South University 2026 — A University at a Crossroads

Founded in 1899, South University has long presented itself as a student-centered institution, offering a broad array of undergraduate and graduate programs across multiple campuses and online. As 2026 dawns, the university finds itself at a crossroads. Recent milestones — including renewed accreditation, professional program successes, and new leadership — coexist with financial pressure, a complicated for-profit legacy, and troubling reports from former employees about the institution’s culture and practices.

In December 2024, SU’s regional accreditor, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC), removed the university from Warning status and granted a 10-year reaffirmation of its institutional accreditation, contingent upon monitoring. At the programmatic level, the Doctor of Pharmacy program was re-accredited through June 2028 by the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the Physician Assistant program at the West Palm Beach campus earned a 10-year Accreditation-Continued status from ARC-PA. These developments underscore the university’s ability to deliver programs meeting professional and regional standards.

On October 31, 2025, Benjamin J. DeGweck was named CEO and Chancellor, bringing more than two decades of experience in higher-education leadership, legal affairs, and organizational strategy. His appointment reflects an effort to navigate complex challenges with stronger governance and renewed strategic focus.

Despite these signs of institutional competence, South University enters 2026 under significant financial stress. A $35.4 million balloon payment on a pandemic-era loan from the Federal Reserve’s Main Street Lending Program looms, while Heightened Cash Monitoring (HCM) by the Department of Education means federal student aid is subject to additional scrutiny. These pressures compound the university’s already fraught history. Previously a for-profit institution, SU faced lawsuits and a class-action settlement tied to misconduct allegations and was included among schools eligible for student loan cancellation after findings of fraud. Even after its 2023 transition to independent nonprofit status, the legacy of those practices continues to affect public trust.

Employee accounts provide an additional lens on the university’s culture and priorities. Reviews on Glassdoor, particularly from admissions and sales staff, describe a workplace dominated by a “con-like mentality” in training and sales tactics, in which management appears focused on producing just enough passing grades to remain financially viable rather than ensuring student success. One reviewer wrote that the university “takes advantage of the poor leveraging they have in life — whether it be financial or criminal records — and charges twice the amount of other schools,” describing the institution as “just above a scam.” Others recounted high-pressure enrollment quotas, constant emphasis on revenue, and a workplace culture that prioritizes organizational survival over transparency or ethical student support. These accounts suggest that revenue imperatives and regulatory pressures may sometimes overshadow educational quality.

Looking ahead, 2026 could be a pivotal year. The university has the opportunity to stabilize under DeGweck’s leadership, strengthen student outcomes, and leverage accredited professional programs to meet workforce demand. At the same time, financial pressures may force programmatic consolidation or strategic restructuring, and employee critiques alongside HCM oversight could amplify reputational risk. For students, recent accreditations provide cautious optimism, but due diligence regarding program outcomes, job placement rates, and federal aid eligibility remains essential. For policymakers and advocates focused on equity and accountability, the combination of financial strain, regulatory oversight, and internal criticism underscores the continuing need for scrutiny of formerly for-profit institutions.

South University in 2026 is neither fully secure nor entirely at risk. Its trajectory will depend on leadership, governance, and the ability to reconcile its financial and operational pressures with its educational mission. How the university navigates this moment may determine whether it becomes a revitalized opportunity for students or another cautionary tale in the landscape of American higher education.

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Sources

South University. South University Achieves 10-Year Reaffirmation of Accreditation by SACSCOC. inside.southuniversity.edu

Higher Education Inquirer. South University’s Accreditor Takes Institution Off Warning, Requires Monitoring Report. December 2024. highereducationinquirer.org

South University. Doctor of Pharmacy Program is Accredited Through June 2028. southuniversity.edu

PR Newswire. South University West Palm Beach Physician Assistant Program Achieves 10-Year Accreditation-Continued Status from ARC-PA. prnewswire.com

South University. Benjamin J. DeGweck Named New CEO and Chancellor. October 31, 2025. southuniversity.edu

Higher Education Inquirer. South University Faces $35.4 Million Balloon Payment on Pandemic-Era Loan. November 2025. highereducationinquirer.org

Wikipedia. South University. en.wikipedia.org

South University. South University Independent Again. 2023. southuniversity.edu

Glassdoor. South University Reviews. glassdoor.com

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

Conspiracies, Influence, and Grief: The Candace Owens–Erika Kirk Controversy Through a Higher Education Lens

The September 2025 assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk sent shockwaves through the political and academic worlds. It also ignited a public feud between two figures whose influence stretches across campus activism and national media: Candace Owens, a former Turning Point USA (TPUSA) strategist turned media provocateur, and Erika Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk and newly appointed leader of TPUSA. The conflict exposes not only the personal and political stakes involved but also the broader dynamics of media influence, ideological factionalism, and the politics of grief in contemporary higher education.

Charlie Kirk: Architect of Campus Controversy

Charlie Kirk built his public persona on provocation and confrontation. He staged highly orchestrated debates on college campuses, often targeting liberal-leaning students with “Prove Me Wrong” events that were designed to go viral. Turning Point USA’s social media strategy amplified these conflicts, rewarding spectacle over substantive discussion. Kirk also courted controversy through statements on race and opportunity, claiming in interviews that a Black woman had “taken his slot” at West Point, and through his unabashed support of fossil fuels, rejecting many climate mitigation policies.

Under Kirk’s leadership, TPUSA expanded its influence with aggressive initiatives. The Professor Watchlist cataloged faculty allegedly promoting leftist propaganda, drawing condemnation from academic freedom advocates who argued it chilled open debate and exposed professors to harassment. In 2019, TPUSA, through its affiliated nonprofit Turning Point Action, acquired Students for Trump, integrating campus organizing with national political campaigns. These moves cemented Kirk’s reputation as a strategist who thrived on conflict, spectacle, and the orchestration of young conservative voices, setting the stage for the posthumous clashes between Owens and Erika Kirk.

Candace Owens: Insider Knowledge Meets Provocation

Candace Owens leveraged her experience as a TPUSA strategist into a national media presence. Her commentary is known for being provocative, frequently conspiratorial, and sometimes antisemitic. After Kirk’s death, Owens publicly questioned the official narrative, hinting that TPUSA leadership may have failed Kirk or been complicit. She amplified unverified reports, including accounts of suspicious aircraft near the crime scene, drawing criticism for exploiting tragedy for attention. Owens’ stature as a former insider gave her claims credibility in some circles, but her approach exemplifies the hazards of insider knowledge weaponized against organizations and individuals in moments of vulnerability.

Erika Kirk: Navigating Grief and Ideological Contradiction

Erika Kirk’s public response has been markedly different. As TPUSA’s new CEO and widow of its co-founder, she emphasized factual communication, transparency, and respect for grieving families. Yet her messaging presents a striking tension. She has publicly urged women to “stay at home and have children,” even as she leads a major national organization herself. This contradiction highlights the challenges faced by leaders whose personal actions do not neatly align with ideological prescriptions, especially within high-profile, media-saturated contexts.

Erika Kirk’s stance against conspiracy and misinformation underscores the responsibilities of institutional leadership in politically charged environments. By rejecting Owens’ speculation and emphasizing ethical communication, she models crisis management that prioritizes credibility and accountability, even as ideological tensions complicate her public image.

The Groypers: External Pressure on Campus Politics

The feud did not remain internal. The Groypers, a far-right network led by Nick Fuentes, inserted themselves into the controversy, criticizing TPUSA for insufficient ideological purity and aligning with Owens’ confrontational rhetoric. Their intervention escalated tensions, highlighting how external actors can exploit internal disputes to influence narratives, polarize supporters, and pressure campus organizations. The Groypers’ involvement illustrates the precarious environment student-focused organizations face, where internal conflict can quickly become a battleground for external ideological agendas.

Media, Campus Power, and Ethical Considerations

The Owens–Kirk conflict exemplifies the challenges inherent in politically engaged campus organizations. Insider knowledge can confer authority, but it can also be leveraged in ways that destabilize institutions. Personal grief and tragedy can be amplified in the media, creating narratives that are part advocacy, part spectacle. Organizations like TPUSA, with expansive networks, high-profile donors, and initiatives such as the Professor Watchlist and Students for Trump, are uniquely vulnerable to reputational damage and internal discord. Kirk’s legacy of confrontation and spectacle created fertile ground for sensationalism, factionalism, and opportunistic interventions by groups such as the Groypers.

Toward Responsible Leadership

The feud offers a cautionary lesson for student-focused political organizations and higher education at large. While former insiders may provide valuable insight, amplification of unverified claims can destabilize leadership, undermine institutional credibility, and warp student engagement. Erika Kirk’s insistence on restraint, transparency, and fact-based discourse demonstrates the importance of ethical leadership, media literacy, and principled decision-making in sustaining credible campus organizations.

Entangled Worlds as Spectacle  

The conflict between Candace Owens and Erika Kirk is more than a personal dispute. It reflects the entangled worlds of media influence, ideological factionalism, and institutional accountability in higher education. For observers, the episode offers a vivid study of how grief, ideology, and spectacle collide, and how effective leadership must navigate these pressures with clarity, ethical judgment, and a steady commitment to institutional integrity.

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Sources

Candace Owens – Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candace_Owens

Owens vs. Erika Kirk, AOL News: https://www.aol.com/news/candace-owens-strangely-accuses-erika-154928626.html

Erika Kirk public statements, WABC Radio: https://wabcradio.com/2025/12/11/erika-kirk-snaps-back-at-candace-owens

Megyn Kelly mediation reports, AOL: https://www.aol.com/articles/megyn-kelly-reveals-she-helped-220748120.html

Charlie Kirk career and assassination, UPI: https://www.upi.com/Voices/2025/09/11/charlie-kirk-activist-fatal-shooting/5321757598392

Conflict-driven persona, Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/09/10/charlie-kirk-dead/

Campus engagement and media amplification, PBS: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/charlie-kirk-dead-at-31-trump-says

Charlie Kirk’s statements on race and West Point, Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/09/13/charlie-kirk-turning-point-politics-debates

Professor Watchlist – Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turning_Point_USA

Students for Trump acquisition, Charlie Kirk – Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Kirk

Groypers intervention, Nick Fuentes – Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Fuentes

Media Request to Turning Point USA about Protecting Children

Turning Point USA (TPUSA) presents itself as a youth-driven organization committed to “freedom,” “family values,” and protecting young people from ideological harm. Its events, chapters, conferences, and online ecosystem actively recruit high school and college students, many of them minors. That reality alone demands scrutiny. When an organization mobilizes thousands of young people, invites them into closed social networks, overnight conferences, mentorship relationships, and ideologically intense spaces, the question of safeguarding is not optional. It is foundational.

The Higher Education Inquirer is formally requesting that Turning Point USA explain—clearly, publicly, and in detail—how it protects its juvenile members from abuse, exploitation, harassment, grooming, and radicalization.

History shows what happens when powerful institutions prioritize reputation, growth, and loyalty over the safety of children. The Boy Scouts of America concealed decades of sexual abuse. The Catholic Church systematically reassigned abusive clergy while silencing victims. In both cases, leadership claimed moral authority while “looking the other way” to preserve power and legitimacy. These failures were not accidents; they were structural. They occurred in organizations that mixed hierarchy, ideology, secrecy, and minors.

TPUSA operates in a similarly charged environment. Its chapters are often led by young adults with little training in youth protection. Its national leadership cultivates celebrity figures, informal mentorships, and a grievance-driven culture that discourages internal dissent. Its conferences place minors in proximity to adult influencers, donors, and political operatives. Yet TPUSA has not meaningfully explained what independent safeguards are in place to prevent abuse or misconduct.

This concern is heightened by TPUSA’s proximity to extremist online subcultures. The organization has repeatedly intersected with or failed to decisively distance itself from INCEL-adjacent rhetoric and Groypers—a network associated with white nationalism, misogyny, antisemitism, and harassment campaigns targeting young people, especially women and LGBTQ students. Groypers, in particular, have demonstrated an ability to infiltrate conservative youth spaces, weaponize irony, and normalize dehumanizing ideas under the guise of “just asking questions.” These are not abstract risks. They are documented dynamics in digital youth radicalization.

Young men who feel isolated, humiliated, or angry are especially vulnerable to grooming—not only sexual grooming, but ideological grooming that funnels resentment into rigid hierarchies and scapegoating narratives. When organizations valorize grievance, masculinity panic, and enemies within, they create conditions where abuse can flourish and victims are pressured into silence for the “greater cause.”

TPUSA frequently positions itself as a protector of children against educators, librarians, and public schools. That posture invites reciprocal accountability. Who conducts background checks for chapter leaders and event staff? What mandatory reporting policies exist? Are there trauma-informed procedures for handling allegations? Are minors ever placed in unsupervised housing, transportation, or digital spaces with adults? What training is provided on boundaries, consent, and power dynamics? And crucially, what independent oversight exists beyond TPUSA’s own leadership and donors?

Safeguarding cannot be reduced to slogans or moral posturing. It requires transparency, external review, and a willingness to confront uncomfortable truths—even when they implicate allies. Institutions that refuse such scrutiny do not protect children; they protect themselves.

The Higher Education Inquirer awaits Turning Point USA’s response. Silence, deflection, or culture-war theatrics will only deepen concern. If TPUSA truly believes in protecting young people, it should welcome this scrutiny—and prove that it has learned from the catastrophic failures of institutions that came before it.

Sources

Wikipedia, “Turning Point USA”
Wikipedia, “Boy Scouts of America sex abuse cases”
Wikipedia, “Catholic Church sexual abuse cases”
Anti-Defamation League, “Groyper Movement”
Southern Poverty Law Center, reports on white nationalist youth recruitment and online radicalization
Moonshot CVE, research on incel ideology and youth radicalization
New York Times, reporting on abuse scandals in youth-serving institutions
ProPublica, investigations into institutional cover-ups involving minors

HybriU: A Cloaked Threat in U.S. Higher Ed That the House Committee on the CCP Has Ignored

[Editor's note: The Higher Education Inquirer has attempted to contact the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party a number of times regarding our extensive investigation of Ambow Education and HybriU.  As of this posting, we have never received a response.]  

In the evolving landscape of U.S. higher education, one emerging force has attracted growing concern from the Higher Education Inquirer but remarkably little attention from policymakers: Ambow Education’s HybriU platform. Marketed as a next-generation AI-powered “phygital” learning solution designed to merge online and in-person instruction, HybriU raises serious questions about academic credibility, data governance, and foreign influence. Yet it has remained largely outside the scope of inquiry by the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.

Ambow Education has long operated in opaque corners of the for-profit higher education world. Headquartered in the Cayman Islands with a U.S. presence in Cupertino, California, the company’s governance and leadership history are tangled and controversial. 

Under CEO and Board Chair Jin Huang, Ambow has repeatedly survived regulatory and institutional crises, prompting the HEI to liken her to “Harry Houdini” for her ability to evade sustained accountability even as schools under Ambow’s control deteriorated. Huang has at times held multiple executive and board roles simultaneously, a concentration of authority that has raised persistent governance concerns. Questions surrounding her academic credentials have also lingered, with no publicly verifiable evidence confirming completion of the doctoral degree she claims.

Ambow’s U.S. footprint includes Bay State College in Boston, which was fined by the Massachusetts Attorney General for deceptive marketing and closed in 2023 after losing accreditation, and the NewSchool of Architecture and Design in San Diego, which continues to operate under financial strain, low enrollment, leadership instability, and federal Heightened Cash Monitoring. These institutional failures form the backdrop against which HybriU is now being promoted as Ambow’s technological reinvention.

Introduced in 2024, HybriU is marketed as an AI-integrated hybrid learning ecosystem combining immersive digital environments, classroom analytics, and global connectivity into a unified platform. Ambow claims the HybriU Global Learning Network will allow U.S. institutions to expand enrollment by connecting international students to hybrid classrooms without traditional visa pathways. Yet independent reporting has found little publicly verifiable evidence of meaningful adoption at major U.S. universities, demonstrated learning outcomes, or independent assessments of HybriU’s educational value, cybersecurity posture, or data governance practices. Much of the platform’s public presentation relies on aspirational language, promotional imagery, and forward-looking statements rather than demonstrable results.

Compounding these concerns is Ambow’s extreme financial fragility. The company’s market capitalization currently stands at approximately US$9.54 million, placing it below the US$10 million threshold widely regarded by investors as a major risk category. Companies at this scale are often lightly scrutinized, thinly traded, and highly vulnerable to operational disruption. Ambow’s share price has also been highly volatile, with an average weekly price change of roughly 22 percent over the past three months, signaling instability and speculative trading rather than confidence in long-term fundamentals. For a company pitching itself as a provider of mission-critical educational infrastructure, such volatility raises serious questions about continuity, vendor risk, and institutional exposure should the company falter or fail.

Ambow’s own financial disclosures report modest HybriU revenues and cite partnerships with institutions such as Colorado State University and the University of the West. However, the terms, scope, and safeguards associated with these relationships have not been publicly disclosed or independently validated. At the same time, Ambow’s reported research and development spending remains minimal relative to its technological claims, reinforcing concerns that HybriU may be more marketing construct than mature platform.

The risks posed by HybriU extend beyond performance and balance sheets. Ambow’s corporate structure, leadership history, and prior disclosures acknowledging Chinese influence in earlier filings raise unresolved governance and jurisdictional questions. While the company asserts it divested its China-based education operations in 2022, executive ties, auditing arrangements, and opaque ownership structures remain. When a platform seeks deep integration into classroom systems, student engagement tools, and institutional data flows, opacity combined with financial fragility becomes a systemic risk rather than a marginal one.

This risk is heightened by the current political environment. With the Trump Administration signaling a softer, more transactional posture toward the CCP—particularly in areas involving business interests, deregulation, and foreign capital—platforms like HybriU may face even less scrutiny going forward. While rhetorical concern about China persists, enforcement priorities appear selective, and ed-tech platforms embedded quietly into academic infrastructure may escape meaningful oversight altogether.

Despite its mandate to investigate CCP influence across U.S. institutions, the House Select Committee on the CCP has not publicly examined Ambow Education or HybriU. There has been no hearing, subpoena, or formal inquiry into the platform’s governance, data practices, financial viability, or long-term risks. This silence reflects a broader blind spot: influence in higher education increasingly arrives not through visible programs or exchanges, but through software platforms and digital infrastructure that operate beneath the political radar.

For colleges and universities considering partnerships with HybriU, the implications are clear. Institutions must treat Ambow not merely as a technology vendor but as a financially fragile, opaque, and lightly scrutinized actor seeking deep integration into core academic systems. Independent audits, transparent governance disclosures, enforceable data-ownership guarantees, and contingency planning for vendor failure are not optional—they are essential.

Education deserves transparency, stability, and accountability, not hype layered atop risk. And oversight bodies charged with protecting U.S. institutions must recognize that the future of influence and vulnerability in higher education may be written not in classrooms, but in code, contracts, and balance sheets.

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Sources

Higher Education Inquirer, “Jin Huang, Higher Education’s Harry Houdini” (August 2025)
https://www.highereducationinquirer.org/2025/08/jin-huang-higher-educations-harry.html

Higher Education Inquirer, “Ambow Education Continues to Fish in Murky Waters” (January 2025)
https://www.highereducationinquirer.org/2025/01/ambow-education-continues-to-fish-in.html

Higher Education Inquirer, “Smoke, Mirrors, and the HybriU Hustle: Ambow’s Global Learning Pitch Raises Red Flags” (July 2025)
https://www.highereducationinquirer.org/2025/07/smoke-mirrors-and-hybriu-hustle-ambows.html

Ambow Education, 2024–2025 Annual and Interim Financial Reports
https://www.ambow.com

Market capitalization and volatility data, publicly available market analytics

Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, Bay State College settlement

U.S. Department of Education, Heightened Cash Monitoring disclosures

House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, mandate and public hearings

The Four Envelopes: A Cautionary Tale for Higher Education

When a new university president arrives on campus, they inherit more than a title and a set of obligations. They inherit a political ecosystem, a financial tangle, an entrenched culture of silence, and a long list of unresolved failures handed down like family heirlooms. Academic folklore captures this reality in the famous story of the three envelopes, a darkly humorous parable that has circulated for decades. But the contemporary landscape of higher education—with its billionaire trustees, private-equity logic, political interference, and donor-driven governance—demands an updated version. In 2025, the story no longer ends with three envelopes.

It begins the usual way. On the new president’s first day, they find a note from their predecessor and three envelopes in the top drawer. A few months later, enrollment stumbles, faculty grow restless, and trustees begin asking pointed questions. The president opens the first envelope. It reads: “Blame your predecessor.” And so they do, invoking inherited deficits, outdated practices, and “a period of transition.” Everyone relaxes. Nothing changes.

The second crisis comes with even less warning. Budget gaps widen. Donors back away. A scandal simmers. Morale erodes. The president remembers the drawer and opens the second envelope. It says: “Reorganize.” Suddenly the campus is flooded with restructuring proposals, new committees, new vice provosts, and flowcharts that signal movement rather than direction. The sense of activity buys time, which is all the president really needed.

Eventually comes the kind of crisis that neither blame nor reshuffling can contain: a revolt among faculty, a public scandal, a collapse in confidence from every constituency that actually keeps the university functioning. The president reaches for the third envelope. It contains the classic message: “Prepare three envelopes.” Leadership in higher education is cyclical, and presidents come and go with the expensive inevitability of presidential searches and golden-parachute departures.

But that is where the old story ends, and where the modern one begins.

In the updated version, the president sees one more envelope in the drawer. This one is heavier, embossed, and unmistakably official. When they open it, they find a severance agreement and a check already drafted. The fourth envelope is a parting gift from megadonor and trustee Marc Rowan.

The symbolism is blunt. In an era when billionaire donors treat universities like portfolio companies and ideological battlegrounds, presidential tenures can end not because of institutional failure but because the wrong donor was displeased. Rowan, the financier who helped drive leadership changes at the University of Pennsylvania, represents a broader shift in American higher education: presidents are increasingly accountable not to faculty, staff, students, or the public, but to wealthy benefactors whose money exerts gravitational pull over governance itself. When those benefactors want a president removed, the departure is not a matter of process or principle but of power.

The fourth envelope reveals the new architecture of control. It tells incoming presidents that their exit was negotiated before their first decision, that donor influence can override shared governance, and that golden severance packages can help smooth over conflicts between public mission and private interest. It is a warning to campus communities that transparency is not a value but an obstacle, and that leadership stability is fragile when tied to the preferences of a handful of financiers.

The revised story ends not with resignation but with a question: what happens to the public mission of a university when private wealth dictates its leadership? And how long will faculty, students, and staff tolerate a structure in which the highest office is subject not to democratic accountability but to donor impatience?

The four envelopes are no longer folklore. They are a mirror.

Sources
Chronicle of Higher Education reporting on donor-driven leadership pressure at Penn
Inside Higher Ed coverage on presidential turnover and governance conflicts
Public reporting on Marc Rowan’s influence in university decision-making
Research literature on billionaire philanthropy and power in higher education

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.

NACIQI Elects DEI Opponent as Chair Amid Hyper-Deregulation: What Did You Expect?

WASHINGTON, D.C., December 16, 2025 — In a predictable yet alarming turn, the U.S. Department of Education’s National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI) elected Jay Greene, a vocal opponent of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies, as its new chair. Greene, formerly of the Heritage Foundation and now director of research at Do No Harm, won a narrow 8-7 re-vote over NACIQI vice chair Zakiya Smith Ellis, who had served as chair in February.

The vote underscores the growing partisanship on NACIQI, a body responsible for reviewing private accrediting agencies that oversee colleges and universities and gatekeep federal student aid. For the first time in NACIQI’s history, members were seated, introduced, and voted along party lines—Senate Democrats in the case of Smith Ellis, and Trump appointees, including Greene, in the other.

Hyper-Deregulation and Systemic Vulnerabilities

Observers and experts see Greene’s leadership as part of a broader pattern of hyper-deregulation that has destabilized U.S. higher education. Decades of advocacy by David Halperin, a longtime attorney and counselor in Washington, have warned of the dangers of allowing accreditation and oversight to be politicized or weakened. Halperin spoke during today’s public comment segment, noting that the administration is pressuring schools to conform to a single ideological agenda—threatening federal funding unless colleges abandon equal opportunity, silence free speech, or police students’ personal identities.

Halperin noted that cuts to staff and regulatory enforcement, combined with the rise of predatory online program managers, for-profit chains, and unregulated private lenders, have created an environment where students bear the brunt of failed oversight.

“Accreditation review should focus on preventing shoddy practices, not protecting abusive companies or advancing a political agenda,” Halperin said. “It should be based on facts, not disinformation; consistent standards, not bias; integrity and independence, not obedience to special interests; and respect for all our children, not bigotry and persecution.”

The Stakes Are High

With Greene now in the chair, NACIQI is considering the renewal application of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, which accredits Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, and other institutions previously scrutinized by the Trump administration. Experts warn that under hyper-deregulation, politically motivated evaluations could replace the standards and oversight that historically protected students, taxpayers, and educational integrity.

Halperin’s decades of work on accreditation, regulatory oversight, and student protections have long championed transparency and accountability. His comments today serve as a warning: in an era of hyper-deregulation and partisan control, the consequences for students, institutions, and the federal student aid system could be severe.