The Expanding Crisis in U.S. Higher Education: OPMs, Student Loan Servicers, Deregulation, Robocolleges, AI, and the Collapse of Accountability

Across the United States, higher education is undergoing a dramatic and dangerous transformation. Corporate contractors, private equity firms, automated learning systems, and predatory loan servicers increasingly dictate how the system operates—while regulators remain absent and the media rarely reports the scale of the crisis. The result is a university system that serves investors and advertisers far more effectively than it serves students.

This evolution reflects a broader pattern documented by Harriet A. Washington, Alondra Nelson, Elisabeth Rosenthal, and Rebecca Skloot: institutions extracting value from vulnerable populations under the guise of public service. Today, many universities—especially those driven by online expansion—operate as financial instruments more than educational institutions.

The OPM Machine and Private Equity Consolidation

Online Program Managers (OPMs) remain central to this shift. Companies like 2U, Academic Partnerships—now Risepoint—and the restructured remnants of Wiley’s OPM division continue expanding into public universities hungry for tuition revenue. Revenue-sharing deals, often hidden from the public, let these companies keep up to 60% of tuition in exchange for aggressive online recruitment and mass-production of courses.

Much of this expansion is fueled by private equity, including Vistria Group, Apollo Global Management, and others that have poured billions into online contractors, publishing houses, test prep firms, and for-profit colleges. Their model prioritizes rapid enrollment growth, relentless marketing, and cost-cutting—regardless of educational quality.

Hyper-Deregulation and the Dismantling of ED

Under the Trump Administration, the federal government dismantled core student protections—Gainful Employment, Borrower Defense, incentive-compensation safeguards, and accreditation oversight. This “hyper-deregulation” created enormous loopholes that OPMs and for-profit companies exploited immediately.

Today, the Department of Education itself is being dismantled, leaving oversight fragmented, understaffed, and in some cases non-functional. With the cat away, the mice will play: predatory companies are accelerating recruitment and acquisition strategies faster than regulators can respond.

Servicers, Contractors, and Tech Platforms Feeding on Borrowers

A constellation of companies profit from the student loan system regardless of borrower outcomes:

• Maximus (AidVantage), which manages huge portfolios of federal student loans under opaque contracts.

• Navient, a longtime servicer repeatedly accused of steering borrowers into costly options.

• Sallie Mae, the original student loan giant, still profiting from private loans to risky borrowers.

• Chegg, which transitioned from textbook rental to an AI-driven homework-and-test assistance platform, driving new forms of academic dependency.

Each benefits from weak oversight and an increasingly automated, fragmented educational landscape.

Robocolleges, Robostudents, Roboworkers: The AI Cascade

Artificial Intelligence has magnified the crisis. Universities, under financial pressure, increasingly rely on automated instruction, chatbot advising, and algorithmic grading—what can be called robocolleges. Students, overwhelmed and unsupported, turn to AI tools for essays, homework, and exams—creating robostudents whose learning is outsourced to software rather than internalized.

Meanwhile, employers—especially those influenced by PE-backed workforce platforms—prioritize automation, making human workers interchangeable components in roboworker environments. This raises existential questions about whether higher education prepares people for stable futures or simply feeds them into unstable, algorithm-driven labor markets.

FAFSA Meltdowns, Fraud, and Academic Cheating

The collapse of the new FAFSA system, combined with widespread fraudulent applications, has destabilized enrollment nationwide. Colleges desperate for students have turned to risky recruitment pipelines that enable identity fraud, ghost students, and financial manipulation of aid systems.

Academic cheating, now industrialized through generative AI and contract-cheating platforms, further erodes the integrity of degrees while institutions look away to protect revenue.

Advertising and the Manufacture of “College Mania”

For decades, advertising has propped up the myth that a college degree—any degree, from any institution—guarantees social mobility. Universities, OPMs, lenders, test-prep companies, and ed-tech platforms spend billions on marketing annually. This relentless messaging drives families to take on debt and enroll in programs regardless of cost or quality.

College mania is not organic—it is manufactured. Advertising convinces the public to ignore warning signs that would be obvious in any other consumer market.

A Media Coverage Vacuum

Despite the scale of the crisis, mainstream media offers shockingly little coverage. Investigative journalism units have shrunk, education reporters are overstretched, and major outlets rely heavily on university advertising revenue. The result is a structural conflict of interest: the same companies responsible for predatory practices often fund the media organizations tasked with reporting on them.

When scandals surface—FAFSA failures, servicer misconduct, OPM exploitation—they often disappear within a day’s news cycle. The public remains unaware of how deeply corporate interests now shape higher education.

The Emerging Picture

The U.S. higher education system is no longer simply under strain—it is undergoing a corporate and technological takeover. Private equity owns the pipelines. OPMs run the online infrastructure. Tech companies moderate academic integrity. Servicers profit whether borrowers succeed or fail. Advertisers manufacture demand. Regulators are missing. The media is silent.

In contrast, many other countries maintain strong limits on privatization, enforce strict quality standards, and protect students as consumers. As Washington and Rosenthal argue, exploitation persists not because it is inevitable but because institutions allow—and profit from—it.

Unless the U.S. restores meaningful oversight, reins in private equity, ends predatory revenue-sharing models, rebuilds the Department of Education, and demands transparency across all contractors, the system will continue to deteriorate. And students, especially those already marginalized, will pay the price.

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Sources (Selection)

Harriet A. Washington – Medical Apartheid; Carte Blanche
Rebecca Skloot – The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Elisabeth Rosenthal – An American Sickness
Alondra Nelson – Body and Soul
Stephanie Hall & The Century Foundation – work on OPMs and revenue sharing
Robert Shireman – analyses of for-profit colleges and PE ownership
GAO (Government Accountability Office) reports on OPMs and student loan servicing
ED OIG and FTC public reports on oversight failures (various years)
National Student Legal Defense Network investigations
Federal Student Aid servicer audits and public documentation

When the Grants Disappear, So Does the Mission: MSI funding, institutional priorities, and the coming test of “social mobility” (Glen McGhee)

A recent opinion from the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel declares that federal Minority-Serving Institution (MSI) programs are unlawful because they allocate funding based on the racial composition of enrolled students. The ruling immediately throws hundreds of campuses—and the students they serve—into uncertainty. But beyond the legal debate lies a more revealing institutional reckoning: if MSI grants disappear, will colleges actually fund these programs themselves?

The short answer, based on decades of evidence, is no.

For years, colleges and universities have framed MSI grants as proof of their commitment to access, equity, and social mobility. Yet those commitments have always been conditional. They have depended on external federal subsidies rather than first-principles institutional priorities. Now that the funding stream is threatened, the gap between rhetoric and reality is about to widen dramatically.

The scale of what is being cut is not trivial. Discretionary MSI programs—serving Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander–Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs), Predominantly Black Institutions (PBIs), and others—have collectively provided hundreds of millions of dollars annually for tutoring, advising, counseling, faculty development, and basic academic infrastructure. These grants have often been the difference between persistence and attrition for low-income students, many of whom are first-generation and Pell-eligible.

Yet MSI funding has also sustained something else: a sprawling administrative apparatus dedicated to grant writing, compliance, reporting, assessment, and “outcomes tracking.” Entire offices exist to chase, manage, and justify these funds. This is the professional-managerial class infrastructure that has come to dominate higher education—highly credentialed, compliance-oriented, and deeply invested in external funding streams.

Follow the money, and a pattern becomes clear. When federal or state funding declines, colleges do not trim administrative overhead. They cut instruction. They cut tutoring. They cut advising. They cut student-facing programs that lack powerful internal constituencies. Administrative spending, by contrast, is remarkably durable. It rarely shrinks, even in moments of fiscal crisis.

We have seen this movie before. When state appropriations fell over the past decade, public universities raised tuition and reduced instructional spending rather than dismantling administrative layers. When DEI offices were banned or defunded in several states, institutions eliminated student services and laid off staff, then quietly absorbed the savings into general operations. There was no surge in faculty hiring, no reinvestment in instruction, no serious attempt to replace lost support with institutional dollars.

MSI grants will follow the same path. Colleges may offer short-term “bridge funding” to manage optics and morale, but that support will be temporary and partial. The language administrators use—“assessing impacts,” “exploring alternatives,” “seeking private donors”—is a familiar signal that programs are being triaged, not saved.

Could institutions afford to self-fund these programs if they truly wanted to? In most cases, no—or at least not without making choices they refuse to make. Endowments are largely restricted and already used to paper over structural deficits. Tuition increases are politically and economically constrained at campuses serving low-income students. Federal aid flows through institutions but cannot be repurposed for operations. There is no hidden pool of fungible money waiting to be redirected.

What would replacing MSI funding actually require? Cutting administrative spending. Reducing executive compensation. Scaling back amenities and non-instructional growth. Reprioritizing instruction and academic support over branding and “customer experience.” These are choices institutions have consistently shown they will not make.

This is why the rhetoric of social mobility rings hollow. Colleges celebrate access and equity when the costs are externalized—when federal grants pay for the work and compliance offices manage the paperwork. But when that funding disappears, so does the institutional courage to sustain the mission.

The contrast with historically Black colleges and tribal colleges is instructive. Their core federal funding survives precisely because it is tied to historical mission rather than contemporary enrollment metrics, and because these institutions have long-standing political champions. That distinction exposes the truth: what is preserved is not equity, but power.

The coming months will bring program closures, staff layoffs, and diminished support for the students MSI grants were designed to serve. What we will not see, despite solemn statements and carefully worded emails, is a widespread commitment by colleges to fund these programs themselves.

The test is simple and unforgiving. If social mobility were truly a foundational principle of higher education, institutions would treat MSI programs as essential—not optional, not grant-contingent, not expendable. They would pay for them out of their own budgets.

They won’t.

And in that refusal, the performance ends. The mission statements remain, but the money moves elsewhere.

Sources

Inside Higher Ed, “DOJ Report Declares Minority-Serving Institution Programs Unlawful,” December 22, 2025.

U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel, Opinion on Minority-Serving Institution Grant Programs, 2025.

U.S. Department of Education, Title III and Title V Program Data, Fiscal Years 2020–2025.

Government Accountability Office, Higher Education: Trends in Administrative and Instructional Spending, various reports.

Delta Cost Project / American Institutes for Research, Trends in College Spending, 2003–2021.

State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO), State Higher Education Finance Reports, 2010–2024.

University of California Office of the President, California State Auditor Reports on Administrative Spending and Reserves.

Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board; Florida Board of Governors; UNC System Office, public records and budget documents on DEI office eliminations, 2024–2025.

Bloomberg News and Associated Press reporting on DEI bans and campus program closures, 2024–2025.

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), IPEDS Finance and Enrollment Data.

American Council on Education, Endowment Spending and Restrictions in Higher Education.

IRS Form 990 filings and audited financial statements of selected public and private universities.

Columbia University public statements on federal research funding disruptions, 2025.

University of Hawaiʻi system communications on federal grant losses and bridge funding, 2025.

Congressional Budget Justifications, U.S. Department of Education, FY2025–FY2026.

Ehrenreich, Barbara and John, The Professional-Managerial Class, and subsequent scholarship on administrative growth in higher education.

Student Borrower Protection Center, Student Debt and Institutional Finance, 2024–2025.

Historically White Institutions: Structural Advantage and Financial Resilience in American Higher Education

Historically White Institutions (HWIs) occupy a distinctive position in the U.S. higher education landscape. Defined by their origins as institutions serving predominantly White students during eras of segregation, HWIs today include many of the nation’s most prominent colleges and universities. While often overlooked in discussions about equity, their historical and structural context provides key insight into why these institutions remain financially resilient even as other colleges, particularly smaller or more diverse institutions, struggle (Darity & Hamilton, 2015; Jackson, 2018).

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Understanding HWIs

HWIs are schools founded to educate White students in a segregated society. Unlike Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) or tribal colleges, HWIs historically excluded students of color. Today, they often enroll more diverse student populations than in the past, but their demographic and financial legacies remain.

Some of the largest and most prominent HWIs in the U.S. include:

• Brigham Young University (UT) — affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS); majority White enrollment; nationally recognized academic and athletic programs.

• University of Notre Dame (IN) — Catholic research university with a large endowment and historically majority White student body; high national profile academically and athletically.

• Boston College (MA) — Catholic research university; historically White, strong alumni networks, and notable national reputation.

• Marquette University (WI) — Catholic university; majority White; prominent regionally and nationally in academics and athletics.

• Select public flagships in predominantly White states — such as University of Wisconsin–Madison and University of Michigan, whose student bodies historically reflect state demographics and remain disproportionately White relative to national averages.

These institutions collectively represent a significant portion of the elite, high-profile U.S. higher education sector, and they share common financial and structural advantages rooted in their historical composition (Smith, 2019; Harper, 2020).

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Financial Advantages Linked to Demographics

Several factors stemming from HWI status contribute to financial stability:

1. Alumni Wealth and Giving
   Historically, HWIs drew students from communities with greater intergenerational wealth. Today, this translates into strong alumni giving networks, major gifts, and multi-generational planned giving (Darity & Hamilton, 2015; Gasman, 2012). Universities like Notre Dame, BYU, and Boston College leverage these networks to maintain robust endowments and fund major campaigns.

2. Endowment Growth and Stability
   HWIs often have substantial endowments accumulated over decades. Early access to philanthropic networks and preferential funding opportunities during eras when colleges serving communities of color were systematically underfunded contributed to long-term financial resilience (Gasman, 2012; Perna, 2006). Endowments provide flexibility for scholarships, faculty hiring, campus infrastructure, and new initiatives — crucial buffers against enrollment volatility.

3. Religious and Regional Networks
   Many prominent HWIs are faith-based (BYU, Notre Dame, Boston College, Marquette). Their institutional networks foster recruitment, donations, and career placement. These social structures create operational and financial advantages that are difficult for newer or demographically diverse institutions to replicate (Harper, 2020; Museus & Quaye, 2009).

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Comparative Risks: HWIs vs. Other Institutions

The financial and structural advantages of large HWIs become especially apparent when compared to smaller or mid-sized colleges that have closed or struggled in recent years, including faith-based and regional institutions with smaller endowments or more diverse student populations (Perna, 2006; Gasman, 2012). The historical demographic composition of HWIs — and the associated alumni wealth and networks — provides a buffer that allows them to weather challenges that might otherwise threaten institutional survival.

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Challenges and Future Considerations

While HWIs enjoy structural advantages, they are not invulnerable. Changing demographics, particularly declining percentages of White high school graduates in key regions, present long-term enrollment challenges (Harper, 2020). HWIs that fail to diversify both their student bodies and donor bases may find these historical advantages eroded over time.

Moreover, institutions must balance financial stability with commitments to equity and inclusion. Over-reliance on historically White alumni networks can reinforce systemic inequities if not paired with active strategies to support students of color and broaden philanthropy (Smith, 2019; Jackson, 2018).

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Legacies of Religion and White Privilege

Historically White Institutions provide a clear example of how demographic legacy intersects with financial resilience in higher education. Large HWIs such as Notre Dame, BYU, Boston College, Marquette, and select public flagships have leveraged endowments, alumni networks, and religious and regional structures to maintain stability and prominence.

Yet these advantages carry responsibilities: HWIs must adapt to shifting demographics, diversify both student and donor populations, and ensure that financial strength supports equity alongside institutional growth. Understanding HWIs is essential for policymakers, educators, and funders seeking to navigate the complex landscape of American higher education.

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Selected Academic Sources

• Darity, W.A., & Hamilton, D. (2015). Separate and Unequal: The Legacy of Racial Segregation in Higher Education. In The Color of Crime Revisited.

• Gasman, M. (2012). The Changing Face of Private Higher Education: Wealth, Race, and Philanthropy. Journal of Higher Education, 83(4), 481–508.

• Harper, S.R. (2020). Racial Inequality in Higher Education: The Dynamics of Inclusion and Exclusion. Review of Research in Education, 44(1), 113–141.

• Jackson, J.F.L. (2018). Diversity and Racial Stratification at Predominantly White Colleges. New Directions for Higher Education, 181, 7–23.

• Museus, S.D., & Quaye, S.J. (2009). Toward an Understanding of How Historically White Colleges and Universities Handle Racial Diversity. ASHE Higher Education Report, 35(1).

• Perna, L.W. (2006). Understanding the Relationship Between Resource Allocation and Student Outcomes at Predominantly White Institutions. Review of Higher Education, 29(3), 247–272.

Rahm Emanuel at ASU+GSV Summit: Reform Rhetoric and Elite Power Dynamics

The 2026 ASU+GSV Summit’s announcement of Rahm Emanuel as a featured speaker paints a portrait of a seasoned education leader: expanding Pre‑K, lengthening school days, and championing accountability in public schooling. It positions him as a “national voice for bold, outcomes‑driven education reform” with the promise that “ALL students can succeed.” But a closer look at Emanuel’s record and the broader political and economic networks he’s part of reveals a gap between reform rhetoric and the structural realities facing American education.

The summit blurb highlights aspects of Emanuel’s mayoral record—like longer school days and universal Pre‑K—as unequivocal successes. Yet critics note that these reforms came alongside aggressive school closures and policies that often prioritized test scores over community stability and equitable resources for historically underserved neighborhoods. The celebration of “outcomes‑driven” approaches overlooks the real impacts of top‑down accountability regimes on students and educators.

A deeper problem in education policy today isn’t just about individual initiatives, it’s about who shapes the agenda and why. Investigations into elite influence, such as The Pritzker Family Paradox, show how wealthy political families and private capital can steer education systems in ways that benefit investors as much as—if not more than—students. Members of that same elite class move fluidly between public office, philanthropic boards, and private education ventures, blurring lines between public good and private gain.

The concerns about elite influence extend beyond k‑12 reform into higher education. The University of Phoenix—the nation’s largest for-profit university—has faced long-running federal scrutiny that has only intensified questions about the role of private equity and political connections in education. In 2018, the Federal Trade Commission was reported to be investigating the University of Phoenix’s practices more than two years after the institution was taken private (in part) by the Vistria Group, a firm led by a longtime Obama associate. The deal pushed the university out of public markets, reducing transparency even as the FTC pursued inquiries into marketing, recruitment, financial aid, billing practices, and more. This story is more than an isolated headline. It links education policy, political networks, and private equity in ways that should make anyone skeptical of sanitized reform narratives. The University of Phoenix’s federal investigation—set against its massive enrollment and heavy reliance on federal student aid—raises serious questions about how for-profit models and political influence intersect to shape student outcomes and taxpayer exposure to risk.

With Emanuel positioned at the ASU+GSV Summit as a visionary reformer, it’s worth asking what kind of reform is being championed—and for whom. Emanuel’s career path mirrors that of many elite education influencers: from municipal leadership to Washington corridors to national stages, often amplifying narratives that celebrate managerial efficiency and data-driven accountability while underemphasizing power imbalances, market incentives, and community impacts. Putting Emanuel on a summit stage alongside investors and administrators reinforces a reform ecosystem driven by elite networks, where visibility and messaging often outpace substantive change in classrooms or communities that have long been underserved.

Attendees of the summit and observers of national education policy deserve more than polished bios and upbeat messaging. They deserve transparent discussions about who benefits from current education reforms and who loses, critical engagement with the role of private capital and political influence in shaping everything from early education to college financing, and honest reflection on how policy levers affect students, especially those from historically marginalized communities. Platforms like ASU+GSV should widen the lens beyond elite testimonials and market-friendly case studies to include voices that challenge entrenched interests and demand accountability not just in language, but in structural outcomes. Real transformation will not come from repackaging reform as spectacle; it will come from confronting the systems that continue to produce inequity in American education.

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Sources

1. The Pritzker Family Paradox: Elite Power, Philanthropy, and Education Policy. Higher Education Inquirer. July 2025. https://www.highereducationinquirer.org/2025/07/the-pritzker-family-paradox-elite-power.html

2. FTC Investigates University of Phoenix After Sale to Obama-Linked Firm. Daily Caller. July 22, 2018. https://dailycaller.com/2018/07/22/obama-university-phoenix-probe/

3. ASU+GSV Summit 2026: Rahm Emanuel Speaker Announcement. https://www.asugsvsummit.com

NCAA Football Is Dirty… And It Always Has Been

For more than a century, college football has wrapped itself in pageantry, school colors, marching bands, and the language of amateur virtue. It has sold itself as character-building, educational, and fundamentally different from professional sports. Yet from its earliest days to the present NIL era, NCAA football has been marked by exploitation, corruption, racial inequality, physical harm, and institutional hypocrisy. The truth is not that college football has recently become “dirty.” It has always been this way.

College football emerged in the late 19th century as a violent, chaotic game played almost exclusively by elite white men at private Northeastern universities. By the 1890s, dozens of players were dying each season from on-field injuries. In 1905 alone, at least 18 young men were killed. The brutality became so extreme that President Theodore Roosevelt summoned university leaders to the White House, demanding reforms to save the sport—or shut it down entirely. The NCAA’s predecessor organization was born not to protect players, but to protect football itself.

From the beginning, control and image management mattered more than athlete welfare.

As the sport spread nationally in the early 20th century, universities discovered football’s power as a marketing and fundraising engine. Gate receipts financed campuses, built stadiums, and elevated institutional prestige. With that money came cheating. Schools openly paid players under the table, provided fake jobs, and created academic loopholes to keep athletes eligible. The NCAA responded not by ending exploitation, but by codifying “amateurism”—a concept designed to deny players compensation while preserving institutional profit.

That amateur ideal was always selective. Coaches became highly paid public figures, administrators gained power and prestige, and universities used football to attract donors and students. Players, meanwhile, were expected to risk their bodies for scholarships that could be revoked, often steered into academic programs that prioritized eligibility over education. The system worked exactly as intended.

Race made the exploitation even starker. For much of the 20th century, Black athletes were excluded outright or limited by quotas, especially in the South. When integration finally occurred in the 1960s and 1970s, it did not bring equity. Black players disproportionately filled the most physically punishing positions, generated enormous revenue, and remained shut out of coaching, administrative leadership, and long-term financial benefit. The plantation metaphor—uncomfortable as it is—has endured because it fits.

Throughout the postwar era, scandals became routine. Academic fraud at powerhouse programs. Boosters laundering payments. Universities covering up recruiting violations while publicly moralizing about rules and integrity. The NCAA positioned itself as a regulator, but enforcement was inconsistent and often political. Blue-blood programs negotiated slaps on the wrist while smaller schools were hammered to make examples. Justice was never blind; it was strategic.

Meanwhile, the physical toll on players worsened. As athletes grew larger, faster, and stronger, the sport became more dangerous. Concussions were downplayed for decades. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) was ignored until it could no longer be denied. Players suffering brain injuries were dismissed as weak, while universities and conferences cashed ever-larger media checks. The NCAA claimed ignorance, even as evidence mounted and lawsuits piled up.

The television era transformed college football into a billion-dollar entertainment industry. Conference realignment chased broadcast revenue, not regional tradition or student well-being. Athletes were asked to travel cross-country on school nights, miss classes, and perform under relentless pressure—all while being told they were “students first.” The hypocrisy became harder to conceal.

By the early 21st century, the contradictions finally cracked. Legal challenges exposed the NCAA’s amateurism rules as a restraint of trade. Courts acknowledged what players had long known: universities were profiting massively from their labor while denying them basic economic rights. Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) was not a revolution—it was an overdue concession.

Yet even in the NIL era, the dirt remains. The system still lacks transparency. Booster-driven collectives operate in legal gray zones. Players are encouraged to chase short-term deals without long-term protections. There is no guaranteed healthcare beyond enrollment, no pension, no real collective bargaining for most athletes. Coaches can leave at will; players are scrutinized, transferred, or discarded.

The NCAA insists it is reforming. Conferences promise stability. Universities speak the language of athlete empowerment. But the underlying structure remains unchanged: unpaid or under-protected labor generating extraordinary wealth for institutions that claim educational mission while operating like entertainment corporations.

College football’s defenders often say, “It’s always been this way,” as if that excuses the harm. In reality, that phrase is an indictment. From the deadly fields of the 1900s to the concussion-ridden stadiums of today, from Jim Crow exclusion to modern NIL chaos, the sport has been built on control, denial, and profit.

The problem with NCAA football is not that it lost its way. It never had one.

What is new is not the dirt—but the visibility. Players now speak openly. Courts intervene. Fans question the myths. The mask is slipping, and the century-old fiction of purity is harder to maintain. Whether that leads to real change—or merely a cleaner narrative over the same exploitative core—remains to be seen.

But history is clear. College football did not fall from grace.

It was born compromised.

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Sources

– National Collegiate Athletic Association, History of the NCAA
– Michael Oriard, Reading Football: How the Popular Press Created an American Spectacle
– Taylor Branch, “The Shame of College Sports,” The Atlantic
– Allen Sack & Ellen Staurowsky, College Athletes for Hire
– ESPN Investigations and NCAA Infractions Reports
– Boston University CTE Center research on football-related brain injury
– U.S. Supreme Court, NCAA v. Alston (2021)

Higher Education and Empire: How U.S. Universities Reproduce Global Inequality

In the public imagination, universities are bastions of knowledge, debate, and progress. Yet beneath the veneer of research and scholarship lies a more troubling reality: many American institutions of higher education are deeply enmeshed in structures of global power, empire, and inequality. From elite research universities to sprawling public institutions, higher education in the United States not only reflects the hierarchies of the world it inhabits but actively reproduces them.

The complicity of universities is neither incidental nor simply a matter of individual choices by administrators. As scholars have noted, the mechanisms of institutional power are deeply structural. Economic and geopolitical pressures shape research priorities, hiring practices, and funding relationships. Academic capitalism, which treats universities as competitive, profit-driven enterprises, has become the norm rather than the exception (Slaughter & Rhoades, 2022). Faculty labor is increasingly precarious, tenure-track opportunities are scarce, and institutional priorities are subordinated to external market logics. The consequences are profound: the promise of knowledge as a public good is eroded, and access is increasingly limited to those already advantaged by class, race, or geography.

U.S. universities’ entanglement with empire is global in scope. Historical patterns of colonialism persist in the form of research agendas, partnerships, and international collaborations that favor dominant powers. The post-apartheid South African university system, for example, demonstrates how neoliberal pressures reshape higher education into corporatized, commodified institutions, constraining equity and social justice efforts (Jansen, 2024). Similarly, elite U.S. institutions reproduce intersectional inequalities, privileging white male scholars while marginalizing women and scholars from the Global South, consolidating a global hierarchy of knowledge production (Smith & Rodriguez, 2024). Knowledge itself becomes a commodity, valued not for its capacity to enlighten or empower but for its capacity to reinforce global hierarchies.

Military and defense connections illustrate another dimension of complicity. ROTC programs, defense research contracts, and partnerships with intelligence agencies embed universities directly within state power and the machinery of imperial control. Students from working-class backgrounds may see military scholarships as pathways to mobility, yet these programs impose long-term obligations, exposure to systemic discrimination, and moral risk, binding individuals to structures that serve national and corporate interests rather than individual or public welfare (Johnson, 2024). By providing both material incentives and ideological framing, universities shape not only research and discourse but also life trajectories, often in ways that reproduce existing inequalities.

Technological developments exacerbate these trends. The rise of artificial intelligence in global education exemplifies digital neocolonialism, where Western frameworks dominate curricula and knowledge production, marginalizing non-Western epistemologies (Lee, 2024). Universities, in adopting and disseminating these technologies, participate in global systems that enforce cultural hegemony while presenting an illusion of neutrality or progress.

Critics argue that U.S. higher education’s complicity is most visible during crises abroad. In Venezuela, universities have hosted panels and research collaborations that echo dominant U.S. policy narratives, while largely ignoring humanitarian consequences (Higher Education Inquirer, 2025). During conflicts in Yemen and Gaza, partnerships with foreign institutions and the enforcement of donor or corporate agendas frequently coincide with silence on human rights abuses. Even when individual scholars attempt to challenge these norms, institutional pressures—funding dependencies, prestige incentives, and market logics—often constrain their capacity to act.

The structural nature of this complicity means that reform cannot be solely individual or performative. Transparency in funding, ethical scrutiny of partnerships, and protection for dissenting voices are necessary but insufficient. Universities must critically examine their embeddedness within global systems of extraction, surveillance, and domination. They must ask whether the pursuit of prestige, rankings, or revenue aligns with the purported mission of fostering equitable knowledge production. Only through systemic, structural change can institutions move from passive complicity toward active accountability.

The implications of these dynamics extend beyond academia. Universities train professionals, shape policy, and generate research that informs global decision-making. When they normalize inequality, silence dissent, or serve as instruments of state or corporate power, the consequences are felt in classrooms, clinics, policy offices, and across global societies. Students, researchers, and communities are both shaped by and subjected to these power structures, often in ways that perpetuate the very inequalities institutions claim to challenge.

In exposing these patterns, recent scholarship has provided both a theoretical and empirical foundation for critique. From analyses of academic capitalism and labor precarity (Slaughter & Rhoades, 2022) to examinations of global knowledge hierarchies (Smith & Rodriguez, 2024) and digital neocolonialism (Lee, 2024), researchers have mapped the pathways through which higher education reproduces systemic inequality. By integrating these insights, scholars, students, and policymakers can begin to imagine alternatives—universities that truly serve knowledge, equity, and global justice rather than empire and market logic.

Higher education’s promise has always been aspirational: the idea that knowledge might liberate rather than constrain, enlighten rather than exploit. Yet in the current landscape, universities often do the opposite, embedding global hierarchies within their governance, research, and pedagogical frameworks. Recognizing this complicity is the first step. Confronting it requires courage, structural awareness, and a commitment to justice that extends far beyond the walls of the academy.

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References

• Higher Education Inquirer. (2025). Higher Education and Its Complicity in U.S. Empire. https://www.highereducationinquirer.org/2025/11/higher-education-and-its-complicity-in.html

• Jansen, J. (2024). The university in contemporary South Africa: Commodification, corporatisation, complicity, and crisis. Journal of Education and Society, 96, 15–34.

• Johnson, M. (2024). The hidden costs of ROTC and military pathways. Higher Education Inquirer. https://www.highereducationinquirer.org/2025/11/the-hidden-costs-of-rotc-and-military.html

• Lee, C. (2024). Generative AI and digital neocolonialism in global education: Towards an equitable framework. arXiv:2406.02966.

• Slaughter, S., & Rhoades, G. (2022). Not in the Greater Good: Academic capitalism and faculty labor in higher education. Education Sciences, 12(12), 912.

• Smith, R., & Rodriguez, L. (2024). The Howard‑Harvard Effect: Institutional reproduction of intersectional inequalities. arXiv:2402.04391.

Violence, Safety, and the Limits of Campus Security: From MIT to Brown and Beyond

The Monday killing of MIT professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts has shaken the academic community and reinforced a troubling reality already examined in Higher Education Inquirer’s recent reporting on campus safety and mental health: violence affecting higher education in the United States is neither isolated nor confined to campus boundaries.

Loureiro, a Portuguese-born physicist and internationally respected scholar in plasma science and fusion research, was a senior leader at MIT and director of its Plasma Science and Fusion Center. His death occurred off campus, yet it reverberated powerfully within higher education because it underscores how scholars, students, and staff exist within a broader national environment shaped by widespread gun violence, strained mental-health systems, and limited preventive safeguards.

Authorities have confirmed the incident as a homicide. At the time of writing, no suspect has been publicly identified, and investigators have released few details about motive. The uncertainty has compounded the shock felt by colleagues, students, and international collaborators who viewed Loureiro as both a scientific leader and a deeply committed mentor.

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A Pattern, Not an Anomaly

Loureiro’s killing followed a series of violent incidents tied to U.S. college campuses throughout 2025, reinforcing that these events are not aberrations but part of a broader pattern.

Just days earlier, a deadly shooting at Brown University left two students dead and several others wounded when a gunman opened fire in an academic building during final exams. The attack disrupted campus life, forced lockdowns, and exposed vulnerabilities in building access and emergency response procedures.

Earlier in the year, Florida State University experienced a mass shooting in a heavily trafficked campus area, resulting in multiple fatalities and injuries. The suspect, a student, was taken into custody, but the psychological impact on students and faculty persisted long after classes resumed.

At Kentucky State University, a shooting inside a residence hall claimed the life of a student and critically injured another. The alleged shooter was not a student but a parent, underscoring how campus violence increasingly involves individuals with indirect or external connections to institutions.

In September 2025, violence took an explicitly political turn when Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, was assassinated during a public speaking event at Utah Valley University. Kirk was shot during a large outdoor gathering attended by thousands. The killing, widely described as a political assassination, was unprecedented in recent U.S. campus history and raised urgent questions about security at high-profile events, free expression, and political polarization within academic spaces.

Together, these incidents — spanning elite private universities, public flagship institutions, regional campuses, and HBCUs — illustrate how violence in higher education now crosses institutional type, geography, and purpose, from classrooms and residence halls to public forums and nearby neighborhoods.

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The Limits of Traditional Campus Safety Models

HEI’s recent analysis of U.S. campus safety emphasized a central tension: colleges and universities rely heavily on reactive security measures — armed campus police, surveillance infrastructure, emergency alerts — while underinvesting in prevention, mental-health care, and community-based risk reduction.

The events of 2025 highlight the limitations of these approaches. Even well-resourced institutions cannot fully secure campus perimeters or prevent violence originating beyond institutional control. Nor can security infrastructure alone address the social isolation, untreated mental illness, ideological extremism, and easy access to firearms that underlie many of these incidents.

Federal compliance frameworks such as the Clery Act prioritize disclosure and reporting rather than prevention. Meanwhile, the expansion of campus policing has often mirrored broader trends in U.S. law enforcement, raising concerns about militarization without clear evidence of improved safety outcomes.

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Violence Beyond Active Shooters

While mass shootings and assassinations draw national attention, they represent only one part of a wider landscape of harm in higher education. HEI has documented other persistent threats, including hazing deaths, sexual violence, domestic abuse, stalking, false threats that provoke armed responses, and institutional failures to protect vulnerable populations.

Mental health remains a critical and often neglected dimension. Many acts of campus-related violence intersect with untreated mental illness, financial stress, academic pressure, and inadequate access to care — conditions exacerbated by rising tuition, housing insecurity, and uneven campus support systems.

For international students in particular, exposure to U.S. gun violence and emergency lockdowns can be deeply destabilizing, challenging assumptions about safety that differ sharply from conditions in other countries.

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An Urgent Moment for Higher Education

The deaths of individuals such as Professor Loureiro and Charlie Kirk, alongside students at Brown, Florida State, and Kentucky State, underscore a central truth: American campuses do not exist apart from the society around them. No amount of prestige, branding, or technology can fully insulate higher education from national patterns of violence.

For administrators and policymakers, the lesson is not simply to harden security, but to rethink safety holistically — integrating physical protection with mental-health infrastructure, transparent accountability, community engagement, and policies that address deeper cultural and structural drivers of violence.

As Higher Education Inquirer has argued, campus safety is inseparable from broader questions of public health, social policy, and institutional responsibility. Without sustained attention to these connections, tragedies across U.S. campuses will continue to be framed as shocking exceptions rather than symptoms of a deeper and ongoing crisis.

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Sources

Associated Press reporting on the MIT professor killing
Reuters coverage of campus shootings in 2025
Reporting on the Brown University shooting
Coverage of the Florida State University shooting
Reporting on the Kentucky State University residence hall shooting
PBS NewsHour and national reporting on the Charlie Kirk assassination at Utah Valley University
Higher Education Inquirer – Understanding U.S. Campus Safety and Mental Health: Guidance for International Students

Understanding U.S. Campus Safety and Mental Health: Guidance for International Students

The tragic shooting at Brown University in December 2025, which claimed two lives and left nine students wounded, is a stark reminder that even elite U.S. campuses are not immune to violence. For international students, understanding this incident requires placing it in the broader context of the United States’ history of social dangers, treatment of mental illness, and policies affecting foreigners.

The United States has historically had higher rates of violent crime, including gun-related incidents, than many other developed nations. While campus shootings remain statistically rare, they reflect deeper societal issues: widespread gun access, social inequality, and a culture that often prioritizes armed self-protection over preventative public safety measures. Universities, traditionally viewed as open spaces for learning and discussion, are increasingly sites of surveillance and armed response, reshaping the student experience.

Foreign students and immigrants may face additional vulnerabilities. Throughout U.S. history, immigrants have often been subject to discrimination, harassment, or violence based on nationality, race, or religion. Universities are not insulated from these pressures, and international students can be particularly susceptible to microaggressions, exclusion, or even targeted hostility. These risks were heightened under the Trump administration, when rhetoric and policies frequently cast foreigners as suspicious or undesirable. Visa restrictions, heightened scrutiny of foreign scholars, and public statements fostering distrust created an environment in which international students might feel unsafe or isolated.

Mental illness plays a critical role in understanding campus violence, but its treatment in the United States is inconsistent. While many universities provide counseling centers, therapy services, and crisis hotlines, the broader mental health system in the U.S. remains fragmented and under-resourced. Access often depends on insurance coverage, ability to pay, and proximity to care, leaving some individuals untreated or inadequately supported. Cultural stigmas and underdiagnosis can exacerbate the problem, particularly among minority and immigrant populations. International students, unfamiliar with local mental health norms or hesitant to seek care due to cost or cultural barriers, may be less likely to access help until crises arise.

U.S. universities deploy extensive surveillance systems, emergency protocols, and campus police to respond to threats. These measures aim to mitigate harm once an incident occurs but focus less on prevention of violence or addressing underlying causes, including untreated mental illness. Students are required to participate in drills and safety training, creating a reactive rather than preventative model.

Compared to other countries, the U.S. approach is distinct. Canadian universities emphasize mental health support and unarmed security. European campuses often maintain open environments with minimal surveillance and preventive intervention strategies. Many Asian universities operate in low-crime contexts with community-based safety measures rather than extensive surveillance. The U.S. approach emphasizes rapid law enforcement response and monitoring, reflecting a society with higher firearm prevalence and less coordinated mental health infrastructure.

The Brown University tragedy underscores a sobering reality for international students: while the U.S. offers world-class education, it is a nation with elevated risks of violent crime, inconsistent mental health care, and historical and ongoing challenges for foreigners. Awareness, preparedness, community engagement, and proactive mental health support are essential tools for international students navigating higher education in this environment.

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Sources

The Guardian: Brown University shooting: police release more videos of person of interest as FBI offers reward
Reuters: Manhunt for Brown University shooter stretches into fourth day
Washington Post: Hunt for Brown University gunman starts anew as tension rises
AP News: Brown University shooting victims identified
People: Brown University shooting victim Kendall Turner
WUSF: Brown University shooting victims update
Wikipedia: 2025 Brown University shooting
Pew Research Center: International Students in the United States
Brookings Institution: Immigrant Vulnerability and Safety in the U.S.
National Alliance on Mental Illness: Mental Health in Higher Education
Journal of American College Health: Mental Health Services Utilization Among College Students

When College Eats a Third of a Household’s Income: The Most Expensive States for Public Higher Education in 2026

For millions of American families, the cost of attending a public four-year college has quietly crossed a dangerous threshold. In 2026, higher education in several U.S. states now consumes nearly one-third of a typical household’s annual income, before accounting for debt, healthcare, housing instability, or the reality that many families support more than one student.

The idea of “affordable” public higher education is increasingly detached from lived experience. Tuition alone no longer defines the price of college. Once room, board, transportation, and basic living expenses are added in, the real cost of earning a degree has become financially overwhelming for large portions of the working and lower-middle classes.

A new analysis compiled by Easy Media, based on a study conducted by University of Melbourne Online, reframes the affordability crisis by asking a more honest question: How much of a household’s income does it actually take to attend a public college today? By comparing total annual college costs to median household income, the study reveals where public higher education places the heaviest burden on residents—and where the promise of upward mobility is most fragile.

Affordability Is No Longer About Tuition Alone

For decades, policymakers and university leaders have pointed to tuition restraint as proof that college remains accessible. This analysis exposes that claim as incomplete at best. In many states, room and board costs now rival or exceed tuition, while transportation and personal expenses quietly push total costs into unsustainable territory.

According to the researchers, “What stood out wasn’t just where college is most expensive, but where it becomes hardest to afford relative to income.” States with lower median earnings are especially vulnerable. Costs that appear moderate on paper become crushing when wages fail to keep pace.

The States Where College Hits Hardest

Mississippi ranks first nationwide, with public college costs consuming 33.23 percent of median household income, the highest share in the country. While the total annual cost of $25,354 ranks only 27th nationally, Mississippi’s median household income—$76,308, the lowest in the U.S.—leaves families with little capacity to absorb even “average” college expenses. The crisis here is not runaway pricing, but chronic income inequality colliding with fixed education costs.

Vermont, ranking second, reflects the opposite dynamic. The state has the highest in-state tuition in the nation at $19,223, coupled with expensive on-campus housing. Total annual costs reach $35,131, second-highest nationally. Even with a relatively strong median household income of $105,936, college consumes 33.16 percent of earnings, highlighting how limited public options and high operating costs drive prices upward.

Kentucky places third, with college expenses consuming 32.75 percent of household income. Housing costs are particularly high, while median income ranks near the bottom nationally. Tuition alone may appear manageable, but the full cost quickly becomes prohibitive.

Pennsylvania, ranking fourth, stands out for its exceptionally high public tuition—fourth-highest in the nation at $17,909. Combined with housing and other costs, total annual expenses approach $33,000. Public higher education in Pennsylvania increasingly resembles private-sector pricing, even as household incomes struggle to keep up.

Michigan, Louisiana, West Virginia, Alabama, Ohio, and South Carolina round out the top ten, each requiring roughly 30 percent or more of median household income to cover a single year of public college. In several of these states, transportation costs rank among the highest nationally, reflecting long commutes, limited public transit, and hidden expenses that rarely appear in tuition debates.

Income, Not Geography, Defines the Crisis

One of the study’s most revealing findings is that geography alone no longer predicts affordability. Coastal states often criticized for high costs rank significantly lower once income is factored in. Meanwhile, states traditionally viewed as “low-cost” emerge as some of the least affordable because wages have stagnated for decades.

West Virginia offers a stark example. Despite relatively low tuition and total costs, the state ranks seventh overall because median household income is among the lowest in the nation. College may be cheaper on paper, but it is harder to afford in practice.

A Structural Failure, Not a Personal One

The researchers stress that affordability cannot be solved through tuition freezes alone. Housing, transportation, food, and basic living expenses now play an equal—often larger—role in determining whether college is financially realistic.

“In many cases, families are facing college costs that look manageable on paper but become overwhelming once income is considered,” the research team noted.

The consequences are already visible: rising student debt, delayed graduation, part-time enrollment, and declining participation among students from working-class backgrounds. Public higher education, long framed as a pathway to opportunity, increasingly functions as a regressive system—demanding a higher share of income from those with the least to spare.

The Question Higher Education Must Answer

If attending a public college routinely consumes 30 percent or more of a household’s income, the problem is no longer financial literacy or individual budgeting. It is systemic failure. This analysis underscores a widening disconnect between wages, public investment, and the true cost of college—one that threatens to further entrench inequality under the language of access and opportunity.

Until housing policy, wage growth, transportation infrastructure, and state funding are addressed alongside tuition, the promise of affordable public higher education will remain out of reach for millions of Americans.

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Acknowledgment

The data and analysis presented in this article were compiled by Easy Media, based on a study conducted by University of Melbourne Online. Easy Media contextualized the findings using publicly available data from the U.S. Census Bureau, EducationData.org, and the National Transit Database, helping to clarify how the true cost of college—when measured against household income—has become financially unsustainable across much of the United States.

Preston Cooper Is Wrong: Enrollment Is Only One of Higher Education’s Many Crises

In a recent American Enterprise Institute article, Preston Cooper insists that the post-2010 collapse in college enrollment is “a correction, not a crisis.” According to Cooper, students are becoming more discerning consumers, abandoning low-value colleges and low-ROI degrees while flocking to higher-quality institutions and more lucrative majors. In this narrative, the system is simply shedding inefficiencies. The market is working.

But this argument is incomplete to the point of distortion. Enrollment decline is not a tidy market correction. It is a symptom of profound structural problems: affordability, inequality, political interference, labor exploitation, deteriorating academic quality, widespread cheating, and the growing reliance on “robocolleges” and automated learning platforms with questionable educational value. Cooper’s analysis ignores all of this and reduces higher education to a single variable—student choices—when the system is being reshaped by forces far larger and more corrosive than consumer preference.

Affordability remains the biggest barrier to access. Surveys repeatedly show that adults who never enrolled or who dropped out cite cost as their primary obstacle, and higher education leaders themselves acknowledge that families often do not understand the real price until they are already overwhelmed. Tuition, fees, housing, food, and transportation are enough to make college inaccessible for millions. This is not a sign of students shopping wisely; it is evidence of a system that has priced out vast segments of the population.

Cooper’s argument also ignores how structural inequalities determine who even reaches the point of decision-making. Research from multiple institutions shows that disparities in academic preparation—rooted in racial segregation, school funding inequity, socioeconomic status, and access to quality teachers—heavily influence college-going patterns. Students from under-resourced schools or low-income families do not have equal access to information, support systems, or opportunities. The idea that they are “choosing” not to attend low-value schools disregards the constraints that shape those choices.

Meanwhile, colleges themselves are destabilizing. Shrinking enrollments and stagnant public funding have produced financial crises across the sector. Even reputable institutions rely on aggressive discounting, program cuts, hiring freezes, and dependence on contingent faculty. Student support services shrink while administrative costs continue to rise. Cooper’s framing of “let the weak fail” overlooks the collateral damage: students denied needed resources, programs eliminated, and entire communities harmed when regional colleges collapse.

The crisis extends beyond finances. Students’ freedom of speech is increasingly under pressure as state legislatures, governors, and politically reactive boards restrict curricula, censor faculty, and monitor student organizations. Expression around race, inequality, gender, and geopolitical issues is under surveillance or actively punished. Whether driven by conservative politics, donor pressure, or administrative fear of controversy, the suppression of student and faculty voices undermines the university’s democratic mission.

Cooper also fails to address the degrading working conditions of adjunct faculty, who now make up the majority of instructors. Adjuncts often earn poverty-level wages, lack health insurance, and have no job security. Many teach at multiple institutions simply to survive. The system Cooper describes as “self-correcting” rests on the exploitation of the people responsible for delivering the education students are supposedly choosing.

Then there are the emerging problems he completely ignores: robocolleges and AI-driven instruction. As institutions cut costs, many outsource teaching to automated platforms, online mega-providers, and algorithmic tutoring systems. These “robocolleges” promise efficiency but often deliver shallow instruction, predatory recruitment, weakened student support, and minimal human interaction. They generate revenue, but not always learning. Cooper assumes that students are leaving low-value institutions, yet many of these automated systems are themselves low-value—and increasingly difficult to regulate or evaluate.

The rise of automated education connects directly to another crisis: academic integrity. AI-assisted cheating is now widespread across campuses. Students, overwhelmed by cost pressures, mental health struggles, large class sizes, and insufficient support, increasingly rely on AI tools to complete assignments without understanding the material. Instructors struggle to identify misconduct, institutions scramble to respond, and genuine learning becomes harder to guarantee. This is not the sign of a system “correcting” itself. It is evidence of a sector that has lost its footing and is failing to uphold educational standards.

Cooper’s argument rests on the assumption that higher education should primarily be judged by short-term labor-market returns. But higher education is more than a job-training pipeline. It is a public good that supports social mobility, civic participation, community development, scientific and cultural advancement, and democratic life. A system that suppresses speech, exploits faculty, overrelies on automated instruction, and cannot distinguish real learning from AI-generated work is not corrected. It is in crisis.

The enrollment decline is real, but it is only the surface. Beneath it lies a system plagued by affordability barriers, entrenched inequality, political intrusion, labor precarity, academic degradation, technological misuse, and rising distrust. To call this a “correction” is to look away from the deeper rot. For students, educators, and communities, it is a crisis—one that demands urgent structural reform rather than market-based optimism.

Sources
National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA). “The Biggest Barriers to Higher Education Enrollment Are Cost and Lack of Financial Aid.”
Inside Higher Ed. “Student Success Leaders Worry About Affordability, AI, and DEI.”
Brookings Institution. “Persistent Gaps in Academic Preparation Generate College Enrollment Disparities.”
Deloitte Insights. “Top Risks in Higher Education.”
Independent Institute. “Higher Education’s Triple Crisis.”
PEN America. “Tracking Campus Free Speech Legislation and Suppression.”
American Federation of Teachers / AAUP. “The Gig Academy: Precarity and the Exploitation of Adjunct Labor.”
The Century Foundation. Analyses of Online Program Management (OPM) and automated higher education risks.
Inside Higher Ed and Times Higher Education reporting on AI-driven cheating and academic integrity.

Kleptocracy, Militarism, Colonialism: A Counterrecruiting Call for Students and Families

The United States has long framed itself as a beacon of democracy and upward mobility, yet students stepping onto college campuses in 2025 are inheriting a system that looks less like a healthy republic and more like a sophisticated kleptocracy entwined with militarism, colonial extraction, and digital exploitation. The entanglement of higher education with these forces has deep roots, but its modern shape is especially alarming for those considering military enlistment or ROTC programs as pathways to opportunity. 

The decision to publish on December 7th is deliberate. In 1941, Americans were engaged in a clearly defined struggle against fascism, a moral fight that demanded national sacrifice. The world in 2025 is far murkier. U.S. militarism now often serves corporate profit, global influence, and the security of allied autocracies rather than clear moral or defensive imperatives.

This is an article for students, future students, and the parents who want something better for their children. It is also a call to pause and critically examine the systems asking for young people’s allegiance and labor.

Higher education has become a lucrative extraction point for political and financial elites. Universities now operate as hybrid corporations, prioritizing endowment growth, real-estate expansion, donor influence, and federal cash flows over public service or student welfare. Tuition continues to rise as administrative bloat accelerates. Private equity quietly moves into student housing, online program management, education technology, and even institutional governance. The result is a funnel: taxpayers support institutions; institutions support billionaires; students carry the debt. Meanwhile, federal and state funds flow through universities with minimal oversight, especially through research partnerships with defense contractors and weapons manufacturers. What looks like innovation is often simply public money being laundered into private hands.

For decades, the U.S. military has relied on higher education to supply officers and legitimacy. ROTC programs sit comfortably on campuses while recruiters visit high schools and community colleges with promises of financial aid, job training, and escape from economic insecurity. But the military’s pitch obscures the broader structure. The United States spends more on its military than the next several nations combined, maintaining hundreds of foreign bases and intervening across the globe. American forces are involved, directly or indirectly, in conflicts ranging from Palestine to Venezuela to Ukraine, and through support of allies such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, often supplying weapons used in devastating campaigns. This is not national defense. It is a permanent war economy, one that treats young Americans as fuel.

At the same time, Russian cybercriminal networks have infiltrated U.S. institutions, targeting critical infrastructure, education networks, and private industry. Reports show that the U.S. government has frequently failed to hold these actors accountable and, in some cases, appears to prioritize intelligence or geopolitical advantage over domestic security, allowing cybercrime to flourish while ordinary Americans bear the consequences. This environment adds another layer of risk for students and families, showing how interconnected digital vulnerabilities are with global power games and domestic exploitation.

For those who enlist hoping to fund an education, the GI Bill frequently underdelivers. For-profit colleges disproportionately target veterans, consuming their benefits with low-quality, high-cost programs. Even public institutions have learned to treat veterans as revenue streams. U.S. universities have always been entwined with colonial projects, from land-grant colleges built on seized Indigenous land to research that supported Cold War interventions and overseas resource extraction. Today these legacies persist in subtler forms. Study-abroad programs and global campuses often mirror corporate imperialism. Research partnerships with authoritarian regimes proceed when profitable. University police departments are increasingly stocked with military-grade equipment, and curricula frequently erase Indigenous, Black, and Global South perspectives unless students actively seek them out. The university presents itself as a space of liberation while quietly reaffirming colonial hierarchies, militarized enforcement of U.S. interests worldwide, and even complicity in digital threats.

For many young people, enlistment is not a choice—it is an economic survival strategy in a country that refuses to guarantee healthcare, housing, or affordable education. Yet the military’s promise of stability is fragile and often deceptive. Students and parents should understand that young Americans are being recruited for geopolitics, not opportunity. Wars in Ukraine, Palestine, and Venezuela, along with arms support to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, rarely protect ordinary citizens—they protect corporations, elites, and global influence. A person’s body and future become government property. ROTC contracts and enlistments are binding in ways that most eighteen-year-olds do not fully understand, and penalties for leaving are severe. Trauma is a predictable outcome, not an anomaly. The military’s mental health crisis, suicide rates, and disability system failures are well documented. Education benefits are conditional and often disappointing. The idea that enlistment is a reliable pathway to college has long been more marketing than truth, especially in a higher-education landscape dominated by predatory schools. Young people deserve more than being used as leverage in someone else’s empire.

A non-militarized route to opportunity requires acknowledging how much talent, energy, and potential is lost to endless war, endless debt, and the growing digital threats that go unaddressed at the highest levels. It requires demanding that federal and state governments invest in free or affordable public higher education, universal healthcare, and stronger civilian service programs rather than military pipelines. Students can resist by refusing enlistment and ROTC recruitment pitches, advocating for demilitarized campuses, supporting labor unions, student governments, and anti-war coalitions, and demanding transparency about university ties to weapons manufacturers, foreign governments, and cybersecurity vulnerabilities. Parents can resist by rejecting the false choice presented to their children between military service and crippling debt, and by supporting movements pushing for tuition reform, debt cancellation, and public investment in youth.

It is possible to build a higher-education system that serves learning rather than empire, but it will not happen unless students and families refuse to feed the machinery that exploits them. America’s kleptocracy, militarism, colonial legacies, and complicity in global digital crime are deeply embedded in universities and the workforce pipelines that flow through them. Yet young people—and the people who care about them—still hold power in their decisions. Choosing not to enlist, not to sign an ROTC contract, and not to hand over your future to systems that see you as expendable is one form of reclaiming that power. Hope is limited but not lost.

Sources

1. U.S. Department of Defense. Defense Budget Overview Fiscal Year 2025. 2024.

2. Amnesty International. “Saudi Arabia and UAE Arms Transfers and Human Rights Violations.” 2024.

3. Human Rights Watch. “Conflicts in Ukraine, Venezuela, and Palestine.” 2024.

4. FBI and CISA reports on Russian cybercrime and critical infrastructure infiltration. 2023–2025.

5. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). National Cybersecurity Annual Review. 2024.