Same Predators, New Logo: PXED — A $22 Billion Student‑Debt Gamble Investors Should Beware

Warning to Investors: Phoenix Education Partners (PXED) may present itself as a cutting‑edge solution in career-focused higher education, but it’s built on the same extractive infrastructure that powered the University of Phoenix. With nearly a million students still owing an estimated $22 billion in federal loans, backing PXED isn’t just a financial bet — it’s a moral and reputational risk.

PXED’s leadership includes powerful private-equity players: Martin H. Nesbitt (Co‑CEO of Vistria and PXED trustee), Adnan Nisar (Vistria), and Theodore Kwon and Itai Wallach (Apollo Global Management). Also in the mix is Chris Lynne, PXED’s president and a former Phoenix CFO intimately familiar with UOP’s controversial enrollment and marketing strategies. These are not educational reformers — they are dealmakers aiming to extract value from a student-debt pipeline.

Higher Education Inquirer’s College Meltdown Index highlights how PXED fits into a broader financialization of higher education. Rather than reforming the University of Phoenix, its backers have resurrected it under a new brand — one that continues to enroll vulnerable adult learners, harvest federal aid, and operate with considerably less public oversight. 

Whistleblowers previously documented that Phoenix pressured recruitment staff to falsify student credentials, enrolling people who wouldn’t otherwise qualify for federal aid. Courses were allegedly kept deliberately easy — not to teach, but to keep students “active” enough to trigger aid disbursements. Internal marketing also exaggerated job prospects and corporate partnerships (e.g., with Microsoft and AT&T) to entice students. 

PXED may lean on a three‑year default rate (often cited around 12–13%), but that number is deeply misleading. Many UOP students stay stuck in deferment, forbearance, or income-driven repayment, masking the real long-term risk of non-payment. This is not just a short-term liability — it’s a potentially massive, multiyear financial exposure for PXED’s backers.

There was a significant FTC settlement that canceled $141 million in student debt and refunded $50 million to some students. But the scale of harm far exceeds that payout. Untold numbers of borrowers still have unresolved Borrower Defense claims, and the reputational risk remains profound.

Beyond financial concerns, there’s a major ethical dimension. HEI’s Divestment from Predatory Education argument makes a compelling case that investing in companies like PXED — or in loan servicers that profit from student debt — is not just risky, but morally indefensible. According to HEI, institutional investors (including university endowments, pension funds, and foundations) are complicit in a system that monetizes students’ aspirations and perpetuates financial harm. 

For investors, the message is clear: Phoenix is not merely an education play — it’s a high-stakes, ethically fraught extraction machine built on a legacy of indebtedness and regulatory vulnerability.

Unless PXED commits to real transparency, independent reporting on student outcomes, and accountability mechanisms — including reparations or debt relief — it should be approached not as a social-growth story, but as a dangerous gamble.

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Sources

• HEI. “Divestment from Predatory Education Stocks: A Moral Imperative.” Higher Education Inquirer

• HEI. “The College Meltdown Index: Profiting from the Wreckage of American Higher Education.” Higher Education Inquirer

• HEI. “What Do the University of Phoenix and Risepoint Have in Common? The Answer Is a Compelling Story of Greed and Politics.” Higher Education Inquirer

• HEI. “University of Phoenix Uses ‘Sandwich Moms’ to Sell a Debt Trap.” Higher Education Inquirer

• HEI. “New Data Show Nearly a Million University of Phoenix Debtors Owe $21.6 Billion.” Higher Education

MAGA Trump Influencers TARGET Gen Z in Extremist GOP TAKEOVER (Political Punk)

The MAGA movement is recruiting a new generation... and they’re doing it through the manosphere. From Nick Fuentes to Andrew Tate, a growing army of Trump-aligned influencers is targeting Gen Z boys who feel left behind… promising power, purpose, and belonging while feeding resentment and hate. This isn’t random... it’s a strategy. The “alpha” pipeline is reshaping the Republican Party from the inside out, one lonely teenager at a time. Watch how these extremist influencers are using religion to turn alienation into political weaponry… and building Trump’s future GOP.

Study: California, Michigan, Kentucky and Missouri have increased per student public spending the most since the pandemic (Reason Foundation)

[Editor's note: Reason Foundation is a libertarian think tank. While this press release does not reflect our editorial position, we believe important information is in this report.]

Public school enrollment has dropped the most in Hawaii, New York, Mississippi, Oregon, and California, while teachers’ salaries decreased the most in North Carolina, New Mexico, South Carolina, and West Virginia. 

Los Angeles (November 20, 2025)—California has increased per-student education spending the most in the nation since the COVID-19 pandemic, up 31.5% from $19,724 in 2020 to $25,941 per pupil in 2023. Since the pandemic, per-student spending has also grown by at least 15% in Michigan, Kentucky, Missouri, Hawaii, New Mexico, Arizona, Mississippi, and Alabama, according to a new Reason Foundation study.

U.S. public schools received $946.5 billion in funding in 2023, with New York topping all states by spending $36,976 per student, followed by New Jersey at $30,267 per student. The other six states that spent over $25,000 per student were Vermont ($29,169), Connecticut ($28,975), Pennsylvania ($26,242), California ($25,941), Rhode Island ($25,709), and Hawaii ($25,485).

Idaho was the only state that spent less than $12,000 per student in 2023. Utah, Oklahoma and North Carolina spent less than $14,000 per student.

While public school spending is rising, enrollment has been falling significantly since the pandemic. From 2020 to 2023, public school enrollment dropped in 39 states, the Reason Foundation report shows.

With a 6% decrease, Hawaii has experienced the largest decline in public school students since 2020. Enrollment also decreased by more than five percent in New York, Mississippi, Oregon, and California, and four percent in New Mexico, New Hampshire, Illinois, West Virginia, Colorado, Kentucky, Washington, Rhode Island, and Michigan, Reason Foundation finds.

The pandemic and inflation also hit teachers’ salaries hard. From 2020 to 2022, the average teacher’s salary decreased by more than five percent in 38 states.

Teachers’ salaries declined the most from 2020 to 2022, the most recent year with complete data available, in North Carolina (−9.6%), New Mexico (−8.8%), South Carolina (−8.7%), West Virginia (−8.6%), and Mississippi (−8.2%). Only one state, Minnesota, increased teachers’ salaries after the pandemic, the study by Reason Foundation shows.

One thing siphoning money away from salaries is the rising spending on employee benefits, which includes teacher retirement plans and pension debt, health insurance, and other expenses.

In 2023, New Jersey’s employee benefit costs totaled $8,333 per student. In New York, the cost of benefits was $7,949 per student. Vermont and Connecticut also spent more than $7,000 per student on employee benefits. Employee benefit costs also exceeded $5,000 per student in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Michigan, Massachusetts, Delaware, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Wyoming, and Alaska.

Amid all the spending, students’ National Assessment of Educational Progress scores regressed from 2022 to 2024 in all but one category, and scores were worse in 2024 than in 2003.

The findings are part of Reason Foundation’s K-12 Education Spotlight. You can find an overview of these key findings here and detailed data from each state’s school finance system from 2002 to 2023 here.

Contact:
Kelvey Vander Hart
Communications Specialist, Reason Foundation
Cell: (515) 954-8256

Higher Education Labor United ("HELU") November 2025 Report

 

November 2025 HELU Chair's Message

Billionaires and the ultra-wealthy have no place in setting the future agenda for higher ed. We – the students, community members, workers that actually make the campus work – do.

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Upcoming Events:

(today!) November 19 - HELU Open House November 20 - HELU General Assembly   December 17 - HELU Open House

Higher Ed Labor in the News:

‘Not something that you fight once’ | Unions participate in Day of Action for Higher Education - PSU Daily Collegian Students and faculty at over 100 US universities protest against Trump’s attacks - The Guardian Harvard Custodians Begin Two-Day Strike for New Contract - The Harvard Crimson  Tens of Thousands of UC Workers Set to Strike as Nurses Secure Tentative Agreement - KQED HACC faculty union says its next strike won’t stop without a contract - Penn Live Unions Criticize University’s Response to ICE - The Chicago Maroon

From the Blog:

Michigan HELU Coalition hosts town hall for US Senate candidates

In Michigan, the MI HELU coalition decided that we wanted to get ahead of the curve by providing candidates with a forum that focused exclusively on Higher Education and the challenges we are facing.

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Michigan November 7 Day of Action against Trump Compact

Together, we’re fighting back against the demonization of higher ed and we won’t cave to governmental bullying to water down our education system with the goal of elimination. Our students deserve better, and so do we.

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Scholars for a New Deal for Higher Education (SNDHE) Continues Its Advocacy for Higher Education as a Public Good

Founded in 2020 during the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, Scholars for a New Deal for Higher Education (SNDHE) is a group of teachers and researchers committed to rebuilding our colleges and universities so that they can be a true public resource for everyone.

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Federal Cuts, State Consequences: How Washington Is Bleeding New York

And now [New York is] being punished by a federal government that sees organized labor, public education, and social investment as threats instead of strengths.

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Mandate to end remote work disrupts working conditions at University System of Georgia

Public protest and influencing public opinion is keeping UCW (CWA Local 3821) busy. Members have been fighting fiercely to Defend Remote Work at their state institutions.

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Want to support our work? Make a contribution.

We invite you to support HELU's work by making a direct financial contribution. While HELU's main source of income is solidarity pledges from member organizations, these funds from individuals help us to grow capacity as we work to align the higher ed labor movement.

Contribute to HELU

Are Elite Neoliberals and Trump Singing from the Same Sheet of Music?

The silence of America’s elite is deafening. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Yale professor and corporate leadership expert, does not hesitate to call it out. In a recent email, he warned that the nation’s corporate, academic, and religious leaders—once the backbone of moral and civic accountability—are now “smugly, safely, silently on the sidelines,” while authoritarian forces surge.

“Nope,” Sonnenfeld wrote, “but it’s high time for the neo whiners to get off their lazy, cowardly butts and follow the courageous path of activists across sectors and fields from the 1960s and 1970s. It took nine years to get the No Kings rallies going. Shameful.”

He recalls an era when activism cut across sectors: interfaith clergy, college presidents—from elite universities to small faith-based institutions and HBCUs—trade union leaders, professional associations, environmentalists, and human rights advocates all marched together. Blue state treasurers and attorneys general held corporations accountable; red state officials sometimes applied pressure from the opposite side. CEOs, Sonnenfeld reminds us, are mostly “hired hands, stewards of other people’s money” who respond to engaged stakeholders. Without pressure, they retreat into inaction.

Today, the chorus of accountability is eerily silent. Clergy barely speak out. University presidents remain cautious. Activists blog while the nation teeters. Sonnenfeld’s indictment is clear: where once there was collective courage, there is now passivity—an effective alignment with the very forces undermining democracy.

In practical terms, elite inaction has consequences. Trump and his allies wield influence not only through electoral politics but by exploiting institutional inertia. By failing to mobilize, elites—through default inaction—allow a political agenda that often mirrors their own neoliberal priorities to advance unchecked: deregulation, tax favoritism, corporate consolidation, and a shrinking social safety net.

Sonnenfeld’s challenge is urgent: Will today’s corporate boards, clergy, and academic leaders rise to the occasion, reclaim the moral authority they once wielded, and demand accountability from those they employ and fund? Or will the next generation of Americans grow up seeing democracy as a performance, not a lived responsibility?

The 1960s and 1970s were not perfect, but they demonstrated what cross-sectoral solidarity could achieve. Today, silence is complicity. In a nation at moral and political crossroads, elites cannot afford to play it safe. History is watching—and so is the rest of the world.