8fc
David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs: A Theory (2018).
Steven J. Davis and John Haltiwanger, “Dynamism Diminished: Housing Markets and Business Formation,” AEA Research (2024). https://www.aeaweb.org/research/charts/dynamism-diminished-housing-markets
“The Intergenerational Burden of Student Loan Debt,” Brookings Institution, October 2021. https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-intergenerational-burden-of-student-loan-debt/

Turning Point USA and the Authoritarian Personality

Turning Point USA (TPUSA), founded in 2012 by Charlie Kirk, has become a major player in campus conservatism. The organization claims over 3,000 high school and college chapters across the United States and has raised millions of dollars from right-leaning donors. TPUSA’s presence on campuses and its media footprint have drawn attention from students, faculty, and researchers, especially for its combative style and use of public shaming tactics.

This article explores TPUSA's growth and influence in the context of social psychology—specifically, the theory of the authoritarian personality—and its relevance to U.S. campus politics.

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Organizational Growth and Influence

According to TPUSA’s own data and reporting by The Chronicle of Higher Education and The New York Times, the group had more than 250 paid staffers and a $55 million budget in 2021. Its funding has come from major conservative foundations including DonorsTrust, the Bradley Foundation, and the Ed Uihlein Family Foundation. TPUSA also hosts national events like “AmericaFest,” which attract thousands of young conservatives.

TPUSA’s "Professor Watchlist," launched in 2016, lists faculty members it accuses of promoting “leftist propaganda.” Critics, including the American Association of University Professors, argue that this practice endangers academic freedom and targets scholars without due process.

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The Authoritarian Personality Framework

The authoritarian personality theory originated with The Authoritarian Personality (1950), a study led by Theodor Adorno and his colleagues at UC Berkeley. The study introduced the F-scale (Fascism scale), which measured tendencies toward submission to authority, aggression against perceived outsiders, and conformity to traditional norms.

Subsequent research has built on and modified this theory. Political scientists like Stanley Feldman and Karen Stenner have connected authoritarian predispositions with support for strong leaders, intolerance of ambiguity, and punitive attitudes toward perceived rule-breakers. In recent decades, these traits have been linked to political alignment, especially in times of perceived threat or instability.

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TPUSA Messaging and Authoritarian Traits

TPUSA frequently uses binary language in its public messaging—casting issues as good versus evil, and labeling opponents as “radical” or “anti-American.” At national events, founder Charlie Kirk has encouraged confrontational activism. At the 2022 Student Action Summit, he urged attendees to "go on offense" against what he called the "woke mob."

In content analysis of TPUSA social media, researchers at the University of North Carolina (2021) noted recurring themes of authority, nationalism, and threat framing—elements often associated with authoritarian communication. TPUSA’s criticism of universities, professors, and diversity programs reflects a view of institutions as hostile or illegitimate, which research suggests can align with authoritarian worldviews.

While not all TPUSA supporters endorse authoritarian values, survey research (such as the Voter Study Group’s 2018 and 2020 datasets) shows that authoritarian-leaning respondents are more likely to approve of restricting campus speech, favor military-style leadership, and distrust pluralistic norms. These attitudes can map closely onto TPUSA’s policy priorities and media strategy.

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Implications for Higher Education

TPUSA’s presence on campuses has prompted reactions from faculty senates and student governments, with some institutions debating whether the group’s tactics fall within acceptable norms of political discourse. Several chapters have been suspended or disciplined by universities for alleged harassment or violations of student conduct codes.

Data from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) show that campus conflicts over political speech have increased in the last decade, with cases involving TPUSA contributing to this trend.

The broader issue is not whether conservative students should organize, but how political movements use fear, threat narratives, and loyalty to authority to shape behavior. Researchers at the University of Toronto and New York University (Stenner & Haidt, 2017) have found that political polarization increases when authoritarian cues are amplified—especially when groups frame disagreement as dangerous.

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Tactics of Fascism

Turning Point USA represents a well-funded and expanding force in campus politics. While it promotes conservative positions, its tactics—particularly public shaming, threat-based messaging, and hierarchical appeals—reflect elements associated with the authoritarian personality as described in decades of psychological and political research.

The Higher Education Inquirer will continue to examine the role of political organizations in shaping student discourse, and the broader consequences for democratic institutions, academic inquiry, and civil society.

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Sources

Adorno, T. W., Frenkel-Brunswik, E., Levinson, D. J., & Sanford, R. N. (1950). The Authoritarian Personality. Harper & Brothers.

Stenner, K. (2005). The Authoritarian Dynamic. Cambridge University Press.

Stenner, K. & Haidt, J. (2017). “Authoritarianism Is Not a Momentary Madness.” In Can It Happen Here?, edited by Cass Sunstein. Dey Street Books.

Feldman, S. (2003). “Enforcing Social Conformity: A Theory of Authoritarianism.” Political Psychology, 24(1), 41–74.

The Chronicle of Higher Education. “Turning Point USA’s Rapid Campus Expansion.” October 2021.

The New York Times. “How Turning Point USA Built a Youth Army.” December 2020.

UNC Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life. “Authoritarian Messaging and Youth Political Mobilization.” 2021.

Voter Study Group. Democracy Fund Survey Reports, 2018–2020.

American Association of University Professors (AAUP). “Professor Watchlist Threatens Academic Freedom.” Statement, 2016.

FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression). Campus Free Speech Reports, 2010–2023.

Veritas, My Ass (Mark Twain*)

“The pleasure we experience in seeing a beautiful cathedral reminds us to admire the church’s architect. How much more should viewing the universe’s infinite variety stir us to praise the Beauty of its Creator. Consider, for a moment, the whole of creation. The splendor of the starry skies, the various flowers in a flower garden, the stately majesty of a cluster of trees, the melodious songs of birds, the variations of creatures in the animal kingdom, the sense and intellectual faculties of a human person, are like so many voices that praise the Beauty of their Author. Words fail us in our effort to describe adequately what the beauty of the universe tells us of the Divine Artist’s Beauty. Does triumphant music come closer to expressing God’s Beauty?”  Bruce Ashford quoting Saint Augustine’s reflection on Psalm 26

Throughout human history, our ancestors have tried to make sense of our being in the universe by focusing on things transcendent.   The basis of this inquiry really led to the formal inquiry which would soon become philosophy and theology - and the basis of the modern university.    It is our concern with these four transcendental values – the Good, the True, the Just, and the Beautiful that have given us the pillars on which to build a more enlightened community.    It is the second Transcendental, Veritas (Truth) that I wish to turn my attention to today.

You cannot walk 10 steps at Harvard University across the Charles without coming upon its logo proudly proclaiming its worthy mission in a single word.   Veritas.   That leap of faith not only is the guiding principle for all who are fortunate to have professional life there, it is the promise that it makes throughout the centuries to continue the proud habits of being concerned with things transcendental.

Veritas – the truth – always seems filled with multiple paradoxes.   In order to base your entire reason for being and professional life on such a belief, one must first accept that We can actually know truth.   That said, we tacitly understand that the most important truths are sometimes unknown and unknowable.   We still try.   The efforts that we put into discovering truth remind us how important they are when we find them.   Harvard was first established because the act of knowing truth (Veritas) is a way of coming to know the mind of our Creator (Harvard was established to allow young farm boys to become ministers). 

Sometimes, we know that we are close to the truth because of a visceral resonance that “moves” us.   It shakes our soul.   It is the sensation that the Nobel Laureate, Romaine Rolland called the sensation of the Oceanic.   This is an altogether different feeling than the savage raw animal emotion we have become all too fond of, like the roar of the crowd at a professional wrestling match.   Here, we are well aware that the whole spectacle is simply an act - a staged falsehood (how ironic that our Education Secretary was once in charge of this spectacle).

When we replace this raw emotion as a fake substitute of the moments that truly move us, we become less human and cease searching for the mind of our Creator.   This is the tragedy that essayist Neil Postman alludes to in his brilliant “Amusing Ourselves to Death” (he also warned us of the same urges in his “End of Education”).

For Christians, our Guide is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (These are all capital to remind us of the transcendental).   We know how difficult these are because the founder of our religion had to suffer and die, largely because he made so many angry by hearing Truths (Veritas) they never wanted to heal.   Veritas is not only difficult to attain but once attained often makes the teller of it a target.   We need to remind ourselves that this Veritas exists outside what the common belief is.   Ask Galileo.   What we think, and whether we like what we hear has no bearing on the Truth of things.  Veritas.

Scientists know that they are getting closer to the truth of things, the mind of the Creator, when they try to prove themselves wrong and have a more difficult time doing so with each attempt.   The reason for these attempts at falsification (and the eyes of keen editors) is to keep scientists from appearing foolish for advocating claims not resonant with the truth.   Just because some can convince a third of her fellows of a false claim, the claim remains false and they remain a fool (or worse, a liar).

When a university capitulates to a fool and does not defend Veritas, it ceases to live up to its centuries old tradition of searching for Truth (as best we can).  No wonder people no longer take universities seriously.   Absent this commitment to single-mindedly fight for Veritas, there is no reason for the university to exist.  There are far less expensive ways to train for a job.

I challenge those inside the university to redouble their commitment to Veritas.  This is why tenure is such a serious and sacred privilege.   Scholars understand that some Truths are so difficult for the masses to accept that those whose life it is to discover these inconvenient and sometimes dangerous Truths can risk personal dangers.   Therefore, if you have been honored by the recognition of tenure, investigate truths dangerous enough to enjoy that Privilege.  And remind all around you why the word is on every building and letterhead.   It is a sacred duty and a protection from those fools who believe they know all and should not be challenged by facts. 

*Mark Twain is the pen name of a well-respected friend of the Higher Education Inquirer

College Meltdown Fall 2025

The Fall 2025 semester begins under intensifying pressure in U.S. higher education. Institutions are responding to long-term changes in enrollment, public funding, demographics, technology, and labor markets. The result is a gradual disassembly of parts of the postsecondary system, with ongoing layoffs, program cuts, and institutional restructuring across both public and private sectors.

The Destruction of ED

In a stunning turn, the U.S. Department of Education has undergone a massive downsizing, slashing nearly half its workforce as part of the Trump administration’s push to dismantle the agency entirely. Education Secretary Linda McMahon framed the move as a “final mission” to restore state control and eliminate federal bureaucracy, but critics warn of chaos for vulnerable students and families who rely on federal programs. With responsibilities like student loans, Pell Grants, and civil rights enforcement now in limbo, Higher Education Institutions face a volatile landscape. The absence of centralized oversight has accelerated the fragmentation of standards, funding, and accountability—leaving colleges scrambling to navigate a patchwork of state policies and shrinking federal support.

AI Disruption: Academic Integrity and Graduate Employment 

Artificial Intelligence has rapidly reshaped higher education, introducing both powerful tools and profound challenges. On campus, AI-driven platforms like ChatGPT have become ubiquitous—92% of students now use them, and 88% admit to deploying AI for graded assignments. This surge has triggered a spike in academic misconduct, with detection systems struggling to keep pace and disproportionately flagging non-native English speakers Meanwhile, the job market for graduates is undergoing a seismic shift. Entry-level roles in tech, finance, and consulting are vanishing as companies automate routine tasks once reserved for junior staff. AI-driven layoffs have already claimed over 10,000 jobs in 2025 alone, and some experts predict that up to half of all white-collar entry-level positions could be eliminated within five years. For recent grads, this means navigating a landscape where degrees may hold less weight, and adaptability, AI fluency, and human-centered skills are more critical than ever.

Unsustainable Student Loan Debt and Federal Funding 

A recent report from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) highlights the depth of the crisis: more than 1,000 colleges could lose access to federal student aid based on current student loan repayment rates—if existing rules were fully enforced. The findings expose systemic failures in accountability and student outcomes. Many of these colleges enroll high numbers of low-income students but leave them with unsustainable debt and limited job prospects.

Institutional Cuts and Layoffs Across the Country

Job losses and cost reductions are increasing across a range of universities.

Stanford University is cutting staff due to a projected $200 million budget shortfall.
University of Oregon has announced budget reductions and academic restructuring.
Michigan State University is implementing layoffs and reorganizing departments.
Vanderbilt University Medical Center is eliminating positions to manage healthcare operating costs.
Harvard Kennedy School is reducing programs and offering early retirement.
Brown University is freezing hiring and reviewing academic offerings.
Penn State University System is closing three Commonwealth Campuses.
Indiana public colleges are merging administrative functions and reviewing low-enrollment programs.

These actions affect not only employees and students but also local communities and regional labor markets.

Enrollment Decline and Demographic Change

Undergraduate enrollment has fallen 14.6% since Fall 2019, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Community colleges have experienced the largest losses, with some regions seeing more than 20% declines.

The “demographic cliff” tied to declining birth rates is now reflected in enrollment trends. The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) projects a 15% decline in high school graduates between 2025 and 2037 in parts of the Midwest and Northeast.

Aging Population and Shifts in Public Spending

The U.S. population is aging. By 2030, all baby boomers will be over 65. The number of Americans aged 80 and older is expected to rise from 13 million in 2020 to nearly 20 million by 2035. Public resources are being redirected toward Social Security, Medicare, and elder care, placing higher education in direct competition for limited federal and state funds.

State-Level Cuts to Higher Education Budgets

According to the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO), 28 states saw a decline in inflation-adjusted funding per student in FY2024.

The California State University system faces a $400 million structural deficit.
West Virginia has reduced academic programs in favor of workforce-focused realignment.
Indiana has ordered cost-cutting measures across public campuses.

These reductions are leading to fewer courses, increased workloads, and, in some cases, higher tuition.

Closures and Mergers Continue

Since 2020, more than 100 campuses have closed or merged, based on Education Dive and HEI data. In 2025, Penn State began closing three Commonwealth Campuses. A number of small private colleges—especially those with enrollments under 1,000 and limited endowments—are seeking mergers or shutting down entirely.

International Enrollment Faces Obstacles

The Institute of International Education (IIE) reports a 12% decline in new international student enrollment in Fall 2024. Contributing factors include visa delays and tighter immigration rules. Students from India, Nigeria, and Iran have experienced longer wait times and increased rejection rates. Graduate programs in STEM and business are particularly affected.

Increased Surveillance and Restrictions on Campus Speech

Data from FIRE and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) show increased use of surveillance tools on campuses since 2023. At least 15 public universities now use facial recognition, social media monitoring, or geofencing. State laws in Florida, Texas, and Georgia have introduced new restrictions on protests and diversity programs.

Automated Education Expands

Online Program Managers (OPMs) such as 2U, Kaplan, and Coursera are running over 500 online degree programs at more than 200 institutions, enrolling more than 1.5 million students. These programs often rely on AI-generated content and automated grading systems, with minimal instructor interaction.

Research from the Century Foundation shows that undergraduate programs operated by OPMs have completion rates below 35%, while charging tuition comparable to in-person degrees. Regulatory efforts to improve transparency and accountability remain stalled.

Oversight Gaps Remain

Accrediting agencies continue to approve closures, mergers, and new credential programs with limited transparency. Institutions are increasingly expanding short-term credential offerings and corporate partnerships with minimal external review.

Cost Shifts to Students, Faculty, and Communities

The ongoing restructuring of higher education is shifting costs and risks onto students, employees, and communities. Students face rising tuition, fewer available courses, and increased reliance on loans. Faculty and staff encounter job insecurity and heavier workloads. Outside the ivory tower, communities will lose access to educational services, cultural events, and local employment opportunities tied to campuses.

The Higher Education Inquirer will continue to report on the structural changes in U.S. higher education—grounded in data, public records, and the lived experiences of those directly affected.

Sources:
National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE), U.S. Census Bureau, State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO), Institute of International Education (IIE), Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Government Accountability Office (GAO), The Century Foundation, Stanford University, University of Oregon, Penn State University System, Harvard Kennedy School, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Education Dive Higher Ed Closures Tracker, American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

Applauding a Brave Stand for Academic Freedom at the Harvard Crimson

In a moment when academic institutions often yield to external pressure, The Harvard Crimson recently delivered a vital reminder of what true scholarly integrity looks like. Its coverage of the open letter signed by more than 360 academics worldwide—demanding accountability from the Harvard Education Publishing Group (HEPG) for its abrupt cancellation of a special issue on Palestine and education—deserves high praise.

A Stand Against Scholasticide

The canceled issue, initially slated for release following a full editorial process, was pulled two months prior to publication under the pretext of “copy-editing issues” and editorial misalignment. Yet scholars and editors viewed this as censorship—what some have called “scholasticide”—undermining both academic freedom and HEPG’s mission. The Harvard Educational Review (HER) student editorial board publicly denounced the move, describing it as inconsistent with the journal’s nearly century-long legacy.

Global Solidarity and Moral Clarity

The open letter drew signatures from professors across more than 55 institutions worldwide—an extraordinary act of scholarly solidarity. Signatories demanded HEPG acknowledge its decision as discriminatory, reverse the cancellation, and safeguard editorial independence from political interference. In doing so, they upheld academic freedom not simply as institutional rhetoric, but as a moral imperative.

Why The Harvard Crimson Coverage Matters

The Crimson’s reporting illuminated an issue too often buried in bureaucratic opacity. It traced the timeline of a late-stage “legal risk assessment” that derailed the issue and documented the dismay of editors and authors. More importantly, it framed the cancellation as a threat not only to scholarship on Palestine, but to academic freedom more broadly.

By bringing this story to light, The Crimson demonstrated what real student journalism can achieve: holding power to account, amplifying marginalized voices, and ensuring that critical debates remain visible.

In Defense of Ideas, Especially Contested Ones

In polarized times, academic freedom can feel precarious—especially when certain topics trigger political sensitivities. The cancellation of a Palestine-focused issue raises alarms that should not be ignored. What The Crimson provided was more than reporting; it was a rallying moment, a reminder that student journalists and scholars worldwide can resist institutional silence.

Academic Freedom Must Be Defended

The Harvard Crimson’s coverage is a model for higher education journalism—courageous, unflinching, and morally clear. By spotlighting both the injustice of the cancellation and the global academic response, The Crimson affirmed that when institutions retreat, journalism can still advance the cause of truth.

May this moment remind us: academic freedom is never guaranteed. It must be defended—and applauded—when it is under threat.

---

Sources

• The Harvard Crimson, “Over 360 Academics Sign Letter Condemning Harvard Education Publishing Group’s Cancellation of Palestine Issue” (Aug. 15, 2025)

• The Harvard Crimson, “Harvard Educational Review Cancels Special Issue on Palestine” (July 24, 2025)

• Wikipedia, Harvard Educational Review entry

• Open letter from international scholars to HEPG (2025)

• American Association of University Professors (AAUP), 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure

• Joan Wallach Scott, Knowledge, Power, and Academic Freedom (2019)

• Matthew Hedges, Repression and Academic Freedom in the Middle East (2021)

• Steven Salaita, Uncivil Rites: Palestine and the Limits of Academic Freedom (2015)

American Sororities: Class, Race, Gender, and the Return of "Tradition"

At flagship universities across the United States, predominantly white sororities remain popular institutions. They offer young women a ready-made community, social capital, and access to alumni networks. But behind this appeal lies a system that reinforces race, class, and gender hierarchies—at a time when women’s rights are being rolled back nationally.

Race and Class Tradition: Who Belongs, Who Does Not

Sororities are not only racially homogeneous but also heavily skewed by class. Recruitment practices, legacy ties, and financial obligations ensure that sorority life remains a domain for the affluent.

At Princeton University, 77% of sorority members are white, compared with 47% of the student body overall.

Socioeconomic trends are even starker. In 1999, 31% of Greek-affiliated students at Princeton identified as middle-class, but by 2024 that number had dropped to 14%. Over the same period, those identifying as upper-class doubled from 14% to 28%.

At the University of Mississippi, 48% of high school graduates in the state were Black in 2021, but only 8% of first-year students at Ole Miss were Black. White-dominated Greek life continues to thrive in this climate of underrepresentation.

A multi-campus study found 72% of Greek members identified as middle- or upper-middle class, compared with just 6% from low-income families.

These figures reveal how sororities work to reproduce the advantages of affluent white families. Membership offers exclusive networking, internships, and social connections—often denied to working-class students, students of color, and first-generation college students.

Gender Tradition

Sororities also sustain a vision of femininity rooted in conformity, beauty standards, and heteronormativity. Social events are structured around fraternities, placing men as hosts and leaders, while sorority women serve as companions or supporters.

While some sororities claim empowerment through philanthropy and sisterhood, the cultural framework continues to emphasize women’s value through appearance and deference, not leadership. This pattern reflects broader societal pressures to restore traditional gender roles.

The Broader Context: The Right to Choose Lost

The Supreme Court’s 2022 reversal of Roe v. Wade has had profound consequences for women in the U.S.

More than 25 million women of reproductive age now live in states with abortion bans or severe restrictions.

States with the most restrictive abortion laws show a 7% increase in maternal mortality overall, and 51% higher rates where laws require procedures only from licensed physicians.

The loss of Roe’s protections especially harms women of color and low-income women, who already face barriers to healthcare and mobility.

Against this backdrop, sororities’ popularity at flagship universities is revealing. These organizations celebrate conformity to class privilege and traditional gender expectations, while millions of women outside those circles see their reproductive freedoms curtailed. The alignment of sorority culture with conservative visions of femininity makes them more than relics of tradition—they become cultural reinforcers of the very inequalities deepening in U.S. society.

Why Class Matters

Social class is at the heart of the issue. Sororities provide access to powerful networks that translate into internships, job placements, and lifelong advantages. These networks overwhelmingly serve the wealthy and exclude those already disadvantaged by race, class, and gender.

At a time when women’s bodily autonomy is under political attack, the popularity of predominantly white sororities signals how elite spaces continue to consolidate privilege for a narrow group of women—while the majority face shrinking freedoms and growing precarity.

Sources

Princeton Greek life demographics (tcf.org)

Princeton Class of 2024 socioeconomic trends (dailyprincetonian.com)

University of Mississippi racial disparities (hechingerreport.org)

National Greek life class survey (vox.com)

Women under abortion bans: 25 million affected (americanprogress.org)

Abortion bans and maternal mortality (sph.tulane.edu

Trump’s “Manhattan Project” for AI Chips: U.S. Scrambles as China Reaps Neoliberal Legacy

The Trump administration is reportedly considering an extraordinary intervention in the private sector: partially nationalizing Intel Corp., one of America’s leading semiconductor manufacturers. Sources say the government is exploring a stake in the company—a move experts liken to the Manhattan Project or the early space race.

MIT AI computer scientist Dave Blundin described the effort on a podcast with MIT engineer Peter Diamandis as “every bit as important as the space race was, as the nuclear arms race was. Actually, it’s more important.” Intel’s advanced semiconductor capabilities could reduce U.S. dependence on foreign fabrication plants, particularly in Taiwan, which controls more than 60 percent of global chip production.

Decades of Missteps

Yet the urgency behind the move is rooted not in technological inevitability, but in decades of strategic missteps. Neoliberal policies pursued by U.S. administrations and corporate elites deliberately outsourced manufacturing and critical technology to China to cut labor costs. Over time, this strategy handed Beijing a decisive advantage in semiconductors, AI, and advanced technology, leaving the United States reactive and vulnerable.

The potential nationalization of Intel—a step usually reserved for wartime or extreme crises—signals a dramatic departure from free-market principles. By directly involving the federal government in a major private firm, the administration privileges corporate elites, bypassing both market competition and public accountability. Intel declined to comment on the discussions but emphasized its commitment to supporting the administration’s technology and manufacturing priorities.

China and Taiwan

Blundin warned the move puts the industry on a “war footing,” likening it to a mobilization for conflict, with supply chains and fabs as the battlefield. Analysts stress urgency: China may attempt to take over Taiwan sooner rather than later. Unlike the United States, China operates under a coordinated, authoritarian system that fuses government strategy and industrial capacity to dominate global technology—a stark structural advantage over the fragmented, elite-driven U.S. approach.

Recent deals highlight the U.S.’s reactive posture. Last week, Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) agreed to hand over 15 percent of their chip sales revenue in China to the U.S. government in exchange for export licenses. Experts warn that while these arrangements provide short-term financial gains, they also strengthen China’s AI and military capabilities. Liza Tobin, former China director at the National Security Council, called the deal “an own goal” likely to incentivize Beijing to escalate its technology development and demand further concessions.

Trump has also threatened a 100 percent tariff on imports unless chips are manufactured domestically. If Intel is partially nationalized, it would mark one of the most significant government interventions in U.S. industry in decades—demonstrating both a departure from free-market capitalism and a concentration of power in the hands of elites.

The U.S.’s current scramble illustrates a deeper crisis. Decades of neoliberal policies, elite capture, and weakening democratic institutions have left the nation ill-prepared to compete against a strategically unified authoritarian China. Semiconductor leadership is no longer just an economic or technological matter—it is a test of whether the United States can reclaim strategic sovereignty while defending democracy and free-market principles, or whether it will continue to lose ground to authoritarian advantage.

Sources: Bloomberg, Financial Times, The New York Times, MIT Podcast with Dave Blundin & Peter Diamandis