The College Meltdown: A Retrospective

[In 2017, we collaborated with Crush the Street on a video describing the College Meltdown.]  

“Education is not merely a credentialing system; it is a humanizing act that fosters connection, purpose, and community.”

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Origins

The College Meltdown began in the mid-2010s as a blog chronicling the slow collapse of U.S. higher education. Rising tuition, mounting student debt, and corporatization were visible signs, but the deeper crisis was structural: the erosion of public accountability and mission.

By 2015, the warning signs were unmistakable to us. On some campuses, student spaces were closed to host corporate “best practices” conferences. At many schools, adjunct instructors carried the bulk of teaching responsibilities, often without benefits, while administrators celebrated innovation. Higher education was quietly being reshaped to benefit corporations over students and communities — a true meltdown.

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Patterns of the Meltdown

Enrollment in U.S. colleges began declining as early as 2011, reflecting broader demographic shifts: fewer children entering the system and a growing population of older adults. Small colleges, community colleges, and regional public universities were hardest hit, while flagship institutions consolidated wealth and prestige.

Corporate intermediaries known as Online Program Managers (OPMs) managed recruitment, marketing, and course design, taking large portions of tuition while universities retained risk. Fully automated robocolleges emerged, relying on AI-driven templates, predictive analytics, and outsourced grading. While efficient, these systems dehumanized education: students became data points, faculty became monitors, and mentorship disappeared.

“Robocolleges and AI-driven systems reduce humans to data points — an education stripped of connection is no education at all.”

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Feeding the AI Beast

As part of our effort to reclaim knowledge and influence public discourse, we actively contributed to Wikipedia. Over the years, we made more than 12,000 edits on higher education topics, ensuring accurate documentation of predatory practices, adjunct labor, OPMs, and corporatization. These edits both informed the public and, inadvertently, fed the AI beast — large language models and AI systems that scrape Wikipedia for training data now reflect our work, amplifying it in ways we could never have predicted.

“By documenting higher education rigorously, we shaped both public knowledge and the datasets powering AI systems — turning transparency into a tool of influence.”

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Anxiety, Anomie, and Alienation

The College Meltdown documented the mental health toll of these transformations. Rising anxiety, feelings of anomie, and widespread alienation were linked to AI reliance, dehumanized classrooms, insecure faculty labor, and societal pressures. Students felt like credential seekers; faculty suffered burnout.

“Addressing the psychological and social effects of dehumanized education is essential for ethical recovery.”

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Trump, Anti-Intellectualism, and Fear in the Era of Neoliberalism

The project also addressed the broader political and social climate. The Trump era brought rising anti-intellectualism, skepticism toward expertise, and a celebration of market logic over civic and moral education. For many, it was an era of fear: fear of surveillance, fear of litigation, fear of being marginalized in a rapidly corporatized, AI-driven educational system. Neoliberal policies exacerbated these pressures, emphasizing privatization, metrics, and competition over community and care.

“Living under Trump-era neoliberalism, with AI monitoring, corporate oversight, and mass surveillance, education became a space of anxiety as much as learning.”

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Quality of Life and the Call for Rehumanization

Education should serve human well-being, not just revenue. The blog emphasized Quality of Life and advocated for Rehumanization — restoring mentorship, personal connection, and ethical engagement.

“Rehumanization is not a luxury; it is the foundation of meaningful learning.”

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FOIA Requests and Whistleblowers

From the start, The College Meltdown relied on evidence-based reporting. FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests were used to obtain internal communications, budgets, and regulatory filings, shining light on opaque practices. Whistleblowers, including adjunct faculty and staff at universities and OPMs, provided firsthand testimony of misconduct, financial malfeasance, and educational dehumanization. Their courage was central to the project’s mission of transparency and accountability.

“Insider testimony and public records revealed the hidden forces reshaping higher education, from corporate influence to predatory practices.”

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Historical Sociology: Understanding the Systemic Collapse

The importance of historical sociology cannot be overstated in analyzing the decline of higher education. By examining the evolution of educational systems, we can identify patterns of inequality, the concentration of power, and the commodification of knowledge. Historical sociology provides the tools to understand how past decisions and structures have led to the current crisis.

“Historical sociology reveals, defines, and formulates patterns of social development, helping us understand the systemic forces at play in education.”

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Naming Bad Actors: Accountability and Reform

A critical aspect of The College Meltdown was the emphasis on naming bad actors — identifying and holding accountable those responsible for the exploitation and degradation of higher education. This included:

• University Administrators: Prioritizing profit over pedagogy.

• Corporate Entities: Robocolleges and OPMs profiting at the expense of educational quality.

• Political Figures and Ultraconservatives: Promoting policies that undermined public education and anti-intellectualism.

“Holding bad actors accountable is essential for meaningful reform and the restoration of education's ethical purpose.”

[In 2016, we called out several bad actors in for-profit higher education, including CEOs Jack Massimino, Kevin Modany, and Todd Nelson.] 

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Existential Aspects of Climate Change

The blog also examined the existential dimensions of climate change. Students and faculty face a dual challenge: preparing for uncertain futures while witnessing environmental degradation accelerate. Higher education itself is implicated, both as a contributor through consumption and as a forum for solutions. The looming climate crisis intensifies anxiety, alienation, and the urgency for ethical, human-centered education.

“Climate change makes the stakes of education existential: our survival, our knowledge, and our moral responsibility are intertwined.”

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Mass Speculation and Financialization

Another critical theme explored was mass speculation and financialization. The expansion of student debt markets, tuition-backed bonds, and corporate investments in higher education transformed students into financial instruments. These speculative dynamics mirrored broader economic instability, creating both a moral and systemic crisis for the educational sector.

“When education becomes a commodity for speculation, learning, mentorship, and ethical development are subordinated to profit and risk metrics.”

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Coverage of Protests and Nonviolent Resistance

The College Meltdown documented student and faculty resistance: tuition protests, adjunct labor actions, and campaigns against predatory OPM arrangements. Nonviolent action was central: teach-ins, sit-ins, and organized campaigns demonstrated moral authority and communal solidarity in the face of systemic pressures, litigation, and corporate intimidation.

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Collaboration and Resistance

Glen McGhee provided exceptional guidance, connecting insights on systemic collapse, inequality, and credential inflation. Guest authors contributed across disciplines and movements, making the blog a living archive of accountability and solidarity:

Guest Contributors:
Bryan Alexander, Ann Bowers, James Michael Brodie, Randall Collins, Garrett Fitzgerald, Erica Gallagher, Henry Giroux, David Halperin, Bill Harrington, Phil Hill, Robert Jensen, Hank Kalet, Neil Kraus, the LACCD Whistleblower, Wendy Lynne Lee, Annelise Orleck, Robert Kelchen, Debbi Potts, Jack Metzger, Derek Newton, Gary Roth, Mark Salisbury, Gary Stocker, Harry Targ, Heidi Weber, Richard Wolff, and Helena Worthen.

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Lessons from the Meltdown

The crisis was systemic. Technology amplified inequality. Corporate higher education rebranded rather than reformed. Adjunctification and labor precarity became normalized. Communities of color and working-class students suffered disproportionately.

Dehumanization emerged as a central theme. AI, automation, and robocolleges prioritized efficiency over mentorship, data over dialogue, and systems over human relationships. Rising anxiety, anomie, and alienation reflected the human toll.

“Rehumanization, mentorship, community, transparency, ethical accountability, and ecological awareness are essential to restore meaningful higher education.”

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Looking Forward

As higher education entered the Trump era, its future remained uncertain. Students, faculty, and communities faced fear under neoliberal policies, AI-driven monitoring, mass surveillance, litigation pressures, ultraconservative influence, climate crises, and financial speculation. Will universities reclaim their role as public goods, or continue as commodified services? The College Meltdown stands as a testament to those who resisted dehumanization and anti-intellectualism. It also calls for Quality of Life, ethical practice, mental well-being, environmental responsibility, and Rehumanization, ensuring education serves the whole person, not just the bottom line. 

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Sources and References

• Washington, Harriet A. Medical Apartheid. Doubleday, 2006.

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

• Skloot, Rebecca. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Crown, 2010.

• Nelson, Alondra. Body and Soul. University of Minnesota Press, 2011.

• Paucek, Chip. “2U and the Growth of OPMs.” EdSurge, 2021. link

• Ravitch, Diane. The Death and Life of the Great American School System. Basic Books, 2010.

• Alexander, Bryan. Academia Next. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020.

• U.S. Department of Education. “Closed School Information.” 2016–2020. link

• Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Student Debt Statistics, 2024. link

• Wayback Machine Archive of College Meltdown Blog: link

Higher Education and Climate Change: Choppy Waters Ahead

For years, Higher Education Inquirer (HEI) has documented how the climate crisis intersects with higher education. The evidence shows universities caught between their public claims of sustainability and the realities of financial pressures, risky expansion, and—in some cases—climate denial.

Bryan Alexander’s Universities on Fire offers a framework for understanding how climate change will affect colleges and universities. He describes scenarios where institutions face not only physical damage from storms, floods, and wildfires, but also declining enrollments, strained budgets, and reputational harm if they continue business as usual.

HEI’s reporting on Stockton University illustrates this problem. Its Atlantic City campus was celebrated as a forward-looking project, but the site is highly vulnerable to sea-level rise. Projections show more than two feet of water by 2050 and as much as five feet by 2100. Despite this, the university has continued to invest in the property, a decision that raises questions about long-term planning and responsibility.

The problems are not only physical. HEI has reported on “science-based climate change denial,” where the language of research and inquiry is used to delay or undermine action. This type of denial allows institutions to appear rigorous while, in practice, legitimizing doubt and obstructing necessary changes.

Even the digital infrastructure of higher education is implicated. Data centers and cloud computing require enormous amounts of water for cooling, a fact made more urgent in drought-stricken regions. HEI has suggested that universities confront their digital footprints by auditing storage, deleting unnecessary data, and questioning whether unlimited cloud use is consistent with sustainability goals.

The federal safety net is also shrinking. FEMA cuts have reduced disaster relief funding at a time when climate-driven storms and floods are growing more severe. Colleges and universities that once relied on federal recovery dollars are now being forced to absorb more of the financial burden themselves—whether through state appropriations, private insurance, or higher tuition. In practice, this means students and working families will bear much of the cost of rebuilding.

Meanwhile, contradictions continue to pile up. Camp Mystic, a corporate retreat space that hosts gatherings for university-affiliated leaders, has become a symbol of institutional hypocrisy: universities stage climate conferences and sustainability summits while maintaining financial and cultural ties to industries and donors accelerating the crisis. These contradictions erode trust in higher education’s role as a credible leader on climate.

Climate disruption does not occur in isolation. HEI’s essay Let’s Pretend We Didn’t See It Coming...Again examined how higher education is entangled with a debt-driven economy vulnerable to collapse. With more than $1.7 trillion in student loans, heavy reliance on speculative finance, and partnerships with debt-financed ventures, universities are already positioned on fragile ground. Climate change adds another layer of instability to institutions already at risk.

Taken together, these trends describe a sector moving into uncertain waters. Rising seas threaten campuses directly. Digital networks consume scarce resources. FEMA funding is shrinking. Denial masquerades as academic debate. Debt burdens and speculative finance amplify risks. Universities that continue to expand without accounting for these realities may find themselves not only unprepared but complicit in the crisis.

HEI will continue to investigate these issues, tracking which institutions adapt responsibly and which remain locked in denial and contradiction.

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Sources and Further Reading

• Bryan Alexander, Universities on Fire (2023)

• Higher Education Inquirer: Stockton University and Climate Change

• Higher Education Inquirer: Science-Based Climate Change Denial

• Higher Education Inquirer: When Climate Change Dries Out the Cloud

• Higher Education Inquirer: Let’s Pretend We Didn’t See It Coming...Again

• Higher Education Inquirer: Climate Change Archive

• Wendy Lynne Lee, On the Kleptocene and Commodification of Life (HEI, 2024)

HEI Resources Fall 2025

 [Editor's Note: Please let us know of any additions or corrections.]

Books

• Alexander, Bryan (2020). Academia Next: The Futures of Higher Education. Johns Hopkins Press.  
  
• Alexander, Bryan (2023).  Universities on Fire. Johns Hopkins Press.  
  
• Angulo, A. (2016). Diploma Mills: How For-profit Colleges Stiffed Students, Taxpayers, and the American Dream. Johns Hopkins University Press.
• Apthekar,  Bettina (1966) Big Business and the American University. New Outlook Publishers.  
• Apthekar, Bettina (1969). Higher education and the student rebellion in the United States, 1960-1969 : a bibliography.
  
• Archibald, R. and Feldman, D. (2017). The Road Ahead for America's Colleges & Universities. Oxford University Press.
• Armstrong, E. and Hamilton, L. (2015). Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality. Harvard University Press.
• Arum, R. and Roksa, J. (2011). Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses. University of Chicago Press. 
• Baldwin, Davarian (2021). In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities Are Plundering Our Cities. Bold Type Books.  
• Bennett, W. and Wilezol, D. (2013). Is College Worth It?: A Former United States Secretary of Education and a Liberal Arts Graduate Expose the Broken Promise of Higher Education. Thomas Nelson.
• Berg, I. (1970). "The Great Training Robbery: Education and Jobs." Praeger.
• Berman, Elizabeth P. (2012). Creating the Market University.  Princeton University Press. 
  
• Berry, J. (2005). Reclaiming the Ivory Tower: Organizing Adjuncts to Change Higher Education. Monthly Review Press.
• Best, J. and Best, E. (2014) The Student Loan Mess: How Good Intentions Created a Trillion-Dollar Problem. Atkinson Family Foundation.
Bledstein, Burton J. (1976). The Culture of Professionalism: The Middle Class and the Development of Higher Education in America. Norton.
• Bogue, E. Grady and Aper, Jeffrey.  (2000). Exploring the Heritage of American Higher Education: The Evolution of Philosophy and Policy. 
• Bok, D. (2003). Universities in the Marketplace : The Commercialization of Higher Education.  Princeton University Press. 
  
• Bousquet, M. (2008). How the University Works: Higher Education and the Low Wage Nation. NYU Press.
• Brennan, J & Magness, P. (2019). Cracks in the Ivory Tower. Oxford University Press. 
• Brint, S., & Karabel, J. The Diverted Dream: Community colleges and the promise of educational opportunity in America, 1900–1985. Oxford University Press. (1989).
• Cabrera, Nolan L. (2024) Whiteness in the Ivory Tower: Why Don't We Notice the White Students Sitting Together in the Quad? Teachers College Press.
  
• Cabrera, Nolan L. (2018). White Guys on Campus: Racism, White Immunity, and the Myth of "Post-Racial" Higher Education. Rutgers University Press.
  
• Caplan, B. (2018). The Case Against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money. Princeton University Press.
• Cappelli, P. (2015). Will College Pay Off?: A Guide to the Most Important Financial Decision You'll Ever Make. Public Affairs.
• Cassuto, Leonard (2015). The Graduate School Mess. Harvard University Press. 
• Caterine, Christopher (2020). Leaving Academia. Princeton Press. 
• Carney, Cary Michael (1999). Native American Higher Education in the United States. Transaction.
• Childress, H. (2019). The Adjunct Underclass: How America's Colleges Betrayed Their Faculty, Their Students, and Their Mission University of Chicago Press.
• Cohen, Arthur M. (1998). The Shaping of American Higher Education: Emergence and Growth of the Contemporary System. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
• Collins, Randall. (1979/2019) The Credential Society. Academic Press. Columbia University Press. 
• Cottom, T. (2016). Lower Ed: How For-profit Colleges Deepen Inequality in America
• Domhoff, G. William (2021). Who Rules America? 8th Edition. Routledge.
  
• Donoghue, F. (2008). The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities.
• 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.
• Faragher, John Mack and Howe, Florence, ed. (1988). Women and Higher Education in American History. Norton.
• Farber, Jerry (1972).  The University of Tomorrowland.  Pocket Books. 
  
• Freeman, Richard B. (1976). The Overeducated American. Academic Press.
• 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
• Giroux, Henry (1983).  Theory and Resistance in Education. Bergin and Garvey Press
Giroux, Henry (2022). Pedagogy of Resistance: Against Manufactured Ignorance. Bloomsbury Academic
• Gleason, Philip (1995). Contending with Modernity: Catholic Higher Education in the Twentieth Century. Oxford U.
• 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. 
  
Groeger, Cristina Viviana (2021). The Education Trap: Schools and the Remaking of Inequality in Boston. Harvard Press.
• Hamilton, Laura T. and Kelly Nielson (2021) Broke: The Racial Consequences of Underfunding Public Universities
Hampel, Robert L. (2017). Fast and Curious: A History of Shortcuts in American Education. Rowman & Littlefield.
• 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, Robert. (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.  
• Loehen, James (1995). Lies My Teacher Told Me. The New 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)
Morris, Dan and Harry Targ (2023). From Upton Sinclair's 'Goose Step' to the Neoliberal University: Essays in the Transformation of Higher Education. 
• 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).
• Rudolph, F. (1991) The American College and University: A History.
• 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. 
• Simpson, Christopher (1999). Universities and Empire: Money and Politics in the Social Sciences During the Cold War. New Press.
  
• Sinclair, U. (1923). The Goose-Step: A Study of American Education.
• Stein, Sharon (2022). Unsettling the University: Confronting the Colonial Foundations of US Higher Education, Johns Hopkins Press. 
• 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. 
• Tatum, Beverly (1997). Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria. Basic Books
• 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.
• Twitchell, James B. (2005). Branded Nation: The Marketing of Megachurch, College Inc., and Museumworld. Simon and Schuster.
  
• Vedder, R. (2004). Going Broke By Degree: Why College Costs Too Much.
• Veysey Lawrence R. (1965).The emergence of the American university.
• Washburn, J. (2006). University Inc.: The Corporate Corruption of Higher Education
• Washington, Harriet A. (2008). Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. Anchor. 
• Whitman, David (2021). The Profits of Failure: For-Profit Colleges and the Closing of the Conservative Mind. Cypress House.
• Wilder, C.D. (2013). Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America's Universities. 
• Winks, Robin (1996). Cloak and Gown:Scholars in the Secret War, 1939-1961. Yale University Press.
  
• Woodson, Carter D. (1933). The Mis-Education of the Negro.  
• Zaloom, Caitlin (2019).  Indebted: How Families Make College Work at Any Cost. Princeton University Press. 
• Zemsky, Robert, Susan Shaman, and Susan Campbell Baldridge (2020). The College Stress Test:Tracking Institutional Futures across a Crowded Market. Johns Hopkins University Press. 

Activists, Coalitions, Innovators, and Alternative Voices

• Academe Blog
• Adjunct Crisis
• Adjunct Nation
• American Federation of Teachers Adjunct-Contingent Faculty Caucus
• Bryan Alexander (Futurist)
• Campus News (New York)
• Clery Center
• Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor
• College Futures Foundation (California, K-20)
• College is a Risky Business (Thomas B. Walsh)
• College Promise (Free Community College)
• College Tuition Advisory Services (CTAS)
• College Viability App (Gary Stocker)
• Con Job: Stories of Adjunct and Contingent Faculty
• Confessions of a College Professor (Professor Doom)
• Debt Collective
• Deep Thoughts on Higher Education (Jeff Doyle) 
• Diane Ravitch (K-12)
• EdTrust
  
• Higher Ed Not Debt
• Higher Education Labor United  
  
• Higher Education Strategy Associates
• I Am Ai
• ITT Tech Warriors
• Jim Wolfston and the Social Mobility Index (CollegeNet)
  
• Jonathan Kozol (K-12)
• Kelchen on Education
  
• National Consumer Law Center
• New Faculty Majority (Adjuncts)
• New Laws For America (Bob Hertz)
• Outside the Law School Scam
• Presidents Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration 
• Project on Predatory Student Lending
  
• Randall Collins (Credentialism and Credential Inflation)
• Remaking the University
• Republic Report (David Halperin)
• Saving For College (Mark Kantrowtitz)
• SEIU Faculty Forward (Adjuncts)
• Steve Foerster (Technologist and Educator)
• Strike Debt Portland
• Student Borrower Protection Center
• Student Debt Crisis
• Student Loan Justice
• Terri Givens (Radical Empathy)
• The Best Classroom is the Struggle (Joshua Sooter) 
• TuitionFit (Mark Salisbury)
• Whistleblower Revolution (Heidi Weber)
• Workplace: A Journal for Academic Labor
• Wrench in the Gears: A Skeptical Parent's Thoughts on Digital Curriculum (K-12)

 College Choice and Career Planning Tools

• Modern States (free college credits)
  
• College Promise
• TuitionFit 
• College Viability App
• College Scorecard (NCES) 
• Washington Monthly College Rankings 
• Apprenticeship Finder (US Department of Labor)
• FinAid
• College Navigator (NCES)
• Best Value Colleges (PayScale)  
• Hechinger Report College Fitness Tracker
  
• NBC News Investigation: Certificate schools are leaving many students in debt and unable to find jobs
• 2/3s of US Employees Regret Their College Degrees (CBS News)
• The Future of Work Won't Be About College Degrees (CNBC, Stepane Kasriel)
• Student Loan Meltdown (Dave Ramsey)
• Permanent Underemployment for College Grads (Burning Glass Technologies)
• College Is A Risky Proposition For The Working Class (Jon Marcus, Hechinger Report)
• Apprenticeships are a trending alternative to college — but there’s a hitch (Jon Marcus, Hechinger Report) 
• 15 Things College Doesn't Teach You
• Best Colleges for Social Mobility (CollegeNet)
• The Case Against Higher Education (Bryan Caplan)
• College May Not Pay Off For Everyone (Liberty Street Economics/NY FED)
• Online Education Has Questionable Outcomes (IHE)
• Colleges Where Most Students Borrow and Few Repay (TICAS)
• Broke, Busted, and Disgusted Trailer (Student Loan Debt)
• The Confusing Information Colleges Provide Students About Financial Aid (The Atlantic)
• College Affordability and Transparency Center (ED)
• Public College Dropout Factories (Third Way)
• Outcomes By Major (NY FED)
• Third Way
• GI Bill Comparison Tool (VA)
• 8 Tips to Help Vets Pick the Right College (Military Times)
• Warrior Scholar (For Veterans)
• Service to School (For Veterans)
• Peer Advisors for Veteran Education (PAVE)

Innovation and Reform

• Faculty Focus
  
• Strategies for Improving Student Success (Inside Higher Education)
• CUNY ASAP 
  
• Gap Year Basics (NYU)
• Union Plus Free College 
  
• Maryland Student Loan Debt Relief Tax Credit
• Canceling Student Loan Debt Would Grow Economy and Add Jobs (Levy Institute)
• Beyond Tuition: Promises for Affordability, Quality, and Accountability in Higher Education (Center for American Progress)
• Georgia State Turnaround (CHE)
• Spelman Health Initiative (IHE)
• University of Kansas: BA In Three Years
• Shady Grove: Nine Campuses in One (WAPO)  
  

Higher Education Policy

• Veterans’ Education Advocates Celebrate Closure of the 90/10 Loophole
• College Transparency Act (Senate Bill 800)
• Dropping Gainful Employment Rules Gives Billions to Subprime Colleges (Inside Higher Education)
• ED Announces Steps to Hold Institutions Accountable for Taxpayer Losses
• FTC Head Says Supreme Court Ruling Puts More Than $2 Billion for Cheated Consumers at Risk (Brent Kendall, WSJ)
• GAO Report Regarding Online Program Managers
• How to Stop Sudden College Closures (Century Foundation)
• Improving Outcomes Data for Online Programs (Robert Kelchen, Inside Higher Education)
• Spelman College Replaces NCAA Sports with Wellness Programs
• Strengthening Rural Anchor Institutions: Federal Policy Solutions for Rural Public Colleges and the Communities They Serve (Alliance for Research on Regional Colleges)
• The Distributional Effects of Student Loan Forgiveness (BFI Working Paper, Sylvain Catherine and Constantine Yannelis)
• The for-profit college system is broken and the Biden administration needs to fix it (Brookings)
• The Impact of a National Program of Free Tuition at Public Community Colleges and Free Tuition for Most Students at Public Four-Year Colleges and Universities on College Enrollments, Graduations, and the Economy (Robert Shapiro and Isaac Yoder)
• Three Things Policymakers Can Do to Protect Online Students (Century Foundation)  
  

Data Sources

• American Association of Colleges and Universities  
  
• American Association of State Colleges and Universities
• American Indian Higher Education Consortium
• Academic Labor Force Trends (AAUP)
• Century Foundation 
  
• Closed Schools Report (US Department of Education)
• College Closing Projections (EY)
• College Costs Increasing Over Time (College Board)
• College Debt Inhibits Home Buying (CNBC)
• Complete College America
  
• Debt by Degrees (Pro Publica)
• Department of Defense
• Education Statistics by Institution
• Enrollment Numbers 
• Excelencia in Education
• Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity
  
• Growing Inland Achievement 
• Hechinger Report
• Heightened Cash Monitoring
• Long-term Student Loan Default Rates
• Lumina Foundation 
  
• National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO)
• National Assessment of Educational Progress
  
• National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA)
• National Center for Education Statistics
• NCES Blog
  
• National Student Clearinghouse 
• Predicting College Closures and Financial Distress (Philadelphia Federal Reserve)
  
• School Counselor Numbers (ASCA)
• Scientists Leaving Academia in Droves
• Starving the Beast: The Battle to Disrupt and Reform America’s Public Universities
• State by State College Debt (TICAS)
• Student Loan Debt By State (Urban Institute)
• Student Loan Debt Clock
• Student Loan Debt Inhibits Home Buying (CNBC)
• Student Loan Default Projections (Brookings)
• Subprime Colleges (David Halperin)
• The 74: America's Education News Source
  
• Third Way Reports
• Tracking College Closures (Hechinger Report) 
  
• Transfer Credit Problems (GAO)
• United Negro College Fund
  
• University Business Officers Reports
• US Financial Aid (2024 Annual Report) 
  
• Veterans Affairs (GI Bill)

Trade publications

• Chronicle of Higher Education
• Diverse Issues in Higher Education 
• EdSurge
  
• Higher Ed Dive
• Inside Higher Ed

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.

When climate change dries out cloud computing (Bryan Alexander)

[Editor's note: This article first appeared at BryanAlexander.org.]

Greetings from a northeastern Virginia where the heat has been brutal.  For several weeks we lived under temperatures reaching 100 ° F, while humidity sopped everything badly enough that the “feels like” reading hit 110.   (And the Trump administration decided to federalize and militarize DC – that’s for another post.)

North of us, epic wildfires burned swathes of Canada.  “‘It’s the size of New Brunswick, to put it into context,’ Mike Flannigan, a professor of wildland fire at Thompson Rivers University, told CBC News.” This is apparently the second worst fire year on record.  Climate change has not only increased temperatures in that nation but dried out regions, making them tinder.

Parts of Europe are also suffering under horrendous heat waves.  As a result the region is experiencing upticks in fires, heat exhaustion, and deaths.  Temperatures are hitting the 30s and even 40s (centigrade; for Americans, this means upper 90s and over 100 F).

I’d like to explain about how these are predictable outcomes of the worsening climate crisis, how global warming is doing precisely what we thought it would do, but I’d also like to get in the habit of issuing shorter blog posts. Besides, I suspect my readers either get the point or have turned away by now.

What I wanted to focus on today was a recent connection made between Europe’s fierce summar, the climate crisis… and digital technology.  Britain is suffering under drought conditions exacerbated by global warming, a drought so harsh that the government has assembled a National Drought Group to organize responses.  (One of my shorthand expressions for thinking of climate change is that regions with too much water will receive more, while those with less, less.  A kind of climate Matthew Effect. The UK drought is an exception for now.)

Yesterday the drought team issued a report on the crisis, summing up steps various local authorities are taking along with series of recommendations for Britons wanting to take actions against the drought.  I’d like to draw your attention to one of them:

Fiery red box not in the original.

“Delete old emails and pictures as data centres require vast amounts of water to cool their systems.”

There’s much we can say or ask about that single line.  Just how much of an impact does cloud computing hosting have on British water use? If this is aimed at residents, are businesses or the government taking similar measures? Should one use cloud services not colocated in drought-stricken areas?

At a broader level I wonder about the possibility that the growing anti-digital movement, which some call the techlash, might finally become focused on climate implications.  Do we decide that advanced computing (think generative AI or bitcoin mining) has too large a footprint and must be curtailed? Or do we instead assess its climate benefits – crunching vast arrays of data, running simulations, generating new research – as outweighing these costs?

For years I’ve been asking audiences about the climate-digital connection. I’ve asked people to imagine individual and group choices they might have to make in the future as the crisis worsens and electricity becomes more fragile, more restricted. These are provocative, clarifying questions. Think of choosing between WiFi and air conditioning, or cloud computing versus refrigeration. And now we have a first glimpse of that future with the British government requesting Britons to cut back their digital memories.  We can imagine new questions in that light. How would you choose between streaming video and potable water, or Zoom versus crop irrigation?

The Higher Education Inquirer reminds us of the higher education implications.

For colleges and universities, the connection between digital behavior and resource conservation is an opportunity to model sustainability. Digital housekeeping campaigns could encourage staff and students to purge outdated files, trim redundant email chains, and archive with intent. Institutions can audit cloud storage use, revisit data retention policies, and prioritize providers that invest in energy- and water-efficient infrastructure. These choices can be paired with curriculum initiatives that make students aware of the climate–digital nexus, grounding sustainability not just in labs and gardens, but in inboxes and servers.

Indeed.  These actions are available to us, should we choose to take them.

Yet this is a difficult conversation to have now, at least in the United States, as the Trump administration attacks climate science even to the point of hurling a satellite out of Earth orbit.  Businesses are walking back climate commitments. Journalists don’t mention the crisis very often. Democrats are falling silent.  Yet, strangely enough, climate change continues, ratcheting up steadily.  We must think and act in response.  That means, among other things, rethinking our digital infrastructure and practices.

Digital Minimalism Meets Climate Urgency: What Deleting Emails Teaches Higher Education Today

[Thank you Bryan Alexander for bringing this to our attention.] 

Amidst one of the driest summers in recent memory, the UK’s Environment Agency—supported by the National Drought Group—has made an unexpected appeal: delete old emails and photos. This unorthodox recommendation is not about decluttering your inbox, but about helping conserve water, underscoring how even tiny digital actions can ripple out to tangible environmental impacts.

Higher education leans heavily on the cloud: research archives, recorded lectures, sprawling email threads, and vast multimedia databases. Yet these intangible assets live in data centres—facilities infamous for their intensive water usage, as they cool servers to prevent overheating. Most large-scale cooling systems draw from public water supplies, often competing with community needs. With the AI boom accelerating data demand, these pressures are only expected to grow. The Environment Agency already warns of a looming daily water shortfall of five billion liters by 2055, without factoring in the full weight of AI-related consumption.

While deleting a single email may seem trivial, collectively such actions can lighten the burden on cooling systems at scale. That’s the principle behind the agency’s advice—small behavioral changes can aggregate into significant impact. The call to trim digital clutter comes alongside traditional water-saving steps like fixing leaks, taking shorter showers, capturing rainwater, and reducing outdoor water use.

For colleges and universities, the connection between digital behavior and resource conservation is an opportunity to model sustainability. Digital housekeeping campaigns could encourage staff and students to purge outdated files, trim redundant email chains, and archive with intent. Institutions can audit cloud storage use, revisit data retention policies, and prioritize providers that invest in energy- and water-efficient infrastructure. These choices can be paired with curriculum initiatives that make students aware of the climate–digital nexus, grounding sustainability not just in labs and gardens, but in inboxes and servers.

The call to delete emails follows England’s driest spring since 1893 and its fourth official heatwave this year, with multiple regions in drought. The National Drought Group has been meeting regularly to manage mounting water risks, including proposals for billions in investment toward new reservoirs, leak reduction, and water transfer projects. All of this reinforces a key lesson: the digital world is inseparable from the material world, and higher education can lead by aligning digital practices with environmental responsibility.

Bryan Alexander’s earlier prompts—WiFi or air conditioning? cloud storage or refrigeration?—now resonate with even more urgency. Deleting an email may not save the planet, but it’s a symbolic and practical step toward recognizing that every byte has a footprint, and every action has consequences.

---

Sources:
Delete your emails to save water during drought, says agency – The Times
UK government suggests deleting files to save water – The Verge
AI boom means regulator cannot predict future water shortages in England – The Guardian
National Drought Group meets after driest spring in 132 years – gov.uk

Climate Change 101: This college campus may be literally underwater sooner than you think

Stockton University’s Atlantic City campus may be treading water—literally and figuratively. Built in 2018 on a stretch of reclaimed land in the South Inlet neighborhood, the coastal satellite of Stockton University sits just a few hundred feet from the Atlantic Ocean. With scenic views and beachfront access, it was marketed as a fresh vision for higher education: experiential learning by the sea.

But according to Rutgers University’s Climate Impact Lab and corroborated by NOAA sea level rise projections, that vision may be short-lived. In less than 50 years, large portions of the campus could be underwater—possibly permanently. In fact, with high tide flooding already happening more frequently in Atlantic City and sea levels expected to rise 2 to 5 feet by 2100 depending on emissions, climate change poses an existential threat not just to Stockton’s Atlantic City facilities, but to the broader idea of oceanfront higher education.

The Science: Rutgers’ Stark Warning

Rutgers’ 2021 “New Jersey Science and Technical Advisory Panel Report” projected sea level rise in the state could exceed 2.1 feet by 2050 and 5.1 feet by 2100 under high emissions scenarios. Even under moderate mitigation efforts, the sea is projected to rise 1.4 to 3.1 feet by 2070, placing critical infrastructure—including roads, utility networks, and public buildings—at risk. Stockton’s coastal campus is among them.

A Teachable Crisis

For students and faculty in environmental science, public policy, and urban planning, Stockton's Atlantic City campus is both classroom and case study. Professors can point to flooding events just blocks away as real-time lessons in sea level rise, coastal erosion, and infrastructure vulnerability. Students witness firsthand the tension between development and environmental limits.

Yet these lived experiences also raise ethical questions. Is the university preparing students for the reality of climate displacement—or is it merely weathering the storm until the next round of state funding? Are public institutions being honest about the long-term risks students will face, not just as residents but as debt-burdened alumni?

In many ways, Stockton’s presence in Atlantic City epitomizes the “climate denial by development” that characterizes so much U.S. urban planning: Build now, mitigate later, and leave tomorrow’s collapse for someone else to manage.

No Easy Retreat

Climate adaptation strategies in Atlantic City have been slow-moving, expensive, and often controversial. Proposed solutions—such as sea walls, elevating roads, and managed retreat—require enormous financial and political capital. There’s also no consensus on how to preserve equity in a shrinking, sinking city.

For Stockton University, retreating from the Atlantic City campus would be politically and financially damaging. The expansion was celebrated with ribbon-cuttings and bipartisan support. Pulling back now would mean acknowledging a costly miscalculation. Yet failing to plan for relocation or phased withdrawal could leave students and taxpayers on the hook for an underwater investment.

According to the New Jersey Coastal Resilience Plan, Atlantic County—home to Stockton’s main and satellite campuses—is one of the most climate-exposed counties in the state. And Stockton isn’t just sitting in the floodplain; it’s training the very people who will be tasked with managing these emergencies. It has both a responsibility and an opportunity to lead, not just in mitigation but in public reckoning.

Lessons for Higher Ed

Stockton is hardly the only university caught between mission and market. Across the U.S., colleges and universities are pouring resources into branding campaigns and capital projects that ignore—or actively obscure—the long-term environmental risks. Climate change is often treated as a course offering, not an existential threat.

In Universities on Fire, Bryan Alexander outlines how climate change will fundamentally reshape the higher education landscape—from facilities planning to enrollment, from energy consumption to curriculum design. He warns that campuses, particularly those located near coasts or in extreme heat zones, face not just infrastructural threats but institutional crises. Rising waters, wildfires, hurricanes, and population shifts will force universities to rethink their physical footprints, economic models, and public obligations.

Yet few accreditors or bond-rating agencies have accounted for climate risk in their evaluations. Endowments continue to fund construction in flood-prone areas. Boards of trustees prioritize expansion over retreat. And students, many of whom are first-generation or low-income, are seldom told what climate vulnerability could mean for the real value of their degrees—or the safety of their dormitories.

As sea levels rise and climate models grow more precise, Stockton’s Atlantic City campus may become a symbol—not just of poor urban planning, but of an education system unprepared for the world it claims to be shaping.

What Comes Next?

For now, Stockton continues to expand its Atlantic City footprint, even as new reports suggest that this part of the Jersey Shore may be uninhabitable or cost-prohibitive to protect in a few decades. The university has proposed additional student housing and even a new coastal research center. But each new building reinforces the same flawed logic: that short-term gains outweigh long-term collapse.

At some point, Stockton University—and many other coastal institutions—will have to decide whether to keep investing in property that’s literally slipping into the sea, or to model the kind of resilience and foresight they claim to teach.

Because this is not just a sustainability issue. It’s a justice issue. It’s a debt issue. It’s a survival issue.

And it’s happening now.

Sources

Bryan Alexander. Universities on Fire: Higher Education in the Climate Crisis. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023.

NJ Department of Environmental Protection. Resilient NJ: Statewide Coastal Resilience Plan. 2020.

Rutgers University. New Jersey Climate Change Resource Center.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Back Bay Study – New Jersey.

New Jersey Future. “Climate Risks and Infrastructure in Atlantic County.”

Stockton University. Strategic Plan 2025: Choosing Our Path.

NOAA. State of High Tide Flooding and Sea Level Rise 2023 Technical Report.