Showing posts sorted by relevance for query debt. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query debt. Sort by date Show all posts

Friday, July 9, 2021

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

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.  
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Tuesday, July 30, 2019

HEI Resources

[Updated January 8, 2023)

 


Bibliography

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  • Collins, Randall. (1979/2019) The Credential Society. Academic Press. Columbia University Press. 
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  • Dorn, Charles. (2017) For the Common Good: A New History of Higher Education in America Cornell University Press.
  • Eaton, Charlie.  (2022) Bankers in the Ivory Tower: The Troubling Rise of Financiers in US Higher Education. University of Chicago Press.
  • Eisenmann, Linda. (2006) Higher Education for Women in Postwar America, 1945–1965. Johns Hopkins U. Press.
  • Espenshade, T., Walton Radford, A.(2009). No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal: Race and Class in Elite College Admission and Campus Life. Princeton University Press.
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  • Farber, Jerry (1972).  The University of Tomorrowland.  Pocket Books. 
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  • Gaston, P. (2014). Higher Education Accreditation. Stylus.
  • Ginsberg, B. (2013). The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All Administrative University and Why It Matters
  • Gleason, Philip. Contending with Modernity: Catholic Higher Education in the Twentieth Century. Oxford U. Press, 1995.
  • Golden, D. (2006). The Price of Admission: How America's Ruling Class Buys its Way into Elite Colleges — and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates.
  • Goldrick-Rab, S. (2016). Paying the Price: College Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American Dream.
  • Graeber, David (2018) Bullshit Jobs: A Theory. Simon and Schuster. 
  • Hamilton, Laura T. and Kelly Nielson (2021) Broke: The Racial Consequences of Underfunding Public Universities
  • Johnson, B. et al. (2003). Steal This University: The Rise of the Corporate University and the Academic Labor Movement
  • Keats, John (1965) The Sheepskin Psychosis. Lippincott.
  • Kelchen, R. (2018). Higher Education Accountability. Johns Hopkins University Press.
  • Kezar, A., DePaola, T, and Scott, D. The Gig Academy: Mapping Labor in the Neoliberal University. Johns Hopkins Press. 
  • Kinser, K. (2006). From Main Street to Wall Street: The Transformation of For-profit Higher Education
  • Kozol, Jonathan (2006). The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America. Crown. 
  • Kozol, Jonathan (1992). Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools. Harper Perennial.
  • Labaree, David F. (2017). A Perfect Mess: The Unlikely Ascendancy of American Higher Education. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • Labaree, David (1997) How to Succeed in School without Really Learning: The Credentials Race in American Education, Yale University Press.
  • Lafer, Gordon (2004). The Job Training Charade. Cornell University Press.  
  • Lohse, Andrew (2014).  Confessions of an Ivy League Frat Boy: A Memoir.  Thomas Dunne Books. 
  • Lucas, C.J. American higher education: A history. (1994).
  • Lukianoff, Greg and Jonathan Haidt (2018). The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure. Penguin Press.
  • Maire, Quentin (2021). Credential Market. Springer.
  • Mandery, Evan (2022) . Poison Ivy: How Elite Colleges Divide Us. New Press. 
  • Marti, Eduardo (2016). America's Broken Promise: Bridging the Community College Achievement Gap. Excelsior College Press. 
  • Mettler, Suzanne 'Degrees of Inequality: How the Politics of Higher Education Sabotaged the American Dream. Basic Books. (2014)
  • Newfeld, C. (2011). Unmaking the Public University.
  • Newfeld, C. (2016). The Great Mistake: How We Wrecked Public Universities and How We Can Fix Them.
  • Paulsen, M. and J.C. Smart (2001). The Finance of Higher Education: Theory, Research, Policy & Practice.  Agathon Press. 
  • Rosen, A.S. (2011). Change.edu. Kaplan Publishing. 
  • Reynolds, G. (2012). The Higher Education Bubble. Encounter Books.
  • Roth, G. (2019) The Educated Underclass: Students and the Promise of Social Mobility. Pluto Press
  • Ruben, Julie. The Making of the Modern University: Intellectual Transformation and the Marginalization of Morality. University Of Chicago Press. (1996).
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  • Rushdoony, R. (1972). The Messianic Character of American Education. The Craig Press.
  • Selingo, J. (2013). College Unbound: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students.
  • Shelton, Jon (2023). The Education Myth: How Human Capital Trumped Social Democracy. Cornell University Press.
  • Sinclair, U. (1923). The Goose-Step: A Study of American Education.
  • Stevens, Mitchell L. (2009). Creating a Class: College Admissions and the Education of Elites. Harvard University Press. 
  • Stodghill, R. (2015). Where Everybody Looks Like Me: At the Crossroads of America's Black Colleges and Culture. 
  • Tamanaha, B. (2012). Failing Law Schools. The University of Chicago Press. 
  • Taylor, Barret J. and Brendan Cantwell (2019). Unequal Higher Education: Wealth, Status and Student Opportunity. Rutgers University Press.
  • Thelin, John R. (2019) A History of American Higher Education. Johns Hopkins U. Press.
  • Tolley, K. (2018). Professors in the Gig Economy: Unionizing Adjunct Faculty in America. Johns Hopkins University Press.
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  • Washington, Harriet A. (2008). Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. Anchor. 
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Activists, Coalitions, Innovators, and Alternative Voices

 College Choice and Career Planning Tools


Innovation and Reform

  

Higher Education Policy

 

Data Sources


Trade publications

 

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Wednesday, September 6, 2023

Student Loans and a Brutal Lifetime of Debt (Dahn Shaulis and Glen McGhee)

The US Department of Education is holding more than 900,000 student loans that are at least 30 years old. Tens of thousands of these loans originated almost a half-century ago. And it's likely that most of the total balances are the result of interest charges that have accumulated over the decades--from people who can't ever pay back their loans.

 
Source: US Department of Education  

Will these student loans finally be forgiven under the latest Biden forgiveness plan?  Or will the US continue to honor (and bail out) the rich while punishing generations of the working class for their mistakes?  

The information in this article is part of a larger effort to examine quality of life, disability, and premature death among student loan debtors. Our most recent Freedom of Information requests to the US Department of Education attempt to gather more information.

23-02758-F  
The Higher Education Inquirer is asking for the age and cause of death of the last 100 student loan debtors whose debt was relieved because of death.  The age and cause of death should be listed on the death certificates sent to the US Department of Education for student loan relief.   (Date Range for Record Search: From 09/09/2022 To 09/09/2023)

23-02747-F  
The Higher Education Inquirer is requesting the number of loans and the dollar amount of loans that have been discharged each year for the last ten years due to (1) death and (2) disability.  If available, we would also like an estimate of the number of debtors affected in that decade.   (Date Range for Record Search: From 09/08/2013 To 09/08/2023)


From Glen McGhee:

A study published in the Journal of American College Health[2] reveals that student loans are associated with negative health outcomes among college students, including delaying medical care. The study found that those with student loans are more likely to delay medical, dental, and mental health care[1]. 
 
Another study published in Health Soc Care Community[4] found that borrowers behind or in collections on student loans are forgoing healthcare after self-reporting general physical ill-health. The study's objective examines whether falling behind on student loans may compound ill-health by deterring people from seeking healthcare. The results of this study confirm that student loans are associated with poor health. 
 
A survey conducted by ELVTR[5] found that 54% of respondents say their mental health struggles are directly related to their student loan debt. Additionally, over 80% of participants say student loan debt has delayed a major life event for them. 
 


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Sunday, March 15, 2020

Coronavirus and the College Meltdown


If the student loan debt bubble blow ups in coming months, it will be because the US economy had been seriously compromised for decades. 

The College Meltdown continues in 2020. This phenomenon is deeper than the coronavirus, the temporary closing of campuses across the US, and the cancellation of NCAA basketball's March Madness. What we are seeing in the news should be a smaller entry in the History of American Higher Education compared to larger trends and social problems that preceded the pandemic.

College and university enrollment has been declining slowly but constantly since 2011, with for-profit colleges and community colleges taking the largest hits. And it follows larger demographic trends which include a half century of increasing inequality, including "savage inequalities" in the K-12 pipeline, crushing student loan debt, decreasing social mobility and the underemployment of college graduates, smaller families, and the hollowing out of America.

Spending on college is also an increasingly risky decision for working families.




A larger enrollment decline is projected for 2026, a ripple effect of the Great Recession of 2008. With fewer younger people to attend college, this "enrollment cliff" could amount to a 15 percent drop in a single year.

There are many parts to the current Coronavirus crisis and its effects on US higher education. But they all boil down to the Trump mantra (defund, deregulate, and privatize) and the opportunity for the elites to capitalize from the crisis, as they did during and after the Great Recession.


[Image below from Wikipedia. Higher education in the US has increasingly relied on for-profit mechanisms for growth and revenues. This includes privatized housing and services and for-profit Online Program Managers (OPMs).]


Higher education is a small but significant part of the US economy, which includes much larger sectors like Health Care and Finance. While the working class will not get bailed out, these sectors likely will, with the sudden crisis used as a rationalization. The crisis of crushing student loan debt and the much larger problems related to 50 years of growing inequality may be more disruptive in the long run, but these matters continue to be ignored.

Whether the next President is Donald Trump or Joe Biden, things could get worse for working families, unless there is mass resistance--right now I don't see that happening. For the moment, many young people are responding by living with family, not going to college, and delaying child bearing. Those who do get an education are also making economic sacrifices. Some, for example are selling their bodies as Sugar Babies to get through school.

Many state economies also look bleak in the near future. Not enough in revenues and increasing Medicaid costs make investments in education difficult to do without increasing taxes or state-level debt. And it's not likely that the wealthy will be willing to pay their fair share, unless they feel economically threatened. If that happens, rich companies and rich people can just move out of state or out of the country.

Higher Education and the Student Loan Mess

In October 2019, Trump Department of Education official Wayne Johnson resigned, recognizing that student loan debt mess was worse than anyone had imagined. US higher education enrollment is supposed to be countercyclical (improving when the economy drops) , but don't bet on it without government help.

Haven't heard any rumors in months, but it should also be interesting to see if President Trump tries to unload the $1.5T in federal loans to his banking friends using an executive order. McKinsey & Company have been tasked to determine the possibilities of such a maneuver, but there is radio silence on that front.

In the education sector, I'm watching student loan servicers and private lenders Sallie Mae (SLM), Navient (NAVI), and Nelnet (NNI) closely. Student Loan Asset-Backed Securities (also known as SLABS) are also worthy of scrutiny given the low rates of student loan repayment.

Newest Links

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Monday, April 3, 2023

Higher Education FOIA Requests to US Department of Education

The Higher Education Inquirer has made a number of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the US Department of Education.  Here's our current list.  

 

23-01436-F 

The Higher Education Inquirer is requesting copies of the current contracts between the US Department of Education and Maximus (including but not limited to subsidiaries such as AidVantage). If this is not possible we would like the reported dollar amount for each contract. This request is part of a larger effort to assess the student loan debt portfolio. (Date Range for Record Search: From 01/01/2010 To 04/03/2023)

23-01426-F  

The Higher Education Inquirer is requesting the dollar amount of student loan funds issued to for-profit colleges each year from 1972 to 2021.  We will accept interim or partial data.  (Date Range for Record Search: From 01/01/1973 To 04/03/2022)


23-01369-F  
 
The Higher Education Inquirer is requesting an estimate of the number of student loans in the student loan portfolio that originated (1) before 1978, (2) before 1983, (3) before 1988, and (4) before 1993.  This is part of a larger effort to understand the estimated $674B in unrecoverable student loan debt.   (Date Range for Record Search: From 01/01/2023 To 03/28/2023)

23-01324-F  
 
The Higher Education Inquirer is requesting a count of the number of Borrower Defense to Repayment claims against South University and the Art Institutes, in the Consumer Engagement Management System (CEMS) up to January 1, 2023.  We would also like to know if their parent company, Education Principle Foundation (EPF), is listed as the owner of both schools in the CEMS computer database.   (Date Range for Record Search: From 01/01/2023 To 03/22/2023)

23-01263-F
 
The Higher Education Inquirer is requesting a list of all the variables/categories in the Consumer Engagement Management System (CEMS).  CEMS is mentioned in FOIA 22-01683F filed by the National Student Legal Defense Network.   (Date Range for Record Search: From 01/01/2023 To 03/16/2023)

23-00865-F 
 
We are requesting an accounting of US Department of Education Borrower Defense to Repayment (BD) claims against the University of Phoenix.  Specifically, we are asking for the (1) number of BD claims, (2) the number processed, and (3) the number approved.  The date range is from February 20, 2016 to January 26, 2023. If there is a reasonable way to estimate the total dollar amount in a timely manner, we would also like that.  This request is similar to FOIA request 22-03203-F, and is a result of discovering that the University of Arkansas System has been in negotiations to acquire University of Phoenix through a nonprofit organization.   (Date Range for Record Search: From 02/20/2016 To 01/26/2023)
 
Related links:
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
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Tuesday, May 2, 2023

Higher Education Inquirer Selected Archive (2016-2023)

In order to streamline the Higher Education Inquirer, we have removed the HEI archive from the right panel of the blog; information that could only be seen in the non-mobile format.   

The HEI archive has included a list of important books and other sources, articles on academic labor, worker movements, and labor actions, student loan debt, debt forgiveness, borrower defense to repayment and student loan asset-backed securities, robocolleges, online program managers, lead generators, and the edtech meltdown, enrollment trends at for-profit colleges, community colleges, and small public and private universities, layoffs and closings of public and private institutions, consumer awareness and organizational transparency and accountability, neoliberalism, neo-conservativism, neo-fascism and structural racism in higher education, and strategic corporate research.  

HEI Resources  
Rutgers University Workers Waging Historic Strike For Economic Justice (Hank Kalet)Borrower Defense Claims Surpass 750,000. Consumers Empowered. Subprime Colleges and Programs Threatened.I Went on Strike to Cancel My Student Debt and Won. Every Debtor Deserves the Same. (Ann Bowers)
Erica Gallagher Speaks Out About 2U's Shady Practices at Department of Education Virtual Listening Meeting
An Email of Concern to the People of Arkansas about the University of Phoenix (Tarah Gramza)
University of California Academic Workers Strike for Economic Justice
The Power of Recognizing Higher Ed Faculty as Working-Class (Helena Worthen)
More Transparency About the Student Debt Portfolio Is Needed: Student Debt By Institution
Is Your Private College Financially Healthy? (Gary Stocker)
The College Dream is Over (Gary Roth)
"Edugrift": Observations of a Subprime College Lead Generator (by J.D. Suenram)
The Tragedy of Human Capital Theory in Higher Education (Glen McGhee)
Let's all pretend we couldn't see it coming (US Working Class Depression)
A preliminary list of private colleges at risk
The Growth of Robocolleges and Robostudents
A Letter to the US Department of Education and Student Loan Servicers on Behalf of Student X (Heidi Weber)
The Higher Education Assembly Line
College Meltdown Expands to Elite Universities
The Slow-Motion Collapse of America’s Largest University
What happens when Big 10 college grads think college is bullsh*t?
Coronavirus and the College Meltdown
Academic Capitalism and the next phase of the College Meltdown
When College Choice is a Fraud
Charlie Kirk's Turning Point Empire Takes Advantage of Failing Federal Agencies As Right-Wing Assault on Division I College Campuses Continues
Navient and the Zombie SLABS Meltdown (Bill Harrington)
College Meltdown at a Turning Point
Charting the College Meltdown
Colleges Are Outsourcing Their Teaching Mission to For-Profit Companies. Is That A Good Thing? (Richard Fossey)
Rebuilding the Purpose of the GI Bill (Garrett Fitzgerald)
Paying the Poorly Educated (Jack Metzger)
Forecasting the US College Meltdown
College Meltdown 2.0
State Universities and the College Meltdown
"20-20": Many US States Have Seen Enrollment Drops of More Than 20 Percent (Glen McGhee and Dahn Shaulis)
Visual Documentation of the College Meltdown Needed




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