Higher Education, Technology, and A Growing Social Anxiety

The Era We Are In

We are living in a neoliberal/libertarian era filled with technological change, emotional and behavioral change, and social change. An era resulting in alienation (disconnection/isolation) for the working class and anomie (lawlessness) among elites and those who serve them. We are simultaneously moving forward with technology and backward with human values and principles. Elites are reestablishing a more brutal world, hearkening back to previous centuries--a world the Higher Education Inquirer has been observing and documenting since 2016. No wonder folks of the working class and middle class are anxious. 

Manufactured College Mania

For years, authorities such as the New York Federal Reserve expressed the notion (or perhaps myth) that higher education was an imperative for young folks. They said that the wealth premium for college graduates was a million dollars over the course of a lifetime--ignoring the fact that a large percentage of people who started college never graduated--and that tens of millions of consumers and their families were drowning in student loan debt. 

2U, Guild Education, and a number of online robocolleges reflected the neoliberal promise of higher education and online technology to improve social mobility.  The mainstream media were largely complicit with these higher ed schemes. 

2U brought advanced degrees and certificates to the masses, using brand names such as Harvard, MIT, Yale, USC, University of North Carolina, and the University of Texas to promote the expensive credentials that did not work for many consumers. 

Guild Education brought educational opportunities to folks at Walmart, Target, Macy's and other Fortune 500 companies who would be replacing their workers with robotics, AI, and other technologies. But the educational opportunities were for credentials from subprime online schools like Purdue University Global. Few workers took the bait. 

As 2U files for bankruptcy, it leaves a number of debt holders holding the bag, including more than $500M to Wilmington Trust, and $30M to other vendors and clients, including Guild Education, and a number of elite universities. Guild Education is still alive, but like 2U, has had to fire a quarter of its workers, even downsizing its name to Guild, as investor money dries up. It continues to spend money on its image, as a Team USA sponsor.    

The online robocolleges (including Liberty University, Grand Canyon University, University of Phoenix, Purdue University Global, and University of Arizona Global)  brought adult education and hope to the masses, especially those who were underemployed. In many cases, it was false hope, as they also brought insurmountable student debt to American consumers. Billions and billions in debt that cannot be repaid, now considered toxic assets to the US government. 

Along the way there have been important detractors in popular culture, especially on the right. Conservative radio celebrity Dave Ramsey, railed against irresponsible folks carrying lots of debt, including student loan debt. He was not wrong, but he did not implicate those who preyed on student consumers. On the left, the Debt Collective also railed against student loan debt, long before the right, but they were often ignored or marginalized. 

Adapting to a Brutal System

The system  works for elites and some of those who serve them, but not for others, even some of the middle class. Good jobs once at the end of the education pipeline have been replaced by 12-hour shifts, 60 hour work weeks, bullsh*t jobs, and gig work. 

Working-class Americans are living shorter lives, lives in some cases made worse not so much by lack of education, but by the destruction of union jobs, and by social media, and other intended and unintended consequences of technology and neoliberalism. Millions of folks, working class and some middle class, who have invested in higher education and have overwhelming debt and fading job prospects, feel like they have been lied to.

We also have lives made more sedentary and solitary by technology. Lives made more hectic and less tolerable. Inequality making lives too easy for those with privilege and lives too difficult for the working class to manage. Lives managed by having fewer relationships and fewer children. Many smartly choosing not to bring children into this new world. All of this manufactured by technology and human greed.  

The College Dream is Over...for the Working Class

There are two competing messages about higher education: the first that college brings opportunity and wealth and the second, that higher education may bring debt and misery. The truth is, these different messages are meant for two groups: pushing brand name schools and student loans for the most ambitious middle class/working class and a lesser form of education for the struggling working class. 

In 2020, Gary Roth said that the college dream was over. Yet the socially manufactured college mania continues, flooding the internet with ads for college and college loans, as social realities point to a future with fewer good and meaningful jobs even for those with degrees. Higher education will continue to work for some, but should every consumer, especially among the struggling working class, believe the message is for them? 

Related links:

More than half of college grads are stuck in jobs that don't require degrees (msn.com)

AI-ROBOT CAPITALISTS WILL DESTROY THE HUMAN ECONOMY (Randall Collins)

Edtech Meltdown 

Guild Education: Enablers of Anti-Union Corporations and Subprime College Programs

2U Declares Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. Will Anyone Else Name All The Elite Universities That Were Complicit?

College Mania!: An Open Letter to the NY Fed (2019)

"Let's all pretend we couldn't see it coming": The US Working-Class Depression (2020)

The College Dream is Over (Gary Roth, 2020)

GOP Attorneys General Shop for Judges in Effort to Crush Student Loan Debtors (David Halperin, Republic Report)

[Editor's note: This article originally appeared on Republic Report.] 

When a federal trial judge in St. Louis issued an order last week blocking the latest Biden-Harris administration student loan relief plan, the Republican state attorneys general who filed the case gleefully celebrated yet another court victory over Americans struggling to pay their college debts. But those GOP AGs apparently don’t want to discuss the route by which the case arrived in Missouri: They seemingly tried to hand-pick a federal judge in coastal Georgia to hear their complaint, only to have that judge, a close associate of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, mysteriously recuse from the matter, and then have a second Georgia federal judge, after granting temporary relief, ship the case to St. Louis.

Let’s break all that down.

On October 3, U.S. District Judge Matthew T. Schelp of the Eastern District of Missouri issued a preliminary injunction barring the Department of Education from implementing proposed regulations to provide student debt relief to several major categories of borrowers, including those who owe more than they first borrowed because of mounting interest, those who have made payments for more than 20 years, and those whose schools failed to offer them “sufficient financial value.” The Biden administration estimated the new rules would completely cancel student debt for 4 million people and erase accrued interest for 23 million.

Judge Schelp held that the GOP AGs were likely to succeed on their claim that the Department of Education lacked the legal authority to cancel all this debt without authorization from Congress.

The ruling was another notable case of extreme judicial activism by supposedly “conservative” judges; Schelp, unusually, struck down the proposed rule before the Department of Education had even finalized it.

Persis Yu, Deputy Executive Director and Managing Counsel at the non-profit Student Borrower Protection Center, said in a statement that Judge Schelp’s ruling was marked by “a dearth of legal reasoning.”

But Judge Schelp, a Donald Trump appointee, is not the first federal judge to handle the latest case in the month since it was filed. He is, remarkably, the fifth.

Led by Missouri attorney general Andrew Bailey, and that state’s solicitor general, Josh Divine, the states of Missouri, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, North Dakota, and Ohio filed the lawsuit, against the education department, on September 3 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia, and specifically in that court’s division based in Brunswick, Georgia, on the state’s east coast, close to the Florida state line.

The Brunswick Division has exactly one U.S. District Judge: Lisa Godbey Wood, appointed by George W. Bush.

The Georgia attorney general’s office tends to file its significant federal lawsuits in the U.S. District Court in Atlanta. So why was this action to nullify major student debt relief filed in Brunswick, when the Georgia AG doesn’t even have staff there and had to rely on a private local lawyer to assist? There was always the risk that a case filed in Atlanta would be assigned to a judge skeptical of the Republican AGs’ effort to void debt relief, including whether the AGs would have legal standing to contest the action. Perhaps the GOP AGs thought Judge Wood was a better bet to do what they wanted.

But the same day that the case was filed, Judge Wood issued a two-sentence order recusing herself and transferring the case to R. Stan Baker, Chief Judge of the Southern District of Georgia. Wood did not state the reason she was recusing.

The next day, Chief Judge Baker issued an order reassigning the case to another judge on the court, J. Randall Hall, also a George W. Bush appointee.

One observer posited to me that the GOP AGs might have already known that Judge Wood had a reason for recusal when they filed the case in front of her; under this theory, the AGs bet that, after Judge Wood recused, Chief Judge Baker would hand-assign the case to another “conservative” judge who would be a good bet to strike down the new Biden student debt rules.

That theory might sound far-fetched. But the day after receiving the case, Judge Hall granted the GOP AGs’ motion for a temporary restraining order, thus blocking the regulations. On September 19, after yet another member of the court, Magistrate Judge Christopher L. Ray, had handled several preliminary motions in the case, Hall extended the restraining order an additional two weeks while he considered the AGs’ motion for a longer preliminary injunction.

But on October 2, Judge Hall threw a curveball: He granted the Department of Education’s motion to dismiss the state of Georgia from the case, holding, appropriately, that Georgia had not demonstrated an interest sufficiently concrete to provide standing to contest the debt regulations. In short, Georgia did not have a significant interest in ensuring that its own citizens, and those of other states, would remain mired in student loan debt.

With Georgia out of the litigation, Judge Hall further ruled that a federal court in Georgia was not the proper venue for the case. He transferred the lawsuit to Missouri, holding that that state had “clear standing” based on the potential harm the rule posed to MOHELA, Missouri’s student loan agency.

The transfer set the stage for the Missouri judge’s decision, the very next day after the case was sent over from Georgia, that blocked the Biden rule pending final resolution of the lawsuit.

So the GOP AGs got the outcome they wanted, at least for now. But why didn’t they go to Missouri, where the argument for standing to bring the case was much stronger, in the first place?

“It appears that the Missouri AG has achieved through dumb luck what they were hoping to get through strategic maneuvering,” Persis Yu told me. “Getting transferred to the Eastern District of Missouri was not necessarily going to be in their favor, which is why I assume they avoided it in the first place. While no liberal oasis, there are a number of Democratic-appointed judges, and so the outcome they got was far from guaranteed.”

But, Yu says, through apparently random assignment the GOP AGs ended up with Schelp, “one of the most ideologically driven judges, who is seemingly happy to eviscerate precedent and the [federal Administrative Procedure Act] to give the Missouri AG what he is looking for.”

Spokespersons for the AGs wouldn’t tell me why they didn’t file in Missouri in the first place, and declined to opine on the reason for Judge Wood’s recusal.

Kara Murray, communications director for Georgia attorney general Chris Carr, said their office was “unable to speak” to my questions, and simply noted that the Missouri District Court “immediately granted a preliminary injunction.”

Madeline Sieren, communications director for Missouri Attorney General Bailey, told me her office “cannot answer these questions at this time, as litigation is ongoing.” She added, “Happy to answer questions that don’t reveal litigation strategy or speculate on judges’ recusal decisions.”

Sieren referred me to Attorney General Bailey’s X (formerly Twitter) feed, where he crowed about the court victory. “A huge -and quick – win for every American who won’t have to pay for someone else’s Ivy League debt,” Bailey tweeted, ignoring that many of those who would benefit from the Biden debt relief plan are struggling middle- and low-income Americans who were scammed by high-priced for-profit colleges. And also ignoring that getting all these people out of heavy debt would help them to have families, buy homes, go back to school, and engage in other activity that would boost the U.S. economy.

Attorney General Bailey struck out with the U.S. Supreme Court in August when, facing a primary election challenge from a lawyer who has represented Donald Trump, he made an absurd effort to press the high court to halt Trump’s criminal sentencing in New York until after the November election. (Bailey won his primary, and the New York judge, Juan Merchan, eventually postponed the sentence on his own.)

The case in which Judge Schelp issued his injunction is the third lawsuit led by Attorney General Bailey to halt the Biden administration’s efforts to grant debt relied to student loan borrowers. Over the summer, the St. Louis-based 8th Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily blocked an earlier Biden debt relief plan called SAVE, as well as blocking parts of other federal Income-Driven Repayment plans on which millions of borrowers have long relied to reduce their debt burden.

Bailey originated that case, Missouri v. Biden, by suing in the St. Louis federal court, but this time he decided to try Brunswick, Georgia, and its only judge.

Shopping for judges is not a new tactic for Republican attorneys general in their quest to nullify Biden administration regulations (or for the for-profit college industry in its efforts to do the same). But proposed federal legislation to curb judge-shopping has gone nowhere in the bitterly divided U.S. Congress.

(Democratic attorneys general and progressive groups often appeared to try judge shopping during the Trump administration, especially by filing in California, headquarters of the relatively liberal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, but California federal district court rules assign cases at random within a district, preventing the automatic assignment to a local federal judge by filing in a specific courthouse.)

Missouri’s solicitor general, Josh Divine, who has been litigating the case for Bailey’s office, is a former aide to U.S. senator Josh Hawley (R-MO). He also was once a law clerk for Judge William Pryor of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, the appellate region that includes Georgia, and perhaps gained some familiarity with Judge Wood and Judge Baker in that capacity. After clerking for Pryor, Divine clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and Divine trumpets his fandom of Thomas aggressively, calling Thomas “the GOAT Supreme Court Justice.”

Meanwhile, Justice Thomas appears to be a fan of Brunswick’s Judge Wood. When Wood was sworn in for her own term as Chief Judge of the Southern District of Georgia in 2010, Justice Thomas, a south Georgia native, showed up to effusively praise her.

When you have MAGA-inspired attorneys general and MAGA-connected judges and justices endless gaming the system and ignoring long-standing legal precedents, fairness and justice are crushed, as are, in this instance, the hopes and dreams of generations of hard-working Americans who are buried under insurmountable student loan debt.

Trump 2024 and the Student Loan Portfolio

The US Department of Education (ED) handles the student loans of about 40 million US citizens, holding on to about $1.6 Trillion in debt--which is considered an asset to the US government.  And ED-FSA (Federal Student Aid) hires tens of thousands of workers, mostly contractors, to service the debt. But that could change in a few years. If Donald Trump is elected President.  

Under President Trump, debtors might expect that their loans to be transferred over to large corporations--at some point--with the sale being used to reduce the federal deficit, and to cut labor at ED. This would aid in the effort to eliminate the US Department of Education, as Trump has promised on the campaign trail.

Selling off the student loan debt portfolio may or may not require approval from anyone outside of the President. At least one study, by McKinsey & Company, has already been conducted regarding this possibility. 

In 2019, the Trump administration hired McKinsey to analyze the $1.5 trillion federal student loan portfolio. This analysis was part of a broader effort to explore options for managing the portfolio, including potentially selling off some of the debt. Results were never published. The analysis was conducted alongside a study by FI Consulting, which focused on the economic value of the portfolio, noting that the valuation could vary depending on future default rates, prepayment rates, and economic conditions.

The new owners of the sold off debt would most likely be big banks and other large companies, both domestic and foreign, that find value in the debt. There would be political and social resistance.  And many questions would need to be answered, in detail.

Would large banks or other large corporations be better stewards of the debt?

Would the bidding be transparent?  

Would consumers be able to challenge loan repayments or ask for forgiveness?  

What would happen to the contracts of the existing debt servicers?  

Will this expand the existing Student Loan Asset-Backed Securities market? 

Related link:

The Student Loan Mess Updated: Debt as a Form of Social Control and Political Action

Liberty University Targeting Vets for Robocollege Master's Degrees

Liberty University, one of the largest Christian universities in the world, has built an educational empire by promoting conservative values and offering flexible online degree programs to hundreds of thousands of students. But behind the pious branding and patriotic marketing lies a troubling pattern: Liberty University Online has become a master’s degree debt factory, churning out credentials of questionable value while generating billions in student loan debt.

Massive Debt Load: New Federal Data

The Higher Education Inquirer has recently received a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) response (25-01939-F) confirming the staggering financial footprint of Liberty University’s loan-driven model. According to the data, more than 290,000 Liberty University student loan debtors collectively owe over $8 billion in federal student loan debt.

This figure places Liberty among the nation’s top producers of student debt, especially at the graduate level. The data underscores the scale of Liberty’s online operation—and raises serious concerns about the value students are receiving in return for their investment.

From Moral Majority to Mass Marketing

Founded in 1971 by televangelist Jerry Falwell Sr., Liberty University was created to train “Champions for Christ.” In the 2000s, the university reinvented itself through online education, growing from a modest evangelical college into a global mega-university. Today, nearly 95,000 students are enrolled online—most of them nontraditional learners pursuing graduate credentials in fields like education, business, counseling, and theology.

This transformation was powered by digital marketing, religious rhetoric, and direct appeals to working adults and veterans. But what has emerged is a high-volume, low-engagement “robocollege” model that has led to massive student debt and mixed outcomes.

A For-Profit Model in Nonprofit Clothing

Though it operates as a nonprofit, Liberty functions much like a for-profit college. Its online programs generate an estimated $1 billion in annual revenue, mostly through federal student aid and military education benefits.

Students are funneled into fast-tracked, eight-week master’s programs that promise convenience but often fail to deliver quality or post-graduate opportunity. According to U.S. Department of Education data, median graduate student debt at Liberty ranges from $40,000 to $70,000, while returns on investment—measured in earnings and job placement—are questionable at best.

Robocollege for Warriors

Liberty markets itself as a military-friendly institution and has enrolled over 40,000 military-affiliated students in recent years. Through patriotic branding and targeted discounts, the university appeals to service members seeking affordable, faith-based education.

However, Liberty does not extend military tuition discounts to LGBTQ spouses or partners, effectively excluding same-sex families from benefits offered to heterosexual military couples. This discriminatory policy contradicts federal nondiscrimination principles but has gone unchallenged by any federal oversight agency, including the U.S. Department of Education, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The absence of accountability underscores a broader pattern: religious institutions like Liberty continue to receive billions in public funds while applying selective moral frameworks to exclude marginalized communities.

Liberty’s discriminatory practices add insult to injury for LGBTQ military students and their families, who are asked to sacrifice for their country but denied equal access to educational support.

Automated, Ideologically Charged Learning

Liberty’s academic model is highly automated and often superficial. Online coursework typically consists of textbook readings, quizzes, and templated discussion posts—with little direct instruction or feedback from faculty. Many students report that religious ideology is embedded in even technical fields, from business to engineering.

“They put scripture in every assignment—sometimes where it makes no sense,” said one former student.
“It’s more like an indoctrination pipeline than a graduate school,” added a military spouse who withdrew from the program.

Liberty’s online aviation program came under fire in 2023 when the VA suspended GI Bill payments due to quality concerns. Veterans were left stranded mid-program, forced to pause their education or self-fund tuition after losing federal support.

A Dual Identity: Race and Class Divides

Liberty’s racial and socioeconomic divides are stark. Its residential campus in Lynchburg, Virginia, is 74% white, with just 4% of students identifying as Black, 5% Latino, and 2% Asian or Pacific Islander. The number of African American students on campus has declined in recent years, even as national college demographics diversify.

This imbalance reflects Liberty’s historical roots: founder Jerry Falwell Sr. publicly defended racial segregation and opposed civil rights legislation in the 1960s. While Liberty has distanced itself from these positions rhetorically, the legacy remains visible in the composition and culture of the on-campus student body.

In contrast, Liberty University Online (LUO) is much more diverse. In 2017, only 51% of LUO undergraduates were white, and 15.4% identified as Black. Many LUO students are older, work full-time, and represent the multiracial, working-class America that Liberty’s campus culture does not reflect or represent.

Exploiting Faith and Patriotism

Liberty’s marketing presents education as a spiritual and patriotic calling—especially appealing to military families and first-generation students seeking purpose and stability. But behind the inspirational messaging lies a hard financial truth: many students are left with heavy debt and degrees that may not align with licensure standards or employer expectations.

Liberty pours resources into advertising and retention but spends comparatively little on faculty pay, student advising, or academic support. Complaints about misleading information, difficulty transferring credits, and job placement struggles are common.

Lack of Oversight, Political Protection

Despite numerous scandals—including leadership resignations, sexual misconduct coverups, and allegations of financial mismanagement—Liberty continues to operate with limited regulatory scrutiny. Its nonprofit status and political influence, particularly within conservative circles, shield it from the kind of oversight faced by for-profit colleges.

During the Trump administration, higher education accountability was dramatically weakened, giving Liberty and similar institutions near-total freedom to expand unchecked. That permissive environment remains largely intact.

A Cautionary Tale in Christian Capitalism

Liberty University’s rise reveals a troubling convergence of religion, profit, and political power. What’s marketed as moral education is often little more than credential inflation funded by public debt. And for students of color, LGBTQ families, and military veterans, the promises of upward mobility too often end in disappointment—and financial ruin.

With more than 290,000 Liberty student loan debtors owing over $8 billion, the scale of Liberty’s impact on the nation’s student debt crisis is undeniable. Yet its discriminatory practices, especially against LGBTQ military families, go unanswered by federal authorities.

For an institution claiming to train "Champions for Christ," Liberty’s actions tell a different story—one where profit is paramount, and equity is an afterthought.

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The Higher Education Inquirer will continue investigating Liberty University and similar institutions, particularly those profiting from vulnerable populations under the banners of faith, freedom, and flag.

Why College Matters: Out of Touch with Social Class Realities

Serve Marketing's Why College Matters media campaign stacks the deck in favor of higher education and expects consumers to believe the story they tell. The problem with this campaign, and its anonymous funders, is that for many folks, college (and life after college) is problematic at best and oppressive at worst. 

 

The Higher Education Disconnect: What Survey Results Miss About Americans' Real Concerns

The Why College Matters campaign presents data suggesting Americans' perceptions of higher education can be positively influenced through messaging. However, when compared with broader research on Americans' attitudes toward higher education, significant disconnects emerge. This analysis examines the gaps between the campaign's focus and the well-documented concerns Americans have about today's college experience.

The Financial Reality Gap: Debt and Affordability Concerns

The Why College Matters campaign notably avoids addressing one of the most pressing issues facing Americans considering higher education: the financial burden. This omission creates a fundamental disconnect with public sentiment.

Student Debt as a Life-Altering Burden

Recent research shows that 70% of middle-income Americans believe student loans are impacting their ability to achieve financial prosperity5. The psychological burden is equally significant, with 54% of student borrowers experiencing mental health challenges directly attributed to their debt load, including anxiety (56%) and depression (approximately 33%)8.

The campaign's focus on abstract benefits like "growing America's economic prosperity" fails to acknowledge that for many individuals, the immediate economic reality is far less promising. Student borrowers report delaying major life milestones including starting families, purchasing homes, and pursuing careers they're passionate about due to debt constraints8.

The Middle-Class Squeeze

While the campaign targets adults without college degrees as a key demographic, it misses that middle-class families face particularly acute challenges. These families often find themselves in a precarious position - too wealthy to qualify for significant need-based aid but not wealthy enough to comfortably afford college expenses13. This "middle-class squeeze" represents a significant disconnect between survey messaging and lived experience.

The Employment Reality Disconnect

Perhaps the most striking omission in the campaign's framing is the reality of post-graduation employment outcomes, which directly contradicts the economic benefit messaging.

Widespread Underemployment

Research from the Burning Glass Institute reveals a sobering statistic: 52% of recent four-year college graduates are underemployed a year after graduation, holding jobs that don't require a bachelor's degree14. Even more concerning, 45% still don't hold college-level jobs a decade after graduation14. This creates a fundamental disconnect when the campaign emphasizes workforce development without acknowledging this reality.

The "First Job Trap"

The survey frames higher education as broadly beneficial for workforce development but fails to address what researchers call the "first job trap." Data shows that 73% of graduates who start their careers in below-college-level jobs remain underemployed a decade after graduation14. This presents a significantly different picture than the campaign's simplified message about maintaining a skilled workforce.

Credential Inflation: The Devaluing Degree

The campaign messaging presumes that increased educational attainment inherently produces positive outcomes, without addressing the phenomenon of credential inflation that undermines this assumption.

Degrees as Diminishing Returns

Credential inflation refers to the declining value of educational credentials over time, creating a scenario where jobs that once required a high school diploma now demand bachelor's degrees, and positions that required bachelor's degrees now require master's or doctorates11. This creates a paradoxical situation where more education is simultaneously more necessary yet less valuable - a nuance entirely absent from the campaign narrative.

Opportunity Costs Unacknowledged

The campaign frames college primarily through its benefits, without acknowledging significant opportunity costs identified in research. These include delayed savings, fewer years in the workforce, postponement of family formation, and accumulation of debt11. This one-sided framing creates a disconnect with the lived experience of many Americans weighing these very real tradeoffs.

The Growing Generational Divide

The campaign's focus on adults aged 35-64 misses a critical demographic: younger generations who express the most skepticism about higher education's value.

Gen Z's Value Perception Crisis

Only 39% of Gen Z respondents in one study said advancing their education is important to them, and 46% don't believe college is worth the cost15. This represents a fundamental shift in attitude that the campaign's methodology doesn't capture, creating another disconnect between messaging and emerging social reality.

The Civic Disconnection Context

Research on youth disconnection shows broader trends of civic disengagement, with young Americans becoming less connected to community institutions generally19. The campaign's framing of higher education as building community connection happens against this backdrop of declining civic participation - context that provides important nuance missing from the survey design.

Mental Health Concerns: The Hidden Cost

Perhaps the most significant omission in the campaign's messaging is the documented mental health impact of the higher education experience, particularly related to financial strain.

Student Debt as Mental Health Crisis

Research demonstrates clear links between student loan debt and mental health challenges. Beyond anxiety and depression, the financial burden of education impacts overall wellbeing in ways unacknowledged by the campaign messaging816.

Postponed Lives and Dreams

The psychological impact of delayed life milestones due to educational debt creates stress that extends far beyond graduation. Student borrowers report putting their lives on hold - a reality that contradicts the campaign's emphasis on "keeping alive the American dream"8.

Ideological and Cultural Concerns

The campaign notably avoids addressing concerns about campus culture and ideological homogeneity that research shows are significant factors in changing attitudes toward higher education.

Faculty Ideological Imbalance

Research from Harvard University reveals striking ideological homogeneity among faculty, with 37% identifying as "very liberal" and just 1% as "conservative"12. This imbalance contributes to perceptions of higher education as disconnected from the values of many Americans - particularly explaining why the campaign struggled to persuade conservative Americans that "higher education plays a critical role in maintaining a healthy democracy."

Conclusion: Bridging the Perception Gap

The Why College Matters campaign demonstrates that positive messaging can improve abstract perceptions of higher education's value. However, for these improved perceptions to translate into meaningful change in Americans' relationship with higher education, campaigns must address the substantive concerns documented in research.

The disconnects identified here - regarding debt, employment outcomes, credential inflation, generational attitudes, mental health impacts, and ideological concerns - represent real issues that significantly impact Americans' decisions about higher education. Any campaign seeking to genuinely improve perceptions of higher education's value must engage with these realities rather than focusing solely on abstract benefits.

Simply improving "feelings" about higher education without addressing concrete problems risks further widening the gap between institutional messaging and public experience - potentially eroding rather than building trust in higher education as an institution.

Citations:

1. https://www.americansurveycenter.org/research/disconnected-places-and-spaces/
2. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1876&context=aspubs
3. https://stevenschwartz.substack.com/p/degree-inflation-undermining-the
4. https://eab.com/about/newsroom/press/2024-first-year-experience-survey/
5. https://www.newsweek.com/student-loans-hindering-american-prosperity-survey-1839337
6. https://www.burningglassinstitute.org/research/underemployment
7. https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/blogs/higher-ed-gamma/2024/06/03/colleges-and-universities-new-mandate-rebuild-public-trust
8. https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/education/3658639-majority-of-student-loan-borrowers-link-mental-health-issues-to-their-debt/
9. https://measureofamerica.org/youth-disconnection-2024/
10. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1037&context=aysps_dissertations
11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_inflation
12. https://fee.org/articles/harvard-faculty-survey-reveals-striking-ideological-bias-but-more-balanced-higher-education-options-are-emerging/
13. https://www.aaup.org/article/college-financing-and-plight-middle-class
14. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/students/academics/2024/02/22/more-half-recent-four-year-college-grads-underemployed
15. https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-value-of-college-higher-education-student-debt-tuition-2023-12
16. https://lbcurrent.com/opinions/2024/09/04/debts-dilemma-student-loans-and-its-effects-on-mental-health/
17. https://www.cssny.org/news/entry/national-poll-economic-hardships-american-middle-class-true-cost-of-living-press-release
18. https://www.acenet.edu/Documents/Anatomy-of-College-Tuition.pdf
19. https://www.cis.org.au/publication/degree-inflation-undermining-the-value-of-higher-education/
20. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-takes/2024/05/14/third-first-year-students-experience-bias-targeting
21. https://www.rwjf.org/en/about-rwjf/newsroom/2023/10/survey-reveals-areas-of-fragmentation-and-common-ground-in-a-complicated-america.html
22. https://www.hamiltonproject.org/publication/post/regardless-of-the-cost-college-still-matters/
23. https://www.richardchambers.com/education-inflation-bad-for-education-bad-for-business/
24. https://www.aaup.org/article/data-snapshot-whom-does-campus-reform-target-and-what-are-effects
25. https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2007/has-middle-america-stagnated
26. https://www.reddit.com/r/StudentLoans/comments/lmijoy/why_cant_they_just_lower_tuition/
27. https://www.reddit.com/r/highereducation/comments/177qjtk/degree_inflation_is_a_huge_problem/
28. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/institutions/2025/03/06/survey-presidents-point-drivers-declining-public-trust
29. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/09/18/facts-about-student-loans/
30. https://stradaeducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Talent-Disrupted.pdf
31. https://thehill.com/opinion/education/4375280-its-clear-colleges-today-lack-moral-clarity/
32. https://www.apa.org/gradpsych/2013/01/debt
33. https://center-forward.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/39370-Center-Forward-Student-Loans-Survey-Analysis-F04.11.23.pdf
34. https://www.highereddive.com/news/half-of-graduates-end-up-underemployed-what-does-that-mean-for-colleges/710836/
35. https://jamesgmartin.center/2019/07/exposing-the-moral-flaws-in-our-higher-education-system/
36. https://www.freedomdebtrelief.com/learn/loans/how-student-loans-affect-mental-health/
37. https://educationdata.org/student-loan-debt-by-income-level
38. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/students/careers/2024/07/01/how-concerning-underemployment-graduates
39. https://www.thefire.org/facultyreport
40. https://www.ellucian.com/news/national-survey-reveals-59-college-students-considered-dropping-out-due-financial-stress

Sharing a Dataset of Program-Level Debt and Earnings Outcomes (Robert Kelchen)

[Editor's Note: This article first appeared in the Kelchen on Education blog.]

Within a couple of hours of posting my comments on the Department of Education’s proposal to create a list of programs with low financial value, I received multiple inquiries about whether there was a user-friendly dataset of current debt-to-earnings ratios for programs. Since I work with College Scorecard data on a regular basis and have used the data to write about debt-to-earnings ratios, it only took a few minutes to put something together that I hope will be useful.

To create a debt-to-earnings ratio that covered as many programs as possible, I pulled median student debt accumulated at that institution for the cohorts of students who left college in the 2016-17 or 2017-18 academic years and matched it with earnings for those same cohorts one calendar year later (calendar year 2018 or 2019). The College Scorecard has some earnings data more than one year out at this point, but a much smaller share of programs are covered. I then calculated a debt-to-earnings ratio. And for display purposes, I also pulled median parent debt from that institution.

The resulting dataset covers 45,971 programs at 5,033 institutions with data on both student debt and earnings for those same cohorts. You can download the dataset here in Excel format and use filter/sort functions to your heart’s content.

Robert Kelchen is a professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville who studies higher education finance, accountability policies and practices, and student financial aid. All opinions expressed here are his own.

Academic Capitalism and the next phase of the College Meltdown (updated January 26, 2022)

It appears we have entered a new phase of Academic Capitalism and the College Meltdown. The previous phase involved College Mania! and the growth of the "educated underclass" (including gig workers, adjuncts and postdocs), Wall Street over-speculation, the divestment of corporations from employee benefits, and the rise and fall of for-profit colleges: Corinthian Colleges, ITT Tech, Education Management Corporation, Apollo Group, Education Corporation of America, and Laureate Education.  

Enrollment at proprietary schools is down about 40 percent from its peak in 2010 and higher education enrollment has dropped every year for the last decade.  In absolute numbers, community colleges have taken the largest hit.  Regional public universities have also experienced large enrollment declines.

At other schools, student aid has shifted from "needs based" to "merit based" making college choice for low- and moderate income families an even riskier choice. 

Student loan debt has crippled millions of working families, but neoliberal experts at Goldman Sachs and the Federal Reserve do not see a significant problem. 

According to the Federal Reserve, the student debt problem is ameliorated by the decline in births to people of lower socio-economic status.  The FED has also consistently reported that the debt is not a huge drag on the economy (less than 0.05 percent per year). Those developments, along with an anemic but growing student debt movement, have meant that the chance for progressive and meaningful change is limited under the Biden administration, but possible in the long run.  

This new phase of the College Meltdown has strong roots in the 1980s and involves the continued growth of the educated underclass (including elite overproduction in higher education) and more bulls*t jobs, the privatization of public higher education, the proliferation and consolidation of online program managers (OPMs) working for name brand and lesser known schools, non-profit subprime colleges, robocolleges, continued grade inflation, and the fall of the US federal student loan program. In 2020 and 2021, higher education also received three massive federal bailouts.  

Larger developments include the resurgence of authoritarianism, the hollowing out of America, and the global climate change crisis.  Despite these glaring existential problems, a looming college enrollment cliff in 2026, and growing dismay by working families, irrational exuberance and false optimism continues among most college business officers and middle-class consumers.  

Will austerity and excesses in the system lead to even more dramatic failures? Will the states and federal government ask for more transparency and accountability of the government funds that keep the system afloat?

What should we be observing in this new phase:  

1. The growth (and power) of the "educated underclass"

2. The effects of student loan debt on working families and social institutions (including religion and the economy) 

3. The state of the student loan forgiveness movement and popular opinion about student loan forgiveness

4. The health of the US Department of Education's Student Loan Portfolio

5. The growth of Online Program Managers

6. The degree that public universities are serving their citizens

7. The amount of money spent on marketing and advertising in higher education

8. Analyses of the FED, big banks, and rating agencies about the K-12 pipeline, higher education, student loan debt, and the growth of the educated underclass 

9. Local, state, and federal responses to "savage inequalities" in the K-12 pipeline, student loan debt, and the growth of the "educated underclass"

10. The rise of authoritarianism/neofascism in US education and the US as a whole  (e.g. mass surveillance, anti-intellectualism, hate crimes)

11. In deference to Bryan Alexander and his upcoming book "Universities on Fire" I must include global climate change as a phenomenon that must be observed and dealt with.  Failure to address this existential problem makes the other issues irrelevant.  

References

• Lawsuit alleges top colleges illegally collude to limit financial aid (Ivana Saric, Axios)
• USC Pushed a $115,000 Online Degree. Graduates Got Low Salaries, Huge Debts (Lisa Bannon and Andrea Fuller, WSJ)
• The Semi-Rich and Elite Overproduction (Matthew Stewart, Peter Turchin and Higher Ed)
• Student Debt From Private Lenders Hits All-Time High (Alexis Gravely, Inside Higher Education)
• Students Are Living In Hotels & Cars Due To Lack Of Campus Housing In California (Dantee Ramos)
• The Grade Inflation–College Completion Connection (Elizabeth Redden, Inside Higher Education)
• Low Literacy Levels Among U.S. Adults Could Be Costing The Economy $2.2 Trillion A Year (Forbes)
• Colleges See Best Gains in Decades Thanks to Private Investments (Janet Lorin, Bloomberg)
• Enrollment algorithms are contributing to the crises of higher education (Alex Engler, Brookings Institution)
• A Generation of American Men Give Up on College: ‘I Just Feel Lost (Douglas Belkin, WSJ)
• The Great Master’s-Degree Swindle (Kevin Carey, CHE)
• The Number of Colleges Continues to Shrink (Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Education)
• Pennsylvania system board votes to merge 6 institutions into 2 (Jeremy Bauer-Wolf, Higher Ed Dive)
• ‘Financially Hobbled for Life’: The Elite Master’s Degrees That Don’t Pay Off (Melissa Korn and Andrea Fuller, WSJ)
• Spring Numbers Show 'Dramatic' Drop In College Enrollment (Elissa Nadworny, NPR)
• States Step In To Stop Colleges Holding Transcripts Ransom For Unpaid Bills (Jon Marcus, NPR)
• Bond Boom Comes to America’s Colleges and Universities (Juliet Chung and Melissa Korn, WSJ)
• Colleges Could Lose $183 Billion During Pandemic (Emma Whitford, IHE)
• A Brutal Tally: Higher Ed Lost 650,000 Jobs Last Year (Dan Bauman, CHE)
• Tempering the Baby Bust Financial Hit (Phillip B. Levine, IHE)

This article was updated November 11, 2021 to include a link to elite overproduction in higher education and on January 26, 2022 to include a list of recent references.