Truth as Therapy for Higher Education

Anosognosia is the inability to recognize one’s own illness or disability. In higher education, it describes the chronic denial of a system in crisis—one that refuses to admit its own collapse.

For decades, U.S. higher education has been sold as the great equalizer. The story was simple: borrow, study, graduate, succeed. But the data show the opposite. What we are witnessing is a long college meltdown, masked by denial at the highest levels of government, university administrations, and Wall Street.

The Debt Trap

• Outstanding student loan debt now exceeds $1.77 trillion, burdening more than 43 million Americans.

• Nearly 20 percent of borrowers are in default or serious delinquency.

• Black borrowers, especially Black women, carry the heaviest burdens and are least likely to see upward mobility from their degrees.

• Many in income-driven repayment programs will never pay off principal, living in a permanent state of debt peonage.

Universities and policymakers insist debt is an “investment.” But for millions, it is a generational shackle.

The Exploited Faculty

• More than 70 percent of college instructors are contingent.

• Adjuncts often earn less than $3,500 per course, with no healthcare, no retirement, and no security.

• Roughly one in four adjuncts relies on public assistance.

Universities still market themselves as communities of scholars. In reality, they operate on the same exploitative labor practices as Uber or Amazon.

The Employment Mismatch

• Four in ten recent grads work in jobs that don’t require a degree.

• One-third of graduates say their work is unrelated to their major.

• Median real wages for college graduates have been flat for 25 years.

Still, higher ed pushes “lifelong learning” credentials, turning underemployment into a new revenue stream.

Prestige as Denial

• At Ivy League universities, 40 percent of students come from the top 5 percent of households.

• Fewer than 5 percent come from the bottom fifth.

• Endowments soar—Harvard’s sits at $50 billion—but tuition relief and faculty wages barely budge.

This is not mobility. It is a hereditary elite cloaked in the language of meritocracy.

Climate Contradictions

• Universities promote sustainability but invest billions in fossil fuels.

• Campus expansion and luxury amenities drive up emissions, water use, and labor exploitation.

Even here, anosognosia reigns: branding over reality.

The Meltdown Denied

The college meltdown has been unfolding for more than a decade:

• Small liberal arts colleges shuttering.

• Regional publics bleeding enrollments.

• For-profits morphing into “nonprofits” while still funneling money to investors.

• State funding eroded, shifting the cost to students and families.

But instead of confronting the collapse, higher ed leaders rely on rhetoric: “innovation,” “resilience,” “access.” Like anosognosia, denial itself becomes survival.

The Human Cost

The denial is not harmless. It is measured in:

• The indebted graduate delaying family formation and homeownership.

• The adjunct commuting across counties to string together courses while living below the poverty line.

• The working-class family betting their savings on a degree that will not deliver mobility.

The meltdown is here. Higher education’s inability—or refusal—to admit it ensures the damage will deepen.

Truth and Healing 

Anosognosia prevents healing because it prevents recognition of the problem. U.S. higher education cannot admit its own disease, so it cannot begin recovery. Until it does, students, families, and workers will bear the costs of a system in denial.

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Sources

• Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit (2025)

• National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Digest of Education Statistics (2023)

• American Association of University Professors (AAUP), Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession (2024)

• Pew Research Center, The Rising Cost of Not Going to College (2023 update)

• The Century Foundation, Adjunct Project (2022)

• Chetty et al., Mobility Report Cards: The Role of Colleges in Intergenerational Mobility (2017, with updates)

• IPEDS (Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System), U.S. Department of Education

• Harvard Management Company, Endowment Report (2024)

• Higher Education Inquirer, College Meltdown archive (2018–2025)

Does China Need US Universities for Its Elite Students?

For decades, U.S. universities have served as the finishing school for China’s elite. Children of Communist Party officials, wealthy businesspeople, and top scientists have often ended up at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, or the Ivy League, polishing their English and acquiring the cultural capital necessary for global finance, diplomacy, and technology. At the same time, thousands of middle-class Chinese families have made enormous financial sacrifices to send their children abroad, betting on an American degree as a ticket to upward mobility.

But the question today is whether China still needs U.S. universities to educate its elite.

Shifting Global Power Dynamics

The rise of China’s own research universities has complicated the old narrative. Institutions such as Tsinghua University and Peking University now rank among the top in the world in science, engineering, and AI research. China produces more STEM graduates annually than any other country, and its funding for science and technology rivals that of the U.S. While U.S. universities still command prestige, their monopoly on global academic excellence has weakened.

Politics and National Security

Relations between Washington and Beijing have soured, and U.S. policymakers increasingly view Chinese students as potential security risks. Visa restrictions on STEM fields, FBI investigations into Chinese scholars, and rhetoric about intellectual property theft have chilled the academic exchange. For Chinese elites, the risks of having children in the U.S. — politically and reputationally — are higher than in the 1990s or 2000s.

Yet at the same time, political figures like Donald Trump have openly courted the financial benefits of Chinese enrollment. Trump has said that China can send 600,000 students to the United States — a number that would far exceed current levels — underscoring the contradiction between security anxieties and the revenue-driven priorities of American higher education.

Meanwhile, China has invested heavily in partnerships with Europe, Singapore, and even African nations to build alternative networks of elite education. For some families, sending a child to Oxford or ETH Zurich carries less geopolitical baggage than Harvard or MIT.

The Prestige Factor

Yet prestige is not easily replicated. An Ivy League degree still carries enormous weight, especially in global finance, law, and diplomacy. American universities remain unmatched in their ability to offer “soft power” — connections, cultural fluency, and credibility in international markets. For Chinese elites with ambitions beyond national borders, U.S. universities still provide networking opportunities that cannot be fully duplicated in Beijing, Shanghai, or Shenzhen.

China’s Billionaires Build Private Universities to Challenge Stanford

In recent years, a number of China’s wealthiest business leaders have begun pouring billions into the creation of new private universities. Their ambitions are not modest: to build research institutions that can compete directly with the world’s most elite schools—Stanford, MIT, Oxford, and Harvard.

At first glance, such aspirations sound quixotic. Building a university brand that rivals Stanford typically takes a century of reputation, research, and networking. Yet, in China, examples already exist to show that rapid ascent is possible.

Westlake and Geely as Proof-of-Concept

Westlake University, founded in Hangzhou just seven years ago by leading biologists, is already outperforming global top 100 schools in specific fields, including the University of Sydney and the University of North Carolina. Its model—deep pockets, aggressive recruitment of top scientists, and a narrow focus on high-impact fields—demonstrates that prestige can be manufactured in years rather than generations.

Geely Automotive Group, meanwhile, established its own university to train engineers, feeding talent directly into one of the world’s largest car manufacturers. Today, Geely ranks among the ten biggest automakers worldwide, with its university playing a central role in workforce development.

A Stanford Model with Chinese Characteristics

The parallel to Stanford is intentional. Stanford thrived not only because of academic excellence but because it was embedded in Silicon Valley, benefiting from venture capital, defense contracts, and a culture of entrepreneurship. China’s industrialists are attempting something similar: building universities adjacent to industrial clusters and pairing them with massive R&D investments.

For billionaires, these institutions serve dual purposes: they act as innovation engines and as political insurance policies. In an era when Beijing has cracked down on tech moguls and capital excesses, aligning one’s fortune with education and national advancement offers a form of protection.

Political Constraints and Academic Freedom

The long-term question is whether these billionaire-founded institutions can sustain the openness and intellectual risk-taking that has characterized Stanford and MIT. While China’s system excels in applied sciences and technology, political controls may limit innovation in social sciences and fields that thrive on dissent, debate, and unconventional thinking.

Still, if the aim is dominance in biotech, engineering, AI, and materials science, the model may succeed. In fact, Westlake’s rapid climb already suggests mid-tier Western universities could soon find themselves leapfrogged by Chinese institutions less than a decade old.

A Changing Balance

So, does China need U.S. universities for its elite? The answer is complicated.

• Yes, for families who want global reach, especially in finance, technology entrepreneurship, and diplomacy. The cultural capital of an American education still matters.

• No, for families satisfied with domestic prestige and security. China’s own universities — both traditional public institutions and billionaire-backed ventures — increasingly provide sufficient training for leadership roles.

What is clear is that U.S. universities can no longer assume a steady flow of Chinese elite students. The market has shifted, the politics have hardened, and the prestige gap has narrowed. For American higher education, already struggling with enrollment cliffs and financial strain, this shift could have serious consequences.

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Sources:

• Institute of International Education, Open Doors Report

• Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), “Chinese STEM Students in the U.S.”

• Times Higher Education World University Rankings

• South China Morning Post, Why China’s super-rich are spending billions to set up universities

• Guangming Daily, Hello, Westlake University

• CGTN, Westlake University established in Hangzhou

• Geely Automotive Group, Overview

• KE Press Global, China's Billionaires Are Building Universities to Drive Innovation and Stay Politically Favorable

Campus Cops, A Critical History

Campus policing in the United States has a long and complicated history, one that cannot be understood apart from the larger culture of violence in the nation. Colleges and universities, far from being sanctuaries of peace, have mirrored the broader society’s struggles with crime, inequality, and abuse of power. The development of campus police forces is both a symptom of these realities and a contributor to them.

From Watchmen to Armed Police

In the early 20th century, many colleges relied on night watchmen or unarmed security guards to keep order. Their duties were limited: locking buildings, checking IDs, and responding to minor incidents. But as campuses expanded in size and complexity—particularly after the GI Bill opened higher education to millions—colleges began to formalize security forces. By the 1960s and 1970s, during an era of political unrest and rising crime rates, many institutions established their own sworn police departments with full arrest powers.

The rationale was simple: the surrounding society was becoming more violent, and colleges were not immune. Campus shootings, from the University of Texas tower massacre in 1966 to Virginia Tech in 2007, underscored the vulnerability of universities to extreme violence. Administrators and legislators justified campus policing as a necessary protection against a culture of guns, crime, and fear.

The Expansion of Campus Policing

Today, more than 90 percent of U.S. colleges and universities with 2,500 or more students have some form of armed campus police. Many operate as fully accredited police departments, indistinguishable from municipal counterparts. They are tasked with preventing theft, responding to assaults, and increasingly, preparing for mass shootings. This expansion reflects the broader American decision to deal with social breakdown through policing and incarceration rather than through prevention, education, or healthcare.

Yet the rise of campus police also brings deep contradictions. If colleges are supposed to be places of learning and community, what does it mean that they are patrolled by officers trained in the same punitive logics as city police? What does it say about the United States that students—especially students of color—often feel surveilled rather than protected?

Campus Coverups and the Protection of Institutions

Beyond concerns about over-policing, there is another side to the story: under-policing and coverups. Colleges have long been criticized for minimizing reports of sexual assault, hazing, hate crimes, and other misconduct in order to protect their reputations. Title IX litigation, Department of Education investigations, and journalism have revealed systemic patterns of universities failing to report crimes or discouraging survivors from coming forward.

Campus police departments have sometimes been complicit in these coverups. Because they report to university administrations rather than independent city governments, their accountability is compromised. The incentive to “keep the numbers down” and maintain the appearance of a safe, prestigious campus can lead to the suppression of reports. Survivors of sexual violence often describe being dismissed, ignored, or retraumatized by campus police who appeared more concerned about institutional liability than student well-being.

The Contradictions of Campus Safety

The dual role of campus police—protecting students from external dangers while shielding institutions from internal accountability—illustrates the contradictions of higher education in a violent society. Universities are expected to provide safety in a nation awash with firearms, misogyny, racism, and economic desperation. But instead of challenging these conditions, many campuses rely on armed policing, surveillance technologies, and public relations strategies.

The result is a paradox: campuses are policed as if they are dangerous cities, yet when crimes happen within their walls, especially those involving sexual violence or elite fraternities and athletes, those same crimes are often hidden from public view.

Toward a Different Model of Safety

Critics argue that true campus safety requires moving beyond reliance on police alone. Investments in mental health services, consent education, community accountability processes, and structural reforms to address gender violence and racial inequities are essential. Some advocates push for independent oversight of campus police, ensuring they are accountable not just to administrators but to students, staff, and the broader public.

If campus policing has grown because America has normalized violence, then reimagining campus safety requires confronting the roots of that violence. As long as universities remain more committed to protecting their brands than their students, campus cops will embody the contradictions of American higher education—part shield, part coverup, and part reflection of a society unable to address its deeper wounds.

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Sources

• Sloan, John J. and Fisher, Bonnie S. The Dark Side of the Ivory Tower: Campus Crime as a Social Problem. Cambridge University Press, 2011.

• Karjane, Heather M., Fisher, Bonnie S., and Cullen, Francis T. Campus Sexual Assault: How America’s Institutions of Higher Education Respond. National Institute of Justice, 2002.

• U.S. Department of Education, Clery Act Reports.

• Armstrong, Elizabeth A. and Hamilton, Laura. Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality. Harvard University Press, 2013.

Judge Rules on Harvard Case: When We Fight, WE WIN! (Todd Wolfson, AAUP)

Last night, we got great news: We WON our lawsuit challenging the Trump’s administration’s attempt to dismantle research and critical thought at Harvard University.  

Please join us in our fight for higher education and research.

A federal judge agreed with us and with the Harvard administration that the Trump administration violated the Constitution, the Civil Rights Act, and the Administrative Procedures Act by demanding that Harvard restrict speech and restructure core operations or else face the cancellation of billions in federal funding for the university and its affiliated hospital.

In her ruling, US District Judge Allison Burroughs found that the administration’s actions, which included freezing and canceling more than $2 billion in research grants, violated the First Amendment rights of Harvard and of Harvard’s faculty and amounted to “retaliation, unconstitutional conditions, and unconstitutional coercion.” Her ruling vacates the government’s funding freeze and permanently blocks it from using similar reasoning to deny grants to Harvard in the future.

In April, the national AAUP and our Harvard chapter, alongside the United Auto Workers, filed the lawsuit seeking to stop the Trump administration’s attack on Harvard. Pressured by our filing, the Harvard administration subsequently filed suit and the cases were linked.

Many of Judge Burroughs’s findings responded primarily to the claims of AAUP members, particularly about harms to research, First Amendment violations, and attacks on academic freedom.

This is a huge win not just for AAUP members at Harvard but for all of American higher education, for science, and for free and critical thought in this country. The Trump administration’s attempts to restrict speech and cripple lifesaving research are widespread, affecting every state and type of institution in the nation. As this victory shows, Trump’s war on higher education is unconstitutional. We will continue to stand up and fight back against these attempts to dismantle our universities, terrify students and faculty, and punish hospitals and scientific research for not bowing to authoritarianism. And we will win.

We could not have done it without the leadership, hard work, and testimony of AAUP members. We need you in this fight with us too. Please join now.

In solidarity,

Todd Wolfson, AAUP President

The Academic Job Search Season: Stress, Survival, and Structural Problems

Every fall, the job search season kicks into high gear. For many academics—graduate students, contingent faculty, and even mid-career professionals—the process is exhausting. Updating résumés, scouring job boards, crafting cover letters, and collecting references has become a ritual of stress. Career guides and webinars offer tips, but they rarely address the structural issues that make academic job hunting such a fraught experience.

The Chronicle of Higher Education is marketing its own “September Collection” of advice: five free articles on managing applications, jump-starting an industry job search, applying outside academe, and coping with the increasingly common “tandem job search” faced by Ph.D. couples. On the surface, this content promises guidance and expert insight. Yet beneath the tips lies a deeper reality: academia’s labor market is in crisis.

The Disappearing Job Market

Managing job applications has become an overwhelming task because the number of secure academic positions has shrunk dramatically. Tenure-track lines are scarce, and adjunctification has normalized poverty wages and instability for tens of thousands of scholars. According to the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), three out of four faculty positions are now contingent—part-time, non-tenure-track, or adjunct. Many of these jobs pay less than minimum wage once preparation, grading, and commuting are factored in.

Meanwhile, universities continue to produce Ph.D.s at record levels, ensuring a glut of qualified applicants for every rare tenure-track posting. The advice to “manage your applications” often masks this reality: candidates are competing for scraps in a system that treats intellectual labor as disposable.

Beyond the Ivory Tower: Exits and Exile

Several of the Chronicle’s highlighted articles focus on leaving academia altogether. Job seekers are told how to “jump-start” industry careers or apply for jobs “outside of academe.” This is not just pragmatic advice—it reflects a broader shift.

Universities have become credential mills, producing far more advanced degree holders than the system can absorb. In 2022, the U.S. awarded over 55,000 doctoral degrees—yet fewer than 10,000 tenure-track positions opened nationwide. The so-called “two-body problem” for dual-academic couples has become a euphemism for professional exile: one or both partners must give up their academic careers or live apart indefinitely.

Debt and Desperation

The situation is compounded by the student debt crisis, which affects graduate students as well as undergraduates. Graduate borrowing accounts for 40% of all federal student loan debt, often exceeding $100,000 for Ph.D.s in the humanities and social sciences. Job seekers enter the market already burdened with debt, only to find themselves competing for contingent jobs that pay less than $25,000 a year.

In contrast, BRICS countries such as China are producing graduates without debt, often tuition-free, and with state-backed pathways into science, engineering, and medical professions. The U.S. system, by comparison, looks less like a ladder of opportunity and more like a trap of financial servitude.

The Role of Billionaires

Adding insult to injury, billionaire donors and corporate interests increasingly shape U.S. higher education. From the Koch network funding business and policy schools, to tech billionaires investing in “disruptive” ed-tech, private wealth dictates academic priorities. The result is a university system aligned with corporate needs—STEM fields for industry pipelines, financialized research, and administrative expansion—while the humanities and social sciences are starved of funding.

Job seekers are told to adapt to this market logic. Attend career fairs. Build transferable skills. Manage stress. But the real dysfunction lies in the fact that billionaires and trustees wield more power over universities than faculty and students combined.

From Individual Struggle to Collective Fight

The Chronicle’s Fall Virtual Career Fair, scheduled for October 15th, is framed as a solution: networking, résumé reviews, stress management. Yet these offerings treat the problem as one of individual navigation, not systemic collapse.

If there is to be resistance, it will not come from résumé workshops or LinkedIn polls about “workplace dysfunction.” It will come from collective struggle: graduate unions, adjunct organizing, debt strikes, and alliances across borders. Just as workers once had to fight internationally against the globalized forces of capital, academic workers will need to see their struggle as more than seasonal job stress.

The job search season is not just a stressful ritual—it is a symptom of a broken, financialized system. For many, the harsh truth is this: the problem isn’t your résumé. It’s the university itself.

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Sources

• American Association of University Professors (AAUP), The Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession, 2022–23

• National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Doctor’s Degrees Conferred by Post-Secondary Institutions

• Brookings Institution, Graduate Student Debt: Dimensions and Policy Implications, 2020

• Coalition on the Academic Workforce, A Portrait of Part-Time Faculty Members, 2012

• The Chronicle of Higher Education, Career Resources and Virtual Fairs, 2024

• Inside Higher Ed, Adjuncts and the Academic Labor Crisis

Every Day Should Be Labor Day

As Americans celebrate Labor Day, the traditional holiday honoring workers, it is worth asking a blunt question: why do we set aside only one day to recognize the people who keep this country running? For the majority of working-class Americans, labor is not a seasonal event—it is a daily struggle. And yet, political and economic systems continue to undervalue, underpay, and exploit the very workforce that sustains them.

The numbers are stark. The U.S. Department of Labor reports that over 100 million Americans are part of the labor force. Yet median wages have barely budged in decades, while the top 1% of earners have seen their wealth multiply. In higher education, adjunct professors often earn less than $30,000 a year while carrying the teaching load of full-time faculty, and the majority of college graduates leave school with over $30,000 in student loan debt, only to find themselves in jobs that fail to utilize their skills or provide financial security.

The “gig economy” promised flexibility and empowerment, but in reality it has created precarious work with no benefits, no sick leave, and few protections. Companies like Amazon, Uber, and DoorDash rely on a workforce that bears nearly all the risk while executives reap outsized rewards. The same dynamic extends to knowledge industries: research assistants, graduate students, and postdocs often perform essential labor for universities without fair compensation, health care, or job security.

Labor Day should not simply celebrate the ideal of work—it should spotlight injustice. It should remind policymakers, university administrators, and corporate leaders that the human cost of economic growth is real and rising. Childcare costs, rent, healthcare premiums, and student debt are not abstract numbers—they are barriers that prevent workers from achieving economic stability or pursuing meaningful lives outside of work.

Across the country, workers are pushing back. Teachers strike to demand fair pay and better conditions. Nurses, long on the frontlines of a pandemic, advocate for safer staffing levels and respect. Fast-food workers, warehouse employees, and adjunct faculty organize for recognition and dignity. These struggles reveal a truth that is too often ignored: every worker deserves more than symbolic recognition; they deserve economic justice, security, and respect every single day of the year.

For policymakers, higher education leaders, and business executives, the lesson is clear: labor should not be celebrated just once a year. Fair wages, comprehensive benefits, and meaningful protections should be the baseline for every workplace. The fight for workers’ rights is ongoing, and the consequences of ignoring it are profound—not just for individual families, but for the health of the American economy itself.

This Labor Day, Americans should reflect on a simple truth: the nation thrives not because of CEOs, venture capitalists, or administrators, but because millions of people show up to work every day under conditions that are far from ideal. If respect for labor is genuine, it cannot be confined to a single Monday in September. Every day should be Labor Day.

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Sources:

• U.S. Department of Labor, Labor Force Statistics

• Federal Reserve, Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households

• National Center for Education Statistics, Adjunct Faculty Data

• Economic Policy Institute, The State of American Wages

• Brookings Institution, Gig Economy and Worker Precarity

Climate Denial and Conservative Amnesia: A Letter to Charlie Kirk and TPUSA

Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA have built an empire of outrage—rallying young conservatives on college campuses, feeding them culture war talking points, and mocking science in the name of “free thinking.” At the top of their hit list? Climate change. According to TPUSA, man-made global warming is a hoax, a leftist ploy to expand government, or simply not worth worrying about. But this isn’t rebellion—it’s willful ignorance. And worse, it’s a betrayal of the conservative legacy of environmental stewardship.

Let’s be clear: man-made climate change is real. It is measurable, observable, and already having devastating consequences across the planet. The science is not debatable. According to NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Earth’s average surface temperature has risen more than 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the late 19th century—largely driven by carbon emissions from human activities. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which aggregates peer-reviewed science from around the world, states unequivocally that “human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land.”

If Charlie Kirk and TPUSA were interested in truth, they wouldn’t be spreading climate denial. They’d be listening to the 97 percent of actively publishing climate scientists who confirm that this warming is caused by humans. They’d look to the Department of Defense, which recognizes climate change as a national security threat. They’d pay attention to farmers losing crops to drought, families displaced by floods and wildfires, and millions of people suffering through record-breaking heat.

In 2023, Phoenix experienced 31 straight days above 110°F. In 2024, ocean temperatures reached the highest levels ever recorded, accelerating coral bleaching and threatening global fisheries. Canadian wildfires covered U.S. cities in toxic smoke. Coastal towns face rising seas. These are not “natural cycles.” They are the direct result of burning coal, oil, and gas at unsustainable levels—driven by short-term greed and fossil fuel lobbyists.

And that brings us to a painful irony. TPUSA claims to speak for the working class, for rural Americans, and for future generations. But these are exactly the people being hit first and hardest by climate change. Farmers in Texas and Kansas are watching their yields collapse. Gulf Coast communities are being battered by stronger hurricanes. Urban neighborhoods with little tree cover and poor infrastructure are turning into deadly heat islands. Denying climate change doesn’t protect these people—it abandons them.

But perhaps the worst betrayal is ideological. TPUSA calls itself conservative. Yet real conservatism means conserving what matters—our land, our water, our air, and our future. And in this regard, the Republican Party once led the way.

It was Republican President Theodore Roosevelt who pioneered American conservation. He created national parks, forests, and wildlife refuges. He didn’t call environmental protection socialism—he called it patriotism.

It was Republican Richard Nixon who signed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act. He founded the Environmental Protection Agency, understanding that pollution was not just bad for nature—it was bad for people and for capitalism itself.

Even Ronald Reagan, whose presidency is often associated with deregulation, signed the 1987 Montreal Protocol, an international agreement to phase out ozone-depleting chemicals. The result? The ozone layer began to heal—one of the greatest environmental successes in human history.

More recently, conservative leaders like Bob Inglis, Carlos Curbelo, Larry Hogan, and Susan Collins have advocated for carbon pricing, clean energy investments, and bipartisan climate action. Groups like RepublicEn, Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, and the American Conservation Coalition are working to reintroduce common-sense environmentalism to the Republican movement. These are not radicals. They are conservatives who understand that freedom means nothing without a livable planet.

Young Republicans increasingly agree. Polls show that Gen Z conservatives are far more likely than older Republicans to support climate action. They’ve grown up in a world of extreme weather, mass extinction, and economic uncertainty. They know the cost of inaction. They see through the oil-funded lies.

So what exactly is TPUSA conserving? Not the environment. Not scientific integrity. Not the truth. They are conserving ignorance—and protecting the profits of ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, and the very fossil fuel billionaires who knew the risks of climate change in the 1970s and chose to deceive the public anyway. (See: Harvard University’s 2023 study on Exxon’s internal climate models.)

If TPUSA is serious about freedom, they must realize that freedom cannot exist without responsibility. There is no free market on a burning planet. There is no liberty when wildfires choke your air, when hurricanes destroy your home, or when heatwaves kill your grandparents.

We challenge Charlie Kirk and TPUSA not to “own the libs,” but to own the truth. Talk to climate scientists. Visit frontline communities. Debate conservatives like Bob Inglis who actually care about the world they’re leaving behind. Break the echo chamber. Lead with courage instead of trolling for clicks.

The earth does not care about your ideology. It cares about physics. And physics is winning.

Sources:

NASA – Climate Change Evidence and Causes: https://climate.nasa.gov
NOAA – Global Climate Reports: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov
IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, 2023: https://www.ipcc.ch
Harvard – Exxon’s Early Climate Models, Science, Jan 2023
U.S. Department of Defense – Climate Risk Analysis, 2022: https://www.defense.gov
Pew Research – Gen Z Republicans and Climate Change, 2023
RepublicEn – https://www.republicEn.org
American Conservation Coalition – https://www.acc.eco
Montreal Protocol overview – United Nations Environment Programme

The truth is not left or right. It is grounded in science, history, and conscience. Conservatives once led on environmental protection. They still can—if they’re brave enough to face the facts.

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

DOL FUBAR: The One-Stop Mirage in Job Assistance

American Job Centers—once branded as One-Stop Career Centers—are touted as comprehensive solutions for job seekers. Yet in reality, they often fail to deliver. Procedural checkboxes have replaced meaningful employment outcomes, especially amid growing privatization, budgetary erosion, and ideological attacks on government itself.

The Illusion of Effectiveness

For decades, One-Stops have been propped up as a silver-bullet answer to unemployment. Gordon Lafer’s The Job Training Charade lays bare how misguided this is: “For twenty years, every jobs crisis—whether inner-city poverty, jobs lost due to the North American Free Trade Agreement, or loggers put out of work by the spotted owl—has been met with calls for retraining. … The only trouble is, it doesn’t work, and the government knows it.” Lafer makes it clear that the real issues are structural—job shortages, wage stagnation—not worker deficits. Training programs serve as “phantom policies” that manage public frustration without changing economic realities.

Reinvention Without Impact

The Corporation for a Skilled Workforce (CSW) proposed bold reforms in 2012 and 2013, suggesting One-Stop centers evolve into dynamic hubs where “work and learning intersect,” and where job seekers and employers co-create career paths. These ideals, however, remain largely aspirational: fragmented implementation, siloed service delivery, and inflexible reporting requirements continue to dominate.

Benchmarking studies dating back to the 2000s distilled “critical success factors” for One-Stops—from employer outreach to data systems—yet local variations and a lack of integrated data have stymied widespread adoption.

Privatization and Erosion

The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) formalized the shift toward privatization. One-Stops—now often rebranded as American Job Centers—are now commonly run under competitive contracts via workforce boards, often fragmented in execution and skewed toward short-term metrics rather than long-term, holistic support.

Death by a Thousand Cuts—and a Bathtub

Underpinning these failures is a deliberate strategy of attrition and disinvestment. The Trump administration’s FY 2026 “skinny” budget proposed a staggering 35% cut to DOL funding—roughly $4.6 billion taken in one sweep—eliminating the Job Corps entirely and consolidating myriad workforce programs into a single “Make America Skilled Again” (MASA) grant framework with minimal oversight or protections. This proposal has drawn sharp criticism: the National Association of Workforce Boards (NAWB) warned it would devastate the backbone of workforce systems, and Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer confirmed the deep cuts and program eliminations—including Adult Education and Job Corps—during Senate testimony.

Within the department, attrition has compounded the crisis. Roughly 20% of DOL staff—around 2,700 employees—have departed through buyouts, retirements, and resignations in the wake of a reorganization push, leaving core functions like wage enforcement, safety, and civil rights enforcement dangerously understaffed. Meanwhile, $577 million in international labor grants were cut, and an additional $455 million in cost-saving measures implemented through Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) further gut the agency’s operational capacity. 

Grover Norquist’s infamous bathtub image—“I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub”—is no longer hyperbole. It’s become strategy: shrink the DOL to dysfunction, then use the failure to justify privatization and further austerity.

A System Hack, Not a Fix

The DOL’s One-Stop approach has turned into what we might call “FUBAR”: F—ed Up Beyond All Recognition. Understaffed and underfunded, the system still struggles to offer basic services—counseling, referrals, workshops—let alone structural support. Meanwhile, contractors may round up placements, but the quality of employment remains low and unstable.

Reboot, Not Reinvention

Restoring DOL means more than reinvention—it demands a full reboot. That means reversing staffing attrition, reestablishing specialized programs like Job Corps and Adult Education, and rebuilding robust, public-sector-run infrastructure—not contracting out to private operators. We need integrated data systems that track meaningful outcomes (wages, retention, mobility) rather than just outputs. And services must be co-designed with local labor markets, job seekers, and employers, not imposed top-down or under narrow political logic

From Bathtub Backdraft to Real Accountability

“Lafer concludes that job training functions less as an economic prescription aimed at solving poverty than as a political strategy aimed at managing the popular response to economic distress.” One-Stops crystallize that danger—well-intentioned conceptually, but defunded, privatized, and bureaucratically crippled. Unless DOL breaks free of the bathtub logic and reaffirms its public mandate, it will remain an empty promise to vulnerable workers, not a ladder to economic mobility.

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Sources

• Lafer, Gordon. The Job Training Charade. Cornell University Press, 2002.

• Corporation for a Skilled Workforce (CSW). One-Stop Career Centers Must Be Reinvented to Meet Today’s Labor Market Realities, 2012.

• CSW. Reinventing One-Stop Career Centers (Version 2), 2013.

• CSW. One-Stop Center Reinvention Paper, 2014.

• CSW. Benchmarking One-Stop Centers, 2000.

• U.S. Department of Labor. Study of the Implementation of the WIOA American Job Center Systems, 2020.

• Bloomberg Law: DOL to see 35% funding cut under Trump budget plan.

• NAWB report on FY 26 budget cuts to DOL.

• Testimony by Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer, May 2025.

• Guardian: Mass resignations at DOL amid looming cuts.

• AP News: International labor grants axed under DOGE.

• NPR 2001 quote by Grover Norquist.

• ‘Starve the beast’ strategy and Norquist quote.